UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

just bought another polo to try and fix up the broken one and im picking it up from york, but i lve in london. problem is the cars got no road tax. if i got pulled do you think the police would accept the fact that its "only being driven the once that when it gets back to mine its being broken?" as an excuse??
how tough are they on road tax. its got MOT and insurance just not the tax.
thanks alot,
dave

To be on the safe side why don't you tow it back? Or is that going to cost an absolute load of cash to hire your own trailer to do it?

these days as they are getting people for running without roadtax, I'd be suprised if they let you off, however there is a legal loophole for driving without roadtax, and thats if you're taking a car for a pre-booked MOT to a garage.

soooo how friendly are you with your MOT garage? I guess 250 miles (or so is kinda stretching the point a bit though).

I guess you'd have to say you'd lost your MOT though and you didnt know where the last one was issued.

The thing is that you can risk it and get caught, its your call.

hmmm, thats what i was thinking, try and blag that was on my way to the post office to get the tax, lol. cant afford to tow it, can just about afford the car and train fare up there. other option (not sure if its worse or not?!?) would be to knick the plates and tax from other car as there same colour etc etc and id be pretty unlucky for them to check vin number setc but still not legal and deffinitly not something i wanna get pulled for. ho hum. does any one know if they do 1 day tax's??

You are allowed to drive a car without an MOT, if you are on the way to a test centre, so I don't see why you wouldn't be able to drive a car without road tax if you say you are on your way to buy a tax disk.

Bit of a grey area that, for most people, but *touch wood* I doubt you will get pulled anyway. Stick a recent tax disk in the window, so that from a glance, it looks like you have up-to-date tax. I'd probably just take the risk.

no way that you can buy the tax for the car before picking it up?!

well the other thing you can do to make it all legal is to buy 6 months road tax, then drive the car back, and then get a refund from the tax. You'll get 5 months refund so that will cost you less than £10

DO NOT stick another tax disk in there, you'll be done for fraud. I'd just drive back with no tax. I as spotted driving around with no tax in December 1 day before I bought it! I got a letter in February about it threatening court action, etc. I went to the DVLA office and she said that I could pay an out of court settlement fee of £30. which aint bad.
Or you could buy the tax, then send it back the next day, what's a tenner to insure you against being fined and legal after all?

As a general rule, the police are pretty human about such things providing there's a valid reason for it.. parking wardens, however, are buggers for following the books to the letter, so if you do try and get it home without tax, just make sure never to park it anywhere public..

Insurance is another one they have you for aswell, but if you are fully comp, you are insured to drive the car home anyway.

thanks for the replies. got it home taxless in the end, was getting the train before the post office opened and arriving when the post office was closed and matey wasnt up for buying the tax on my behalf.
ah well, no dramas so ill hopefully have my car up and now.
cheers

Nice one, mate