4Insurance against third party risks

4. Insurance against third party risks

(1) When any motor vehicle is on a road there is required to be in force in relation to the motor vehicle a contract of insurance entered into by the owner of the motor vehicle under which the owner has insured subject to and in accordance with this Act against any liability which may be incurred by the owner or any person who drives the motor vehicle in respect of the death of or bodily injury to any person directly caused by, or by the driving of, the motor vehicle.

(3A) Where a motor vehicle in relation to which there is not in force a policy of insurance complying with this Act is used on a road the owner of the motor vehicle and any person so using the motor vehicle or causing or permitting such use commits an offence.

Penalty: First offence: $400.

Subsequent offence: $800.

(3B) A person shall not be convicted or punished for an offence under subsection (3A) if he has already been convicted or acquitted of, or the penalty has been paid under an infringement notice served on the person for, an offence under the Vehicles Act section 4(2) and both those offences had been committed simultaneously.

(3C) Upon conviction of a person of an offence under subsection (3A), if the court is satisfied that the owner of the vehicle in question was, at the time of the commission of the offence, not the holder of the requisite vehicle licence for the vehicle as required by the Vehicles Act, the court shall order the person convicted, in addition to the penalty imposed on him, to pay the amount of the annual licence fee that should have been paid in respect of that vehicle in accordance with that Act and that order may be enforced as if the amount of the fee was a penalty imposed on him.

(4) Any person convicted of an offence under this section shall (unless the court thinks fit to order otherwise) be disqualified from holding and obtaining under the Road Traffic (Authorisation to Drive) Act 2008 a driver’s licence or under the Vehicles Act a licence in respect of a motor vehicle for a period of 12 months from the date of the conviction.

(5) Proceedings for an offence under this section shall be commenced —

(a) within a period of 6 months from the date of the commission of the alleged offence; or

(b) within a period of 3 months from the date on which it came to the knowledge of the prosecutor that the alleged offence had been committed,

whichever period is the longer.

(5A) Despite subsection (5), no proceedings for an offence under this section shall be commenced after the expiration of one year from the date of the commission of the alleged offence.

(6) In any prosecution for an offence under this section the allegation in the charge that at any time mentioned in the charge there was not in force in respect of any particular motor vehicle a policy of insurance complying with this Act shall be evidence of the fact so alleged.