Can an insured driver get cited for driving someone else's uninsured vehicle?

USMCstingray

yes and no

It depends on if your insurance covers you in any vehicle, or for your new vehicle. If it does cover you for a new vehicle you usually only have a short time to let your insurance company know about the new vehicle.
As for registration. If you just bought the car then you should have had a temp tag. Which would require you to have insurance....

george l

of course. I own multiple cars and I wanted the Insurance company to insure me as a person but they say they can only insure each car

hunting4junk

the driver isn't insured. the car is!
some insurance companies will cover the purchase of a car on your current policy for the purpase of transporting it home. if his does that he can present a statement from the insurance company stating that that particular vehichle was cover at that time and get the charge dropped. but in a nut shell if you don't have proof of insurance for that car when they stop you then yes they can and most likely will issue you a ticket

Just Me

It's the car that is insured,not the driver. You always have time to insure it so that's a lame excuse.

Kathi

Depends on the officer, the state and the location of the vehicle. In most cases this would probably fall under the selective enforcement arena.

Technically, absolutely, you're driving an unregistered vehicle, they can hit you for that one, as to the insurance, usually if you have had insurance, say this is a replacement or second vehicle, you usually have up to a 30 day window to let your company know you have a new car. Again this varies from company to company.

I'd say, unless the cops is having a good day and you don't give him any reason to be suspicious, real or imagined, your looking at a BIG fine!

Mr. Knowitall

Yes. It's the driver's responsibility to make sure the car is insured, registered, and legal.

Most car insurance just covers the car, not the driver. But you can get something called 'drivers insurance' that insures you no matter what car you drive. It's a little more expensive.

oklatom

Absolutely. Insurance goes with vehicles, not with drivers, and the driver should have made sure there was insurance coverage before driving it. And he certainly had eyes to see that there were no plates on the car, and chose to drive anyway. The ticket is his for driving an uninsured and unregistered car, and the owner can also get a ticket. The officer could have had the car towed and impounded, if he didn't count yourself very very lucky.

Gremio

Yeah, but you can dispute it in court.

Roy B

Absolutely! No one in their right mind would drive an unregistered vehicle.

Just because your insurance may also cover you driving someone elses car (when your insured car is not being used), it doesn't let you off the hook if that car does not carry insurance or registration.

You are taking a huge risk (legal liability) if you drive any car without license plates. Think about it. Can you afford to cover the cost of a Rolls Royce if you happened to 'bump' or 'total it'?

If the owner had just purchased the car, why didn't the 'seller' provide registration and license plates? Car Dealers have 'Trade Plates' which they use for temporary transportation to a Registery Office or to another destination.

The only safe way would be to have the vehicle 'towed' or carried on the back of a truck to its destination.

trix

hell yea!

JeffyB

Insurance follows the driver, not the car, so the insured driver is insured while driving someone elses car, but registration & licensing is a different matter. Either person could be ticketed for that. The buyer of the new car is supposed ot get temporary license/registrsation until the permanent one is obtained.

Chris

It is the policyholder as the vehicle owner of listed vehicles, plus any additionally listed drivers, who are actually insured. I believe most personal automobile insurance policies in the U.S. follow the standard Personal Auto Policy format and are primarily vehicle owner's policies that cover the policyholder's liability as the registered OWNER of scheduled autos, plus offer limited Non-Owned Auto coverage (as excess coverage only) protecting the policyholder and other drivers from their personal liability, if any, as the driver of other unlisted vehicles such as rental cars, etc. which are not used or available regularly, for personal purposes only. In the event of an accident, insurance companies fight with each other over who should pay for the claims and in which order of priority according to these rules with the vehicle owner's policy, if any, being primary. There is generally no duty for the titled owner of an unregistered vehicle to maintain liability coverage on the vehicle, but such a vehicle is still not allowed to be operated uninsured on public roads. I don't think the PAP would actually cover an unregistered vehicle's accident liability even if it the vehicle was listed on the policy (because the policyholder is not the registered owner of the vehicle). Note, however, that the traffic violation of knowingly driving an uninsured vehicle (i.e. where the owner of the vehicle is not insured) is separate and distinct from the traffic violation of operating a motor vehicle with no auto liability insurance of any kind in effect. In the scenario you presented, involving an unregistered and uninsured (and possibly uninspected) vehicle, I suspect the citations would be for unregistered vehicle operation, uninsured operation, owner permitting uninsured operation, and possibly uninspected operation. Of those, you and/or the owner might be able to get out of the uninsured operation citations with the officer and/or in court by relying on the driver coverage provisions in the driver's PAP (if any), providing documentation of this operator's coverage in effect is presented and considered satisfactory to the officer and/or judge. I'd think the officer would prefer to issue citation and let the judge handle the legal specifics of this scenario in court. This is not legal advice of any kind, however, do so only at your own risk!

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