Question for UK riders.
 

Hi there UK riders,

Im planning on heading over to the UK in May next year to purchase a VStrom 650 for a 6 month UK/Europe/Russian journey. Ive been perusing the UK Auto Trader website and it seems I wont be short of bikes to choose from!! Which brings my to my question. I note that there is a requirement to have a (yearly??) MOT and tax certificate for a motorcycle. I was wondering, will I need to purchase a motorbike that has at least 6 months MOT/Tax or will I be able to pay those whilst Im out of the UK (Im assuming not as I believe that MOT is a mechanical inspection)? If this is not possible, am I able to purchase "extra" MOT/Tax or get the MOT/Tax renewed prior to both/either being due for renewal?

I hope these questions make sense.

Kind regards, Jed.

Your question make's sense. Your best bet is to get the seller to put a year's MOT on the bike. Then you can pay for a year's tax. Can be done at any Post Office. The cost of the tax is to do with the size of the bike engine. The larger it is the more it cost. The top rate is 1000cc and over. For that size bike it's about £80, That's a good guess.


The problem you are going to have is a UK home address. You will need one of these to register the bike to. And get you insurance registered to. To get road tax at the Post Office, you will have to show them your V5 ( ownership of bike ), Insurance, and a MOT, Certificate.


Hope this help's
John933

Yes get a bike with tax and mot as much as possible. It will make life easier for you. Just your insurance to get sorted after that. I'm sure if you use the search you will find the info on that here some where.

sent with tapatalk.

Hi jed1, I flew into London last May and picked up the vstrom I purchased whilst still in Australia. The MOT was still valid for a couple of months but the tax had expired. I just called into a post office as the previous post explained and paid 44 pounds for half year as I plan on putting it in storage after my 6 month trip.
Whilst I was in Northern Ireland I had an MOT test as I would be in Europe when it expired. Cost 22 pounds. You can have the MOT done anywhere in the UK.
Just to confirm what has already been said, you do need a UK address to have have papers etc sent to.
Motorcycle insurance can be a little more difficult. I had to tell a couple of pork pies on the internet application. They ask whether I have lived in the UK for 3 years. I accept if I make a claim they most likely will knock it back as I have not been truthful with the application but I accept that. My intentions were to get that piece of paper that allows me to travel through Europe as it's a requirement.
Having said that I've been as far as Turkey and no one has asked for it nor have they been interested in it when I've volunteered it. But I have had to pay for green cards in Croatia and Turkey, €10 and €30 respectively.

Jamoo
Getting your claim knocked back. Would be the least of your issues . You have committed a fraud , which would be check able if stopped by the police , eg me . You would have your bike seized , be arrested and as a foreign national with no fixed abode held overnight for court .
Feel free to take your chances if you like but pulling stunts like that will get you in deep shxt if things wrong . :nono:

This is something that has always puzzled me.

For years I worked overseas and never had a fixed address(owned no property and was out of the country for the majority of the year), I just used my parents address for such things as driving licence and for insurance on a car that I used if in the UK or on a couple occasions when it was worth my while to drive to where I was working.

How could I have done it differently/ 'correctly'? I think its just a technicality, and with all due respect of no great consequence. The bike is owned by a real person and the insurance, tax and mot are done and paid for, where is the fraud and who is he hurting?

Thank you all so much for the prompt replies, this was an area that did cause me quite a bit of confusion and its all significantly clearer now. I think it would probably be prudent of me just to purchase a bike that does have the required remaining MOT/tax, as has been suggested as it'll (hopefully) be one less thing for me to worry about.

I have previously made some inquiries with the UK DVLA (Dept of Vehicles and something, something?) and they wrote back and informed me that for purchasing a vehicle in my name, they will accept a "care of" address (friend, hotel etc) as long as I have the permission of the owner/occupier to provide that address.

As for insurance, I was not yet aware of the requirements, however am a little clearer now - but I still need to do a bit more research in this area. I do want to try to do everything 'by the book', but I can see a problem if insurance companies wont cover me if Im not a UK/European resident. Still not sure what Ill do there - especially if Im required to have insurance to travel through Europe..?! I have heard of a European insurance company (I believe they're a Swiss company) that specialise in motorcycle insurance for international travelers, but I cant think of their name off the top of my head.

You have all been great, thanks again. :thumbup1:

Chris Gale
OMG. I'm glad I don't live in your world, it sounds scary.

No offence taken Jamoo
I just don't want you to get yourself in what would be major trouble .
In answer to the other posters question, jamoo commits fraud by false representation when he was untruthful about his background , that means his insurance in now void , he would be red flagged by every insurance company in the uk and if stopped by the police his bike would be seized . He now can't get insurance and no one can ride it away for him as it doesn't have a policy in force so after twenty eight days it crushed or sold , simple as that !!! He would probably be prosecuted for the offence too , so things really get out of hand then .
Whilst it sounds a bit much , it's there to prevent people driving uninsured vehicles in the uk , end of .
It's ok to use a postal address provided you are up front about it , the moment you tell an untruth to get insurance you breach their contract and are screwed , however if they forget to ask you the question when the reasonably should have , then it's their problem not yours .
If anyone wants to know the best way to get round all this I am happy to help , just pm me

As Chris says! and the UK is probably one of the more gentle countries on this sort of thing, some of our european friends are really nasty about it!

It's not a problem getting insurance if you don't have a UK licence, there will probably just be a bit of an increase in premium. I know someone who drove on a kazakstan licence and another on an italian and had insurance. Just ring up, tell the truth, and see what they say. Better to use a broker as they will have knowledge of the market and use companies that know about this sort of thing. We have a very large immigrant population in the UK, many of whom drive on foreign licences, some of them are even insured!! So it must be possible.

I think there are essentially 2 ways to go about it.

You either do it online and give the computer the answers it 'wants' to the questions, then get your piece of paper and hope for the best that you won't meet a particularly officious member of the police.

Or you pay through the nose for exactly the same pieces of paper and jump through hoops to get them.

Whichever approach you take, I find it helps to remember with these things that they are a complete money racket for the big corporations and not there in any way shape or form for your or my benefit. And that the official forces of any country are there to enforce these rules for the benefit of big business, never for the ordinary Joe like yourself.

Of course the insurance companies WANT to cover you, they just want you to think you are paying extra for EXACTLY the same thing because they are being 'nice' to you. Its called 'business'.

Why on earth people let this system develop is beyond me, though I do agree it is a lot better than in many other European countries where gaining actual ownership/ title is nearly as complicated as buying a house.

Liammons


officious doesn't come into it - no insurance is up there with drink driving as far as most of my colleagues are concerned , there is no free pass full stop . if someone is injured as a result of you hitting them , what then ?? handy that the UK has the MIB to cover the financial fall out , but this is paid for by insurance companies , who pass it on to the punters .
Anyways our friend Jamoo told lies to get cover , by the sound of it to a number of questions , I strongly suggest that others don't go down this route because if caught then you bike can be kissed goodbye im afraid ............

OK, perhaps I phrased that reply all wrong. What I'm really trying to say is that insurance companies bleed extra money (for no reason of logic) from people like the origional poster to get the SAME insurance.
I'm not recommending that people don't have insurance, I'm simply bemoaning the rip off system and that the law (not necessarily the police alone) spend far to much of its/their time making sure that big corporations collect every possible penny/cent etc of profit from the ordinary person that the law/authorities should be protecting.

i don't know enough about UK law to answer, but if Jed is only going to be in the UK for a short period, then heading in to Europe, does he need to be going through a UK insurer? Or can he go directly to a greencard, and potentially skip some of the issues raised in this thread? my (limited) understanding is he will need a greencard for mainland europe regardless

if jed is going to need a greencard at somepoint, then he should have a looksee at the thread at http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...et-cheap-34822

After November this year the system for "road tax" changes there is no disk issued to be displayed any more. Your bike is entered onto a database by registration number. This means that the uk police look up the number if they pull you and check to see if you have paid using there hand held computer of by radioing back to base.

There are now an awful lot of ANPR (automatic number-plate recognition) systems in use to fine you if you go about and about with out it.

They can and do fine you for this, but I do not know if your bike can be seized! (hopefully someone on here will know and let us know!)

Also the Road tax is no longer transferable with the vehicle at sale. The new owner is responsible for road tax. this means the part of the month left is lost in to the seller and the part of the month gone is lost to the buyer. (an amazing government tax wheeze / con) :eek3: :funmeterno:

Also for a bike bigger than 600cc the tax is £80 per year at the moment!

Well, hopefully, if you are ever unfortunate enough to be taken out by a car and suffer a permanent brain injury requiring 24 hour care the driver will have been insured, so that you get that care, and your wife and children ( if you have them) still have a roof over their heads and food to eat!

Insurance is based on probability and driving in a foreign country you are more likely to have an accident, so the premiums are more. The market in the UK is also highly competitive so premiums are at a competitive level. It may be expensive, but you need to blame the insurance fraudsters, the scammers, the uninsured and the criminals for that.

Personally I blame the claim culture and the complicity of certain members of the legal profession in it, that coupled with governments that have never introduced legislation to properly prosecute people for failed, fraudulent claims.

The number of claims and the cost of claims would remain the same if the vehicle was insured, not the driver but insurance would instantly become truly competitive because all the 'qualifying questions' would be removed, This point is proven in countries that more or less follow this system.
If there is no 'rip off' factor, then why are there so few actual underwriters of the policies? Furthermore, why is the cost of fully comp often the same or less than that of 3rd party only?
Profits are massive, insurance exists to make profits, ably assisted by the powers that be. That proviso applies to all types of insurance be it vehicle, medical etc.

As regards the permanent brain injury reference, or to be crude,the 'head on a stick scenario' and such like, I would prefer no treatment at all in such a situation and the option of assisted suicide if required, but thats a debate for another day!

There may well be a subculture of insurance scammers, fraudsters and criminals in the UK but from my recent experience there's quite a few of them operating within the insurance world.

Back in February an elderly couple in a small hatchback drove into the back of my Land Rover while we were stationary at traffic lights. The tow bar on the LR took the impact and our damage was minimal - broken rear light lens, dislodged piece of trim and slight bend in one bumper mounting bracket. Nobody was hurt in any way at all but the damage to the hatchback was severe so it had to go through their insurance company.

Since then I must have had thirty "ambulance chasing" legal companies ring me trying to convince me that we really were hurt and we ought to let them sue on our behalf. Some of them were persistant and persuasive and I suspect they would convince many people to "give it a go". Had I agreed I wonder about both the moral and legal aspects of this. To get a "result" someone at some point would have to have lied. It would have been dressed up in ambiguity, probability and uncertainty but at its core it would have been fraudulent.

I thought I'd fix the damage to the LR myself - the part were (via ebay) under £20 and about an hour's work, but no, the elderly couple's insurance company insisted they do it so I let them. A local body shop took the car away and a rental Toyota 4x4 turned up for us to use. Two weeks later it was all done - just under £3000 for the repairs + whatever the hire car cost. The bodyshop guy said they have to replace everything with even the slightest mark "just in case" otherwise people complain. The car rental people told me the insurance companies get a huge discount but only if they put a certain volume of rentals their way. The whole thing is like a juggernaut- once it gets rolling it's unstopable. Everybody wants their cut and what is fair and reasonable (to my eye anyway) seems to go out the window.

I think the only wholy honest person person I met in this saga was the elderly lady driver who admitted her foot had slipped off the brake pedal. Just about everyone else had some sort of angle they were pushing. Whether this is a "gravy train" or the only way to keep all of the necessary sub contractors viable may depend on your political persuasion but it's the premiums that are paying for it.

Its a gravy train, plain and simple. Some years ago my parked car was clipped by a school bus in the local village. Because the driver knew me and recognised my car he left a note under the wiper.

The total damage was a dented wing, a tiny scrape on the bonnet corner and a broken indicator. The car was a rather elderly Cavalier with plenty of other dents. The bus driver persuaded me to make a claim because it was easier for him as he had to log the accident, and told me where to take the car for quote.

The result? About 1000 euro! 20 quid for a pattern wing, 50 to spray it, 10 for the indicator and about 900 for labour?????

Its madness, plain and simple. But we all pay through the nose for it.

Apologies to Moggy, but defending the mega corporations that underwrite insurance in any way in lunacy.

As for the original poster, make sure when you do get a quote (if you choose the total honesty approach!) to say you can get in for less elsewhere as most insurers will then drop the price again to get your business, there is usually a haggle factor built it, to allow them to cream a bit more as the majority of people are too embarrassed or shy to do this.

Oh,by the way, whats the most profitable market for car/motor insurance???
Guess what, it young male drivers under 25..... Funny that its also the most expensive too .....:funmeterno:

In answer to the post enquiring about bike / car seizure , if your licence or insurance is invalid then im afraid its on the back of the truck . to get it back YOU must have an insurance policy in force , or its disposed of within 28 days . you also get to pay the removal costs , fine and storage costs too .
If you happen to come thru London then you are taking your bike s life in your hands as there are often lots of road checks , they always have a number of transporters parked up and they can fill them up within minutes as there are so many people doing it ................... lots are uk nationals , lots are foreign drivers who think they can flout the rules too .
On another point , if you sell your bike for gods sake don't leave the policy running to try and get another years no claims , cos if the new owner doesn't take out a policy and then hits something , you are in the sxxt financially as the insurance company will come after your assets big time to recoup their loss - def not funny !!!!

And this is where strange people like myself have the problem Chris. That's simply a licence to print money for the transporters, storage facilities and insurers. Aside from that, a persons property (the insurance company/government/police didn't buy the car/bike) has been forcibly taken from them and can only be returned when they have crossed the correct palms with silver.
By all means, prosecute people if they don't have insurance, send them to jail even. But its a sad day when it turns into an excuse for state sponsored larceny and is backed up by the boys in blue.
Driving without tax or insurance doesn't endanger anybodies life, its solely a financial matter for the state. Perhaps if it wasn't such a jolly old rip off operation from the get go then there wouldn't be so many uninsured vehicles??
But then its a vicious cycle, if it was cheaper the profits would drop and there would be less seizures to make etc,etc.

As anybody that has done a lot of driving like myself can tell you there are 3 things on the road that kill
(1) Speed
(2) Tiredness/Inattention
(3) Plain bad driving

Pieces of paper don't save lives, yet we very rarely hear (or never) about cars/bikes being seized on the spot for any of the above. Its always for money collecting purposes (pieces of paper) sometimes for the government (tax, laundering) other times for the insurance companies.

I for one think that is a very sad state of affairs. The last time I was in the UK I was undertaken on the M62 by a lunatic, if caught he gets a small fine and a few points. Big deal, he gets it in the post, pays and forgets yet he could easily have caused a major accident.

But if someone else doesn't tax their car for a couple of months/days/weeks their car gets seized, they get left at the side of the road and the whole episode costs them a fortune.

As always the whole system favors the rich and is merrily enforced by the police.

The ambulance chasing is a big issue and needs sorting out. There was a very good documentary the box a couple of weeks ago about an insurance scam causing deliberate accidents then over claiming for them. One of the biggest scams involved a claims handling firm that had garages, solicitors etc in their pocket. They reckon they could have made at least 8million. Individuals had put in hundreds of claims in the same name, I was astonished the industry had not picked up repeated claims like this, its real slack.

Often when the police stop an uninsured vehicle there are many other things they find. It may have been stopped originally because it was being driven dangerously, that's often why the driver hasn't got insurance, they can't afford it because of their driving history. The vehicle may be badly maintained ( if they can't afford insurance maybe they can't afford repairs). They may find interesting substances on board, the people on board may be of interest, banned from driving etc etc etc

Personally, having had my car written off by an uninsured driver I think they should all be strung up!!

What's the point of insuring the car rather than the driver? Its the driver that causes the accident. Sorry, but that's a ridiculous idea. Why should I be charged the same for driving the same car as some kid with no experience and no extra training when I haven't had an at fault accident in nearly 30 years and have passed 5 different driving tests?

Oh, and speed is not a major cause of accidents. I'm surprised your so gullible to believe the propaganda about that given your cynicism about other stuff! Its the principal factor in just 4% of accidents, that's the governments own figures, but its easy for them to pin it on, requires little effort, makes it look like their doing something and doesn't really cost anything, in fact, it even raises a bit of money. In the 10 years after speed cameras were introduced the death rate on the UK's roads changed barely at all, indeed some years it was higher than before cameras were introduced. Recent reductions in the death rate are down to improvements in car design over the last 10 years filtering through.

If speed caused accidents my driving history would be littered with at fault accidents! Human error causes accidents end of.

I think in general inattention and poor driving causes more accidents personally . Speed , when used stupidly , is also a problem too .
As for enforcing no insurance , i have no issues with that at all . If you are ever hit by an uninsured driver and god forbid injured or your vehicle , which may be on HP , is written off , then you are in a world of financial hurt - simple as that .
While no one likes having to pay insurance , me included , if something happens and you dont have it , i think you get my drift .
This is getting a very long thread by the way :innocent:

like I said, human error:thumbup1:

it is the only causative factor in 99.99% of accidents!