Best news this week (for me)

|| "Richard Brookman" wrote || in message || ||| I'm a realist. Given the size of the PO operation, some items ||| missing or damaged are inevitable. Whether "some" includes ||| numbers up to several millions is another matter, of course :-) || || Some yes, but it currently stands at 14.6 million items a year lost || and a lot more late, here's the story: ||

|| || So I'd much rather get my disc directly than mess about with the || on-line service. || || Greg

I agree, 14.6m a year is too many, although AIUI the problem is mainly confined to a limited number of areas, often inner cities with student or relief staff. I live in a rural location, and I hionestly can't remember the last time I had anything lost in the post. My experience, I have to say, is pretty good.

To return to the original topic, since my rural post office shut years ago, and getting a tax disc would involve time off work and/or a hassle parking the car and a long wait in a queue, I'd rather do mine online and take the tiny risk that it may be lost on the way.

On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 19:58:03 +0100, Ian Rawlings scribbled the following nonsense:

don't worry, I have a hunch than within the next 5 years, too much Omega 3 Fish oil will give a 0.001% increase in the risk of cancer of the eyelash (or some such thing), so that will be hyped up by the media......

Our tabloid press sensationalise stuff beyond belief, and when you have to teach Food Tech to kids, it can be fun, because they believe evewry word in the Sun.

Still, there is a good reason why I have my own eggs, and why Xmas Dinner will consist of corn fed cockerel, will I will select from my flock on Xmas Eve...... Having worked in the poultry industry, I know that the chickens presented to us in the supermarket at 6lb in weight are less than 40 days old at slaughter. The reason they're so big: 22 hrs of daylight per day, and high protein feed, and when they drink, that has protein in it as well, along with chemicals and antibiotics because the things are that ill. Have even changed back to the local butchers for meat, bit more expensive, but at least the stuff has colour and flavour...

Not anymore and IIRC this has been the case for years. ISTR trying to renew years ago (>15) before the 15th and being told that I couldn't. My tax reminder flopped through the door last week, it runs out at the end of the month. It has at least two warnings on it not to apply before the

15th of the month in which the expiry happens.

But plod can check online that the car is taxed, the bit of paper is becoming less and less relevant. Remember your *real* MOT certificate is now the computer record not the bit of paper, that is just a receipt/record of the computer data.

To quote a government site "Any vehicle used or kept on a public road in the United Kingdom is required, by law, to display a valid vehicle tax disc" so you can get nicked for not displaying regardless of the fact you have paid for it and are waiting for the post, at least that's how I interpret it. If this were not the case why would anyone bother cluttering their window with it?, you would be legal just possessing it.

Another interesting quote from the same site "But, if you apply for a tax disc in advance, it comes into force on the first day of the following month and you should not display it on your vehicle until then." so it seems you could be done for putting your new disc in the window before the month end as it is not yet valid and you are no longer displaying the old valid one!.

Greg

Fortunately ours is still open so I do as much as I can to help it, but the government seems hell bent on making it unprofitable, last year they took away their right to even hand out passport packs so you have to go to the nearest town to pick one up, how stupid is that!.

Greg

Ah... Hopefully the PO in the town will never close, it's also the local delivery office. The two sub-post offices in the villages struggle though, I can see one or both of those closing at least the PO part if not the shop.

So why do I have to show my electronic MOT? Seems a bit daft but maybe the system hasn't caught up...

I wouldn't like to bank on it. Though getting the make right is the most important bit.

I'm sorry but this is another thing that people believe but is no longer valid, there is no 14 day grace any more, to quote the police web site:

"Have I got 14 days grace to get my new tax disc when it runs out? No, there is no period of grace for road tax. You have advance warning when the tax is due to expire, either six months or twelve months. You should make arrangements to re tax your car within plenty of time of the expiration date of your current tax disc."

So if you post on the 29th they can automatically issue a fine on the first of the month, I don't know personally if they are as sharp as this, but they have the right...

They've really tightened up on all this and I can only assume the primary reason is to gather more income from fining the unwary 8-(

Greg

But you only have 13, 15, or 16 day window. What do you do if you are on holiday, abroad, for the last fortnight of Febuary?

And you have the right to contest it (I hope...) and go to court where the "reasonable man" would laugh at plod for being so fecking stupid. "Failure to display" looks like becoming a non-offense if/when the computer becomes the definative record. Think of the money they can save not printing expensive pretty bits of paper with all manner of anti forgery stuff...

heh - you must live in a location more rural than I. Keeping a cockerel would likely get us an ASBO ;)

indeed - not forgetting to mention quality, variety and hygene - then there's the social aspect of it. The local independent butcher is (IME) always a happy cheerful soul compared to his colleagues in the rack-it-high-and-cover-it-in-ploywrap trade.

|| "Richard Brookman" wrote || in message || ||| To return to the original topic, since my rural post office shut ||| years ago, and getting a tax disc would involve time off work ||| and/or a hassle parking the car and a long wait in a queue, I'd ||| rather do mine online and take the tiny risk that it may be lost on ||| the way. || || Fortunately ours is still open so I do as much as I can to help it, || but the government seems hell bent on making it unprofitable, last || year they took away their right to even hand out passport packs so || you have to go to the nearest town to pick one up, how stupid is || that!. || || Greg

Very stupid. No arguments there. It's all deliberate, like when they told all the pensioners that they had to have their pensions paid into a bank account, and now they say that since so many pensioners have their money paid into a bank account, there's no need for the post office. If it wasn't such a good old-fashioned Labour Govt I'd think they were in cahoots with the banks. Oh hang on, what about those casinos? Nah, coincidence.

Presumably you have to SORN it before you go if you want to be sure.

Assuming the law is as the police site says then on what grounds can you contest it?, you have no grace period and have neither paid nor declared SORN by the due date, so you have broken the law it's that black and white. Money in the post is not money paid to the recipient, as my credit card company was only too happy to charge me =A312 for last month 8-(.

But the magistrate, operating the government's latest tax collection scheme, is going to follow the letter. He has no power to discard a law he may personally think is stupid, and if he tried he'd be in big trouble.

Think of the money they can lose by not fining people for failure to display... Anyway, until it changes you can be automatically fined on the first of the month as the TV advertising campaign points out.

Greg

On or around Sun, 22 Oct 2006 23:58:20 +0100, "Greg" enlightened us thusly:

yeah, but I doubt anyone gets done for that in isolation. They might add that to "no MOT" and other offences, perhaps. But if everything else was in order and the tax disc in the post, then I can't see it getting far in court.

On or around Mon, 23 Oct 2006 08:45:50 +0100, "Richard Brookman" enlightened us thusly:

and invented the post office card accounts for those who had no bank account or didn't want their pension paid into the bank... beginning of 2004. And what are they just trying to get rid of?

yep. Post Office card accounts. mad.

Don't bank on it. That's just the sort of petty, nit-picking 'offence' that they seem to delight in prosecuting these days. And don't expect anything better if it goes to court.

A friend of mine tells a story of a gentleman he was having words with who "failed the attitude test"; lippy, rude and abusive.

My friend then went through his motor with a fine-toothed comb, and eventually had him prosecuted for having no windscreen washer fluid, which is, apparently an offence.

Petty and nit-picking possibly, but in the circumstances justifiable, and, I thought, funny.

David

Same rules apply to those 'friends' too. They do seem to drive around with poorly managed vehicles, many with broken headlamp glass if one is ever unfortunate enough to be close enough to observe.

Just a heads-up - if roadside negotiations have failed you can always score a point back.

Does it do any good? no, of course not. But then you have to consider the attitude of the nit-picker and make your own judgement call. Some would call it revenge, others simply karma.

FWIW - never been pulled in the 110. Only once stopped in a road block - looking for witnesses to that murder on Twickenham Green a while back.

I was stopped for a 'technical' offence a year or so ago, an unmarked car came out from nowhere & flagged me down. I didn't know what I'd done was an offence, but I admitted exactly what I'd done, & mentioned I did it every time at those lights. He told me off, & let me off - presumably 'cos I'd shown the 'right' attitude. I was surprised, pleased, & have not done that manoeuvre again. Yep, some police (even here in Queensland) do have a heart :)

Now in Victoria, they shoot first & ask questions later ...

Karen

You can only register *OR* SORN in the 13, 15 or 16 day window. If you aren't in the country or prehaps laid up in hospital how can you do either? Those are the grounds.

Ha tell me about it. I reckon the barstewards deliberately move the pay =

by date each month to create confusion and such mistakes. What really pees me off though is electronic transfers still taking days and the fac= t the delay varies depending on source and destination even though the money vanishes from my account the moment I press "confirm payment".

So he does you but you appeal and go to the next court up... He could of= course award you your costs and a penny fine.

Haven't seen that. Don't watch much TV and that that I do watch doesn't =

have ads, oh I don't take a paper either. They should not rely on the media to push their message their only reliable means of contact is with= the renewal.

I assumed you could SORN any time but their web site says not, that only leaves the option of getting someone else to tax it for you if you're on holiday for more than a fortnight which is damn silly.

have ads, oh I don't take a paper either. They should not rely on the media to push their message their only reliable means of contact is with the renewal.

I seem to remember some scrap of paper in with a registration reminder, but wouldn't swear to it.

Greg