My sister HASN’T been in a car crash . . . why is she being sent fines?
Ms L.C. writes: My sister, who has Parkinson’s Disease, moved into a council bungalow in Doncaster a year ago. Since then she has received demands from around the country for traffic offence fines. Police even told her that ‘her’ car was in an accident, which it was not. I have lost track of how many letters I have sent to the DVLA in Swansea about vehicles falsely registered at her address. Another fine arrived last week, along with a DVLA reminder about taxing the same car. How can it think so many vehicles are registered at one ordinary bungalow?
LOCAL enquiries suggest that the previous tenant of your sister’s bungalow was kicked out after complaints that he was using the property for drug dealing. He also appears to have allowed other people to register their vehicles at his address.
Why would anyone do this? Well, it could be that your sister’s address is in a cheaper area for car insurance. But a more likely explanation is that drivers believe they can commit traffic offences such as driving in a bus lane or illegal parking. After running into a dead end at your sister’s bungalow t he authorities would not bother to try to trace them.
The real problem has been get- ting the DVLA to do something about this.
In response to all your letters, you received just one reply, saying that a car had been mistakenly registered to her address ‘ due to an error by the incoming keeper’. So, someone had bought a car, but had forgotten their own address when it came to registering it and had plucked your sister’s address out of thin air.
I asked the DVLA to say exactly how many vehicles had been registered at your sister’s bungalow. And – with her consent – I supplied the genuine registration number of her own car so it would not be caught up in any investigation.
Officials refused to reveal the size of the problem. All they would say was that ‘we will put measures in place to help prevent any further vehicles being registered there incorrectly’.
Then they explained: ‘We do not discuss the specifics of a case with third parties’ – which ignores the fact that your sister signed a legally binding consent form to allow the DVLA to speak to me and even implies that staff in Swansea would refuse to talk to a lawyer, advice worker or anyone else trying to help your sister.
In short, it is a neat way to skirt around the question of whether any action is being taken at all.
Finally, the DVLA lost patience with me. Perhaps my questions were just too irritating or embar- rassing. A spokesman told me: ‘The issue is resolved.’ He added: ‘We will not provide any further information on the detail of this case.’
You have told me that your sister has heard nothing from Swansea so only time will tell whether the problem is resolved.
If more ‘ghost’ cars turn out to be registered at her home, then like it or not, the DVLA can expect to hear from me again.