Tuesday 8th November 2005

Uninsured driver crackdown starts today

Blanket camera coverage: thin end of the wedge?

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ANPR camera

The Government's Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system goes live from today, and Transport Secretary Alistair Darling has promised tough enforcement action to crack down on uninsured drivers. Police forces across the country are now able to use ANPR cameras to spot, and ultimately seize and destroy, cars being driven without insurance.

The cameras are linked to a database which contains details of all vehicles registered in the UK which are believed to be uninsured. The Transport Secretary saw West Midlands police in action as they began the crackdown.

Alistair Darling said: "Today we are sending out a very clear message to those who drive without insurance- there is now no place to hide. The new powers to link up cameras and the insurance database will make it far easier for police to tell if passing cars are uninsured and take action against the driver.

"On top of these powers we are creating a new offence of keeping a vehicle without insurance. This will be enforced through a new database of insurance details which means that uninsured drivers don't even need to be on the road to be caught. It is estimated that every law-abiding motorist pays an extra £30 a year because of uninsured drivers. Drivers are rightly fed up with those who flout the law and we are determined to rid the roads of this small hard core of anti-social drivers."

The new offence of keeping a vehicle without insurance, announced by the Government in September, will mean that uninsured drivers can be caught before they even take to the road. Earlier this year the government gave the police new powers, to seize and ultimately dispose of any vehicle being found driven uninsured.

Road safety group Safe Speed however said that ANPR won't fix the problem. ANPR is a system that uses a video camera looking at vehicles to 'capture' number plates. The registration mark is then compared electronically with various databases of vehicles that the police may be interested in.

Safe Speed said that Government's claims that ANPR can be effective against uninsured drivers do not bear scrutiny:

• It's not the vehicle that needs insurance under the law, it's the driver.
• About three million motor vehicles are 'in the trade' at any one time. Most of them will be properly insured, but none of them will be listed as insured in the databases.
• At least 1.5 million vehicles are in large fleets and are not insured based on vehicle registration mark. They aren't in the databases either.
• It's far from unusual to have a vehicle that is registered as insured being driven by a driver who has no insurance to drive in force. ANPR thinks the insurance is OK, but it isn't.
• Even with a massive police effort it is virtually inconceivable that they will reach 250,000 prosecutions in a year. With two million uninsured drivers that means that the average uninsured driver should expect to get caught just once every eight years.
• ANPR can be defeated by stealing or cloning vehicle registration marks. Widespread use of ANPR will make this practice commonplace and threatens to undermine the entire registration process. Reports suggest that 10 per cent of vehicles are already lost to the system.
• Police officers have already reported so many false positives with ANPR, that they simply turn the equipment off -- as reported in Auto Express.
• Vehicle seizures will encourage the use of 'disposable' vehicles. The Police crush a £100 banger, and the uninsured driver simply buys another. He's back on the road in a week.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign said: "Estimates of the number of uninsured drivers on our roads range up to 2 million. By any standards it's a serious problem. But serious problems require serious solutions. Current plans are a bad joke.

"The uninsured driver problem is considerably worsened by this government's anti-car and anti-motorist policies; more and more motorists are finding that they are simply better off outside the law."

PistonHeads says: it's an honourable start for the system with laudable aims -- but it's also another step towards a camera-infested, totally surveilled society. Is this what we really want?

[billflin]

So does that mean we can't keep cars off the road which aren't insured without fear of having the car impounded?

[jimothy]

billflin said:

So does that mean we can't keep cars off the road which aren't insured without fear of having the car impounded?

Sounds like it. You're guilty of driving uninsured just by not having insurance. It'll be up to you to prove you don't drive it.

Car dealerships will have problems here.

[Don]

Presumably if you declare the car SORN then you'll be able let insurance lapse.

I also see special policies aimed at cars stored SORN - and never being driven on the public road. (e.g. Car Museums, Car Storage etc)

[crossma]

Surely this project is only as good as the information on the database? Those that flout the law are not likely to have the car registered in their own name so what is this system going to achieve? This is just like the ID card scam, the only people that will be on it will be the law abiders, meaning we give up our anonymity potentially for the rest of our lives for systems that wont quantifiably do what they are meant to.

[ridds]

They're having a laugh aren't they?

I have 3 cars registered to me that aren't insured. They go no where near a road and won't until they have insurance.

Also my friend has about 20 cars on his farm. Will all the owners be proescuted for no insurance there? Private land so why should they have insurance?

[Steve H]

If you register your car as SORN you will have no problems at all.

[pja]

(quote) Earlier this year the government gave the police new powers, to seize and ultimately dispose of any vehicle being found driven uninsured.

nice idea but.........
they may have given them the powers.... but most forces don't actualy have the resources to seize/store/dispose of vehicles (this doesnt come for free)...most of which will be end of life sh1t... driven by chavs who could'nt give a toss if you took there car from them!
cos they'll go to the nearest auction & spend £25 on another one

this would end up costing the police money they could be spending on catching a speeding motorist or murderer

[apguy]

I'm keen to see how this works in reality.

I run 17 courtesy cars, 2 personal cars, a motorcycle and a 7.5 tonne truck on my motor trade insurance policy. Not one vehicle is individually mentioned on the policy and the courtesy cars are not owned by my company so I'm not even on the V5. If an ANPR system spotted any of these vehicle they would not match it with a valid insurance policy (according to their current system). So are all of my customers going to be pulled over?
This scenario applies to almost any motor trade vehicles, including courtesy cars, rental cars, test drives with a dealer etc. What about company cars where the vehicle owner is a lease company (and on the V5) but the individual is driving on their company fleet insurance?

[hair bear]

If I keep a car in my garage, which is part of my house, could I add the car to my home contents insurance as a named value item? Therefore avoiding the extra insurance TAX that would be collected by the government, when I have to pay my next annual insurance.

[Mr Whippy]

Alistair Darling said:

"On top of these powers we are creating a new offence of keeping a vehicle without insurance. This will be enforced through a new database of insurance details which means that uninsured drivers don't even need to be on the road to be caught. It is estimated that every law-abiding motorist pays an extra £30 a year because of uninsured drivers. Drivers are rightly fed up with those who flout the law and we are determined to rid the roads of this small hard core of anti-social drivers."

All I can see is that this system will more than likely, 90% of the time, be catching everyday people for nothing, and it's just computer database errors, or insurer admin errors when they input slight details incorrectly at their end etc.

Then, we have the fact that most dodgy people have dogy details, so will unlikely be "tracked down" by Plod to have their car crushed.

Maybe if this government focussed more on having Plod out and about doing the beat and doing more random roadside checks etc, then we'd hit uninsured drivers, DUI drivers, no Tax and MOT drivers in one go.

Their aim here is to hoodwink us into having camera's to "feel safe" but use them for other reasons against the general public, not an "anti-social, hard core" minority.

Much like ID cards, "have one and you won't be blown up", ohh, that makes everyone so much safer.

Clearly the government are the terrorists, at every step they take away more freedom of anonymity, freedom of movement, freedom of speech. The terrorist threat is real, unfortunately they are running our country!

Dave

[Nostrils]

I do think something to assist with finding un-insured drivers is a good thing, not sure that this ANPR system it the one (or one of many!) to do it. I agree with most that has previously been mentioned. As for cars stored, museum etc. will not be affected because they would need to be read by the camera to be seen.

What I find slowly coming into the law in general in this country, especially the motorist, is that 'WE' are guilty until proven innocent and not the other way round...NIP's through the post does not show guilt until evidence is provided and they prefer that you dont ask and just pay the fine etc.

Gladly, I resigned from my sales rep job, so wont be getting 'tagged' by these unless its in my own car, which is and has always been legal.

I will be watching this 'plan' to see how its going

[Rob_the_Sparky]

Nostrils said:

As for cars stored, museum etc. will not be affected because they would need to be read by the camera to be seen.

Try reading the article again...

"The new offence of keeping a vehicle without insurance, announced by the Government in September, will mean that uninsured drivers can be caught before they even take to the road."

Although quite why they need ANPR if this Big Brother offence is introduced I don't know. Anyone actually know the details of this new offence?

Rob

>> Edited by Rob_the_Sparky on Tuesday 8th November 12:14

[havoc]

I've thought of another potential problem - what about a pure trackday car which hasn't yet been SORN'd?

Or even one which has, if they don't consider SORN enough?

"Policing by technology" will only ever work against those who accept the system the technology presides over - leave the system, lose the problem. But the government either don't see it, or, more likely, don't care, as those outside the system are unlikely to have the money to pay the taxes, I mean the fines!

[julianhj]

I'm very interested to see how this works, as it really winds me up to see this 'motoring underclass' tooling about our roads without a care in the world every day. Also, I'm going to be on the enforcement side of things in a few months.

I'm hoping that the reality of these new measures will be that when plod pulls a likely suspect (rusted-out stbox driven by gormless chav) they'll (I'll!) be able to immediately check that it's not insured, Chav will not be able to pull a suitable blanket policy out, thus car gets confiscated and crushed, Chav gets a conviction.

It's not going to be cheap, but then at £30 a year for every law-abiding car on the road, it's no bargain at the moment.

ANPR has it's faults, but then we knew that already - it's still an additional tool, rather than the main method of detecting those breaking the law. It's about time the DVLA records were straightened up, too.

>> Edited by julianhj on Tuesday 8th November 12:16

[ean218]

Would you believe that the fleet/motor trade problem has already been solved by the 4th EU Motor Directive!
Have a look at the Motor Insurance Information Centre.
As a fleet policyholder we already have to enter all our vehicle details directly onto the Motor Insurance Database. Unfortunately this will trickle down to every multiple vehicle operator pretty soon.

[flamingm0]

So when is it going to be illegal to keep a car off the road without insurance or has this bit not yet been announced? If my part time car is SORN'ed without tax and insurance, can I still take it for an MOT? I guess I can let that lapse too and get it done when the weather gets nicer again. I expect they'll create an offence for that too!

[woof]

Has to be said that it's not going to catch someone who's paid cash for an old banger - not insured, no licence, no tax

But I guess over the next five years - you simply won't be able to do this anymore

If buy a car from any type of dealership, then they won't sell you the car unless you have insurance and a driving licience. They'll inform the DVLA that the cars in your name + insurance docs + tax expiry etc etc.

So within 5 years a huge percentage of cars will be on the database.

It's more that its given up our right of privacy and free movement without big brother keeping tags on us !

[joephandango]

Seems Blair and his boyfriend in Washington have got this down to a fine art...
1. Dramatise, exaggerate hyperbolise and put serious PR into a relatively minor problem
2. Feed public questionably gathered and compiled stats to support arguments.
3. When general public has reached suffiecient hysteria remove another civil liberty under the banner of combatting minor problem.
4. Win votes from cardigan-wearing coffin dodgers for doing so much to protect society.
5. Watch the cash roll in while socialism creeps in the back door.
I'm so glad I left the UK when I did!

JP
PS. If anyone hasn't seen Farenheight 911, rent the DVD, it's an eye-opener!

[martaay]

from opinions below this post it seems this isn't the magic bullet to stopping uninsured drivers, IMO they are publicising this as the 'uninsured driver buster' something everyone wants and will accept to cover up them monitoring where we go in our cars (road pricing anyone, what system do they use for london congestion charging? ANPR!). This system could be used also to help track stolen cars but then thats providing the thieves don't switch the plates...

>> Edited by martaay on Tuesday 8th November 12:35

[jazzyjeff]

woof said:

Has to be said that it's not going to catch someone who's paid cash for an old banger - not insured, no licence, no tax But I guess over the next five years - you simply won't be able to do this anymore If buy a car from any type of dealership, then they won't sell you the car unless you have insurance and a driving licience. They'll inform the DVLA that the cars in your name + insurance docs + tax expiry etc etc. So within 5 years a huge percentage of cars will be on the database. It's more that its given up our right of privacy and free movement without big brother keeping tags on us !

There will ALWAYS be dodgy car dealers working outside the system. You're also overlooking stolen cars, 'borrowed cars', abandoned cars, cars with lost documents etc. etc. plus any cars sold through private sale.

The uninsured chavscum of this world will not be at all scared - like the one that drove into me, the name, log book, address and all their personal details will be false or stolen and the car will be listed as SORN anyway so no-one will be looking for it...