Irish Insurance - Russian Licence?

ibanezjem

My GF and I were delibrately shunted off the road at the weekend by a group of russians in a car that first started to taunt us by tailgating and shouting then when over taking us on the inside of a roundabout, immediately flicked the steering right and and slammed into us which in my opinion was a premeditated accident.

I am a fully licenced driver and was drving my GF's car with her as passenger. The car is a Micra and had "L" plates (as she is a learner driver)displayed thus giving the driver of the other car a reason to maybe show off on front of his russian cronies.

Without getting into too much detail as the situation has not been closed yet, with witness' and the conclusion by the guards etc was that it was clearly the owner of this russian car that had caused the crash and would be held fully responsible for his actions by reason of an €80 fine, a court summons for dangerous driving and of course the claim against his insurance for the damage caused to my GF's car.

This is where i ask for your opinion. He had a russian licence and would not be receiving penalty points...but on top of this, he was insured with a "well known" irish insurance company which is fine as we can actually claim from him....but...ow can an irish company insure someone on a foreign licence? Should they not have either International or Irish only???With an address in the city centre and a valid irish policy, he was cleary living here. And as some foreign immigrants use the EU for practically all excuses, isn't Russia not part of the EU??? Are Irish insurance companies getting more gready now and insuring foreign drivers wrongfully???

Everyday I hear people complaining about the danger of how foreign drivers are a major contribution to road carnage and treat the roads badly simple because they dont give a sh•t. This is just one big holiday for them here. Well as far as im concerned they're right.

Foreigner drivers should only be able to drive here on either an Irish licence or an international licence. No other licence should be permitted here.

Seth Brundle

If you have a claim pending with this incident then maybe don't prejudice the case by discussing it here.
However, the first thing that occured to me was - why had you L plates on the car if you are a fully licenced driver? You were braking the law before the other car appeared.
Foreign drivers can get insured here and we can get insured abroad. My wife is from NI and is insured on her UK licence down here - why shouldn't she? She is an EU citizen and not breaking any laws.
In fairness, someone who sat and passed their test must be better than many of those driving on our roads.

alias no.9

kbannon wrote:

why had you L plates on the car if you are a fully licenced driver? You were braking the law before the other car appeared.

I've heard this trotted out before but have never seen any basis for it. To the best of my knowledge, the law requires provisionally licenced drivers to display L plates but it does not dictate anything about fully licensed drivers and L plates.

loyatemu

alias no.9 wrote:

I've heard this trotted out before but have never seen any basis for it. To the best of my knowledge, the law requires provisionally licenced drivers to display L plates ...

apparently it doesn't - several cases against provisional drivers for not having L plates were thrown out recently - there's a thread about it on this forum.

Anan1

kbannon wrote:

However, the first thing that occured to me was - why had you L plates on the car if you are a fully licenced driver? You were braking the law before the other car appeared.

No offence, but this is laughable. Surely you don't really believe this? Quite apart from having no basis in law, a grain of common sense should tell you that it's not true?

testicle

kbannon wrote:

Foreign drivers can get insured here and we can get insured abroad. My wife is from NI and is insured on her UK licence down here - why shouldn't she? She is an EU citizen and not breaking any laws.

EU lecenced drivers can get insurance here. In case it hasn't escaped your notice, the UK is a member of the EU, therefore they are entitled to drive here and get Irish Insurance. However Russia is not a member of the EU, which was the OPs point...

alias no.9

loyatemu wrote:

apparently it doesn't - several cases against provisional drivers for not having L plates were thrown out recently - there's a thread about it on this forum.

If you read the reports instead of the headlines and soundbites you'd know that there is a requirement to display L plates when driving on a provisional. Failure to do so is not a penal offence in itself but it invalidates your licence which means you can be prosecuted for driving without a license. The cases thrown out were for not displaying L plates, had the charges been for not having a valid licence, the charges would have stuck. Judge Michael Patwell is not known for leniency for traffic offences, he's sent a single mother of an autistic child to prison for drink driving. This is at odds to his attitude towards well to do gentlemen, convicted of posession of pornographic images of children, who he allows to buy their way out of a prison sentance.

ibanezjem

kbannon wrote:

If you have a claim pending with this incident then maybe don't prejudice the case by discussing it here.
However, the first thing that occured to me was - why had you L plates on the car if you are a fully licenced driver? You were braking the law before the other car appeared.

Under no circumstances have i mentioned the whereabouts of the crash, the names of drivers/persons involved, make of cars, reg number or any other detail to diminish the outcome of the sitation pending apart from nationality as is the topic of this post which relates to the licencing regulations.

As a fully licenced driver and with the valid personal insurance policy to suit. I am insured to drive another persons private car(in this case, my GF's) on the condition the "other vehicle" has the appropriate insurance. I have no right to alter her car which is relavant to the insured (ie G'F) of that particular car.
As it is her car and a learner driver, The "L" plates stay. This was brought up by myself to the guards at the scene and said that it was correct to do so.

Id also like to say a big F•ck off the all the rubberneckers who drove by and shouted for us to take the car off the road. In an accident like this, it is a crime to alter the scene of an accident by any party. In turn it was quicker for the guards to confirm the exact events of how the crash happened and by the final positions of both cars were able to justify their reasons for prosecution.

Foreign drivers can get insured here and we can get insured abroad. My wife is from NI and is insured on her UK licence down here - why shouldn't she? She is an EU citizen and not breaking any laws.

This is another point i'm making. Foreign drivers should not be able to get insurance here unless they hold either an Irish licence (not NI licence) or an international licence. Simple as that. Different rules of the road, different laws.

In fairness, someone who sat and passed their test must be better than many of those driving on our roads.

erm...not really! Just cause you passed your test in Russia, Latvia or N. Ireland doesnt make it perfectly right for you to drive on Roads in the Irish Republic. That simply is a rediculous statement to make.

Henry Ford III

I find the details of this accident a little frightening tbh.

I've never heard of a driver deliberately turning into or ramming another car.

Garth

In fairness, at least he probably has a licence, whereas a couple hundred thousand of your fellow road users do not, and the insurance companies insure them!

ibanezjem

Henry Ford III wrote:

I find the details of this accident a little frightening tbh.

I've never heard of a driver deliberately turning into or ramming another car.

Believe me it wasn't pleasant being taunted. Can only imagine if it was my GF or any other learner driver for that matter on front of those tossers. Fortunately i was able to control the car to a certain extent. She most likely wouldnt have been able to do so if in my position. We have witnesses etc and guards confirmed by position of both cars this is certainly the case.
They will get what they deserve.

ambro25

ibanezjem wrote:

Foreign drivers should not be able to get insurance here unless they hold either an Irish licence (not NI licence) or an international licence. Simple as that. Different rules of the road, different laws.

Hahahahaha. Sorry. I'll put that down to PTSD.

(Honestly - real sorry about all that with the Russians. Glad you & GF are fine. But to suggest Irish *generally* have better driving standards than UK or elsewhere :rolleyes: ... Well, OK, probably better than Zimbabwe or Nepal ).

ibanezjem

ambro25 wrote:

Hahahahaha. Sorry. I'll put that down to PTSD.

(Honestly - real sorry about all that with the Russians. Glad you & GF are fine. But to suggest Irish *generally* have better driving standards than UK or elsewhere :rolleyes: ... Well, OK, probably better than Zimbabwe or Nepal ).

Ah no worries:)