In 'your favs disappointing you' news...

[aquaecolore.livejournal.com]

Marco Reus fined 540,000 euros for driving without a license for 3 years





source : bild article sadly behind paywall but posted in a tumblr post


e: apparently he also received five speeding tickets during that time, but no-one ever noticed he didn't have a license o_O

e2: someone from reddit translated a quote from the man himself:

He took driving lessons when he was 18 but never took a driving test. He just decided to drive without a licence. "Sadly I decided to take this route. I can't even comprehend the reasons myself. Now I know: I was too naive and it was stupid. I have learnt my lesson. It will never happen again."

e3: can't believe it took me so long to remember his nickname is Rolls Reus.



yeah. i am disappoint :/

Comments

[aquaecolore.livejournal.com]

Idk. He apparently took lessons, just didn't bother to get through with the actual getting the license thing. Idgi either.

From what i've gathered it was indeed the caught on camera, mailed the ticket type things. As for insurance, apparently a license is not needed for that in Germany?

[eva]

Insurance is tied to the car, not the driver; you could conceivably register a car and have it insured for any person, including someone without a license or not of age.

[aquaecolore.livejournal.com]

makes sense :)

though, how young can someone be to have a car insured for them? 16?

[eva]

I think I've read about people running insuring cars over minor children with disabilities that mean they don't pay tax. Of course an adult has to sign any papers on behalf of the minor, and a person who doesn't drive the car won't amass the bonus you get for driving without accident.

[aquaecolore.livejournal.com]

you get a bonus for not causing accidents? :D

[eva]

Yes, there are "classes" of being damage free; for each year without incident you get one class higher, and the insurance reduces the rates by a certain percentage. For instance, I'm in class 12/13 on both components of my insurance (I had a little something that caused liability when I was twenty or so, but nothing since), which means that I pay 40/45 percent of the normal rate.

[ananasonastick.livejournal.com]

Isn't it both? I have my car insured and me & my dad are listed as drivers and if for ex. my mother was driving the car and crashed they wouldn't pay a penny (unless she stole the car).

But I do not live in Germany sooo....

[eva]

Depends; policies often have a lot of options where you might be able to save money but should think carefully about your choices. You can have a policy where any random person (with a license, naturally) may drive your car, but you will save money if you specify a driver or drivers, particularly if that person or those persons have a damage-free driving record with an insurance.

As I live alone, I'm the only one who can drive my car, which saves me some money, but of course that also means I can't just have someone pick up my car somewhere if need be, as any accident would be uninsured. I suspect my father still has his set up so I can drive his car too if I'm there, and probably my mother even though she doesn't actually drive and we've given up on making her start again.

[ananasonastick.livejournal.com]

Oh, ok. Thank you for explaining it to me!

[ms-geekette.livejournal.com]

Here we have "points" on your driving record. If you had gotten that many tickets, your insurance would be raised by a lot, probably. Also, I think it can raise your fine if you get another ticket. (I don't know if they run the driving record for the mailed tickets or not, though, since that is sent to the person registered on the car tag.) Jail time might only come in if you happen to kill someone. :-/

It's nice to know that there are possibly a ton of unlicensed (and maybe uninsured) drivers on the Autobahn driving like maniacs. It's a comforting thought, not. o_O

[eva]

We have points too. Higher speeding tickets amass such points, just like other offenses, and if you have enough (like Jogi Löw did), the license is gone. But that is not related to insurance. Only accidents etc. that mean you have to get money from the insurance will raise the rate. If you have an accident and choose to settle it yourself, the insurance will not be changed as well.

For prison time, you will generally need to kill someone too. The law will give the range of punishment for a certain offense as, say, "a fine up to 90 daily rates", and it will be used according to the circumstances, but in Germany being imprisoned takes some doing. They've been closing prisons for years, as incarceration rates are sinking. Technically, he could have been imprisoned, but that wasn't going to happen, as he doesn't seem to have caused any harm to anyone and no one would really benefit from locking him up.

Well, there are occasionally cases where they catch someone who has been without a license for years, but they tend to make the news, so I doubt it's that many people. And I think if you come up against someone without insurance, your own insurance takes over and tries to get the money back somehow.

[ms-geekette.livejournal.com]

Here the insurance companies take speeding as an indicator that you're eventually going to get into an accident and that you are an unsafe driver. That you are a risk (for an insurance payout). So raising rates before something more serious happens is used as a deterrent to speed...or to at least speed and get caught. And, well, insurances companies here like to raise rates if they can get away with it, so speeding tickets are something they like to keep a close eye on.

But driver's licenses don't nearly cost as much to get here, so it's not limited to fairly well-off people. I still can't believe that Marco was able to do all these car-related things without ever getting a license at all, though. Wouldn't happen here at all!

[eva]

I guess handling insurance and speeding like that makes sense, but I suspect that privacy laws, for a start, would prevent insurers here from getting a hold of this kind of information about legal proceedings.

[ms-geekette.livejournal.com]

I think driving offenses are pretty much it as far as what insurers have access to as far as legal proceedings go. I'm not sure about financial ones (like filing for bankruptcy), but that's sort of irrelevant - except for the ability to pay your bill.