VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 4 APRIL 2015:
A recent ruling from the EU is set to make your insurance bills rocket upwards because – get this – you’ll need to insure your lawn mower believe it or not.
Put this one directly in the “I can’t believe this is actually happening” file, a 43 year old law has been dredged up by the European Union in order to make it a requirement to have insurance cover for motorised vehicles like lawn mowers, mobility scooters and motorised golf caddies.
If you thought that keeping your car insurance or van insurance paid was hard enough, now if you’ve got one of those vehicles in your garage or shed you’re going to have to shell out as much as an additional £100 a year. If you have more than one of these motorised vehicles you’re going to pay through the nose for sure.
Right now the Association of British Insurers and the Department for Transport are scrambling in an attempt to clarify which types of motorised vehicles will need to carry insurance cover and at what level. Most of these so-called ‘niche vehicles’ are exempt from being covered under UK law, but now with the EU’s new court decision this has thrown a major spanner in the work.
So what’s to blame for the new law? Well European courts decided in favour of Solvenian Damjian Vnuk who was struck by a tractor and fell from a ladder. The Brussels court said that any motorised vehicle whether or not on private or public land needed to be insured in order to provide compensation for blokes like Vnuk.
Do I blame Vnuk? Of course not. The poor man was struck by a bloody tractor. However I do blame whoever was driving that tractor, as he was obviously a complete and total pillock. Thanks so much for ruining it for the rest of us, you bastard! Now I’ve got to tell my grandmother we have to take her motorised scooter to the tip because we can’t afford it.
Just to make sure, my grandmum never actually collided with anyone to the point where she needed to be taken to court. That scooter does hurt awful when it rolls over your toes on Christmas morning, though.