Monday 18th April 2011

Uninsured Driver Offensive Moves Closer

New regs mean £100 fines for owners, and possible car seizures

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Uninsured drivers affect our premiums

The government estimates that up to 1.4 million drivers on Britain's roads are uninsured, yet only around 242,000 offenders are convicted every year. As a result, every insured motorist pays an average £30 each year within their premiums to cover crashes involving uninsured and untraced drivers, while the figures also suggest that uninsured and untraced drivers kill 160 people and injure 23,000 every year.

According to the Department of Transport, a new system to tackle uninsured driving moved a step closer today as Road Safety Minister Mike Penning laid the final regulations in Parliament. Under Continuous Insurance Enforcement it will be an offence to keep an uninsured vehicle, rather than just to drive when uninsured, and the new regulations will allow the DVLA to take action against those who ignore warnings to get their vehicle insured.

Under the new system the DVLA will work in partnership with the Motor Insurers' Bureau to identify uninsured vehicles. Motorists will receive a letter telling them that their vehicle appears to be uninsured and warning them that they will be fined unless they take action. If the keeper fails to insure the vehicle they will be given a £100 fine.

If the vehicle remains uninsured - regardless of whether the fine is paid - it could then be clamped, seized and destroyed. The regulations laid in Parliament today would give the DVLA the powers to take this action.

The vehicle will only be released when the keeper provides evidence that the registered keeper is no longer committing an offence of having no insurance and the person proposing to drive the vehicle away is insured to do so. Vehicles with a valid Statutory Off Road Notice (SORN) will not be required to be insured.

It is planned for the first insurance advisory letters (which warn individuals that they appear to be uninsured) to be sent at the end of June following a publicity campaign to raise awareness of the CIE scheme.

It all sounds very impressive, but here at PH HQ we do wonder how many uninsured drivers have actually bothered to register their details with the DVLA in the first place...

[DonkeyApple]

Any car caught being used on the road without insurance must be seized and sold at auction with all proceeds going to the taxpayer.

At the same time anyone caught behind the wheel must choose between the follow: pay a very large on the spot fine, 90 days tagged and unable to leave the house, a massive beating administered at the road side.

Until we actually start seriously fking people up for deliberate transgressions then nothing will change.

[Countdown]

The proof of the pudding and all that....

With the advent of ANPR I can't see why this is still such a big problem. A few well-publicised "crushings" on national TV, ideally with the driver looking on, would have a significant deterrent effect I think.

[Greenwich Ross]

DonkeyApple said:

a massive beating administered at the road side

"Insured drivers! If you would like to form an orderly queue, select a stick of your choice and...etc..."

[Oddball RS]

DonkeyApple said:

Any car caught being used on the road without insurance must be seized and sold at auction with all proceeds going to the taxpayer.

At the same time anyone caught behind the wheel must choose between the follow: pay a very large on the spot fine, 90 days tagged and unable to leave the house, a massive beating administered at the road side.

Until we actually start seriously fking people up for deliberate transgressions then nothing will change.

+1

[DonkeyApple]

Countdown said:

ideally with the driver looking on,

From the inside?


The simplest way to do all of this is to use the similar tech that Google used for streetview to log every plate which shows up as uninsured, send the owner a nice letter via the DVLA reminding them to insure and request proof that it has been done (logging insurance details on a website?) and if nothing has changed within 30 days that car can be taken anywhere, anytime and sold without recourse.

I'm sure there are shed loads of minor issues and wrinkles but something punchy does need to be done.

[robinessex]

I always wonder when the government come up with some statistical number about something. According to the DVLC, ther are 31,035,791 cars on the road. If 1,400,000 are uninsured, this makes them 4.5% of the cars on the road. Thus, a quick trawl around any supermarket car park by Mr. Plod should yield a good haul. Yet when the police set up a ANPR van on the major road feeding the Lakeside Shopping Centre at Christmas, I reckon at least 5,000 vehicles passed through, and yet the haul was 2 !! According to the government, it should have been 225 !!!

[MadRob6]

bus pass said:

There's just one problem with this. If I buy a car and spend several months working on it in my own garage, during which time it never even leaves the driveway, why should I have to insure it?

I hope that we start to see more firms offering zero mileage policys?

If your car is SORN'd then you don't need to have it insured.

[White-Noise]

I was worried they were going to swoop in on SORN'd cars but they have not which is a relief

[wab172uk]

£100 fine is rubbish. Should be £500 straight off.

This however will just make people buying cars giving false names and addresses.

[MadRob6]

bus pass said:

Ah, thank you

Had me crapping my pants for a moment as I have 2 uninsured but SORN'd Porsches sat around that are costing me enough in repairs. If I had to start insuring them one would end up being ripped apart and sold for parts which would be a shame.

[Adman1020]

Surely this makes selling a car privately a right nightmare? My sister recently bought a new car and transferred her insurance, and left the old one sat on the drive taxed and MOT'ed while she tried to sell it. According to Mr DVLA, she would now be breaking the law?

So does this mean we will have to take out second policies on cars were trying to sell?

I also find the idea quite funny that the DVLA assume that ALL people who own an uninsured car are therefore driving it on the road uninsured, and also that the true uninsured drivers they are trying to stop are going to skip on insurance, but will bother to pay to Tax and MOT their cars...

This will do nothing to deter uninsured drivers but instead will just annoy and fine innocent people who are completely unaware they are apparently criminals.

[Stew2000]

Adman1020 said:

This will do nothing to deter uninsured drivers but instead will just annoy and fine innocent people who are completely unaware they are apparently criminals.

That's what the warning letter is for.

And isn't it illegal to have two policies on one car?

[Big E 118]

So just a £100.00 fine then?

That sounds good, I might have to cancel my £100.00 per month insurance policy and even if I get caught a couple of times a year I'm way better off.....

When the fine for breaking the law is a fraction of the cost of abiding by it this problem won't go away.

[350Matt]

Adman1020 said:

Surely this makes selling a car privately a right nightmare? My sister recently bought a new car and transferred her insurance, and left the old one sat on the drive taxed and MOT'ed while she tried to sell it. According to Mr DVLA, she would now be breaking the law?

So does this mean we will have to take out second policies on cars were trying to sell?

I also find the idea quite funny that the DVLA assume that ALL people who own an uninsured car are therefore driving it on the road uninsured, and also that the true uninsured drivers they are trying to stop are going to skip on insurance, but will bother to pay to Tax and MOT their cars...

This will do nothing to deter uninsured drivers but instead will just annoy and fine innocent people who are completely unaware they are apparently criminals.

Agreed

when I sell I car quite often it'll sit uninsured on my drive but not sorn'd as whomever I sell it to would like to drive it away - this is a rubbish idea

[twin sparky]

Adman1020 said:

Surely this makes selling a car privately a right nightmare? My sister recently bought a new car and transferred her insurance, and left the old one sat on the drive taxed and MOT'ed while she tried to sell it. According to Mr DVLA, she would now be breaking the law?

Please read the article .... SORN'd cars will not be affected... if it's off the road for a period of time and you notify the DLVA (like your suppose to) then you have no issues!

This is what the DVLA say about selling SORN'd vehicles

'Buying a vehicle that has a SORN
If you buy a vehicle that already has a SORN made by the previous keeper, that SORN will come to an end on the date you buy the vehicle. You must make a new SORN if you are keeping the vehicle untaxed off the public road. You cannot transfer a SORN.'

Edited by twin sparky on Monday 18th April 13:18

[Ex Boy Racer]

I guess it may help to curb some of the offenders. My only issue is that there is a principle of innocent until proven guilty here that is kind of swept under the carpet.
The offence was one of driving without insurance. As the authorities struggled to police that they are now changing the law to help. In other words , change the definition of guilty to get around the proof problems.
Where does this approach stop?

[barrymknight]

I don't see why we can't just do what they do in the Channel Islands and have Insurance Discs in the windscreen. No need for cameras and all that, anybody can see instantly if a car is insured or not.

Also, the fine needs to be so much more. I work in the insurance industry and regularly see premiums in the thousands (especially for young drivers). Any time they can spend driving without insurance is big money saved for them. There should be some way of making sure a fine isn't the cheap option. Maybe the fine should be the same as your annual premium plus 50% or something?!

[ellisd82]

bus pass said:

There's just one problem with this. If I buy a car and spend several months working on it in my own garage, during which time it never even leaves the driveway, why should I have to insure it?

I hope that we start to see more firms offering zero mileage policys?

That was my thought. There should be a special off the road insurance. I keep my vehicles insured when off the road anyway, incase of theft, damage by falling tree or whatever...

I went with Direct Line just because they insure against uninsured drivers. Nothing worse in my opinion. I can understand why some people may feel it a waste of money spending thousands of pounds for nothing if you never claim. Maybe we could get the money back, like the PPI things of recent times.

[DanSaff]

But to sorn a car you have to send the tax disc back, so you can't even test drive the car even if the buyer has insurance to cover driving the car - unless the buyer uses his docs to tax it for the test drive not to mention the car has to be in the insurance holders name to tax it.

Not to mention loosing the rest of the month that you sent it back to get a refund.

Soon you will have to take a DNA sample and a note from the doctor to tax your car.

[domV8]

twin sparky said:

Adman1020 said:

Surely this makes selling a car privately a right nightmare? My sister recently bought a new car and transferred her insurance, and left the old one sat on the drive taxed and MOT'ed while she tried to sell it. According to Mr DVLA, she would now be breaking the law?

Please read the article .... SORN'd cars will not be affected... if it's off the road for a period of time and you notify the DLVA (like your suppose to) then you have no issues!

This is what the DVLA say about selling SORN'd vehicles

'Buying a vehicle that has a SORN
If you buy a vehicle that already has a SORN made by the previous keeper, that SORN will come to an end on the date you buy the vehicle. You must make a new SORN if you are keeping the vehicle untaxed off the public road. You cannot transfer a SORN.'

I thnk the point is that you do not SORN the car you are trying to sell - otherwise it is not Taxed, and people will knock down the asking price for not being "taxed & MOT'ed"...