Free Traffic Legal Advice

I'm not sure who the insurance company is but apparently, and although it seems far fetched he says these are the facts, his insurance doesn't cover him for getting the car out, he has had to buy impound insurance covering 30 days for £400 (although apparently you get a 50% refund if you cancel in the first week) and not only that the original insurance has cancelled the insurance because the car has been impounded.

He was saying you have to send the various documents over to the police by email/on-line and the police check them by speaking to the insurance company and only if everything is in order do they give you an appointment to go and collect the forms to release the vehicle. So that's how the insurance company has found out about the impound.

I'm guessing whatever insurance firm it is it would have been at the cheaper end of the scale, probably the cheapest. Like I said it seems crazy but he says its the truth.

How does this work in a point of law though, my car is currently parked outside my house and its insured, taxed and MOT'd. If my mate takes it (with my permission or otherwise) who isn't insured and parks it back where it was before (or anywhere else for that matter) then I'm guessing its insured again under my policy.

So how is it then when the uninsured driver parks the car after getting stopped are the police able to impound it as an uninsured car, surely once the driver has exited the car it becomes insured again.

Well its the policy holders car and he needs to get it back, its been impounded through no fault of his own, he didn't lend the car to anyone.

The offence is crossing the stop line on a red light, so if you are already past the stop line on green then no offence as far as I know, however driving headlong into traffic that has now got a green light going the other way could possibly land you in trouble.

I read the bylaws the other day, the section on tolls is pretty vague to be honest. Doesn't mention anything about what happens if the "unpaid toll charges" aren't paid, surely it should say how this is then enforced, I'll have a look at the Merser bridge bylaws and see what they say later. All it does say is a driver is liable to pay a toll as mentioned on the signs, doesn't mention the registered keeper is liable for the original toll at all.

This bridge is just down the road from me, it doesn't affect me directly because I haven't been caught by it yet but plenty of others have (including my mate 3 times) and there is now a Facebook action group page as lots have been caught out by dodgy websites and late late fines apparently.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1854203578242943/

Back story is the bridge used to be 12p to cross and had a manned toll booth, it was recently renovated and the toll was put up to £1 each way but more importantly the toll booth was removed and replaced by ANPR, relying on the motorist to remember to pay on-line, just like the Mersey gateway bridge. No I know from experience, if you don't use it regularly then its almost impossible to remember to pay it once you get home, life just takes over and I've been had more than once on the Mersey bridge.

A the end of the day that's just user error though but the people on the Action group seem to be getting scammed left right and centre by Peel (the bridge owners). Could anyone possible take the time to look at the Facebook page and have a gander at the by-laws controlling it and see if they have any hope of anything, I don't know enough and I don't think the people on the Facebook page do either

 As an aside the original toll was to cross a little stone bridge that the river Mersey went under way before the ship canal was ever built. Once the ship canal was built the Mersey was diverted into the canal and the bit under the bridge dried up so it wasn't even needed but the toll remained. The toll didn't cover the iron bridge, that had to be provided free of charge by the ship canal company just like several other bridges they had to provide along the route. however peel somehow have managed to now incorporate the big iron bridge into the toll charges.

The stone bridge is just after the toll booth.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.4032411,-2.4555592,3a,79.1y,343.75h,79.71t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s4k_d5wsCYg6DXDWY_yX6hg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D10.289588076743144%26panoid%3D4k_d5wsCYg6DXDWY_yX6hg%26yaw%3D343.75295910466235!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e1?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDUwNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Tere has to be. reason the judge dismissed the case and it isn't "just because it was for 2 minutes". It will be because there was no possibility of a contract being formed without a minimum consideration period.

No contract formed, therefore no valid claim. Claim dismissed.

The fact that the defence is a template should not be a factor. The defendant is allowed to use all available resources to submit a defence. That defence was put together by a long serving district judge. It was based on the fact that the claimant failed to comply with CPR 16.4(1)(a) (as do all claims submitted by Gladstone's). However, the attached transcripts are only persuasive, not binding.

So, the judge was not obliged to strike out the claim for the CPR 16.4(1)(a) failure, even though it was perfectly suitable to request that it was. What are the point of rules if they are not followed?

When you went to court with your friend, did you ask the usher to tell the judge that you would be their lay representative and show them a copy of the
The Lay Representatives (Rights of Audience) Order 1999?

Anyway, a win is a win. As stated in so many posts, the odds of it going all the way to an actual hearing a slim and even then, there is a very good chance that it will be successful.

I did, I asked the usher if it was ok if I assisted him and the usher said as its small claims then its no problem, then he wrote my name down in a box under my mates. When we walked in I asked the judge where to sit and if I could assist, calling myself a "lay representative" - he replied "no such thing" and said I had to sit at the back.