Friday 5th September 2008

Penalties Fail To Deter Uninsured Drivers

Fines are cheaper than insuring your car

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It's enough to make most decent-minded motorists' blood boil. But the AA says the penalties for drivers not taking out insurance are just not severe enough.

Put simply, it's still cheaper for drivers not to bother insuring their motor and take the risk of being caught and taking a court fine.

Research from Direct Line released last month revealed that there are 1.5 million uninsured drivers on the UK's roads. Now the AA say fines for uninsured drivers averaged £182 in 2006, while the majority of car insurance policies cost in the  region of £1,000. Low-cost second-hand cars also make driving without insurance an attractive option to motorists.

A spokesman for the AA said: "There is a lot of car confiscation and car crushing that goes on for uninsured drivers." But, he added, that the prospect does not appear that bad "when you can pick up a car for £500 or £600 pounds which is  cheaper than the insurance policy".

Insured drivers face extra costs of between £30 and £50 due to uninsured motorists.

[rockystarr]

Lock em up! im fed up that the average honest joe has to suffer, just because some tt doesent bother with insureance, lock em up and make em pick up the soap!

Edited by rockystarr on Friday 5th September 13:21

[NismoGT]

"Insured drivers face extra costs of between £30 and £50 due to uninsured motorists."

Proof that honest , law abiding people get stung in this S**T country

[gumsie]

Crooked politicians probably cost the country more. Why don't they put a levy on petrol? (I know that it's already taxed. Heavily). The extra money could be to give a certain, (not sure how much though), level of insurance to all drivers, and to prevent our premiums rising by £50.
I think they do the same in Australia.
After all the more time you spend travelling the more insurance you need right?

[David87M3]

gumsie said:

Crooked politicians probably cost the country more. Why don't they put a levy on petrol? (I know that it's already taxed. Heavily). The extra money could be to give a certain, (not sure how much though), level of insurance to all drivers, and to prevent our premiums rising by £50.
I think they do the same in Australia.
After all the more time you spend travelling the more insurance you need right?

instead of doing it on fuel add it to road tax? lesser performace cars tend to pay less road tax and thats usually the rule with incurance.

just a thought.... but then again you have to make sure every one has roadtax. Ah balls put it on fuel Next time I am buying petrol for the lawnmower I will at least have the satisfaction of knowing I am paying for some nobber to drive round un insured.

Pass the vasaline so at least I can get shafted to much pain....

Edited by David87M3 on Friday 5th September 13:44

[Chris_R]

rockystarr said:

Lock em up! im fed up that the average honest joe has to suffer, just because some tt doesent bother with insureance, lock em up and make em pick up the soap!

Edited by rockystarr on Friday 5th September 13:21

As great as it may sound, the problem is it costs you £25k a year to house a prisoner from what I can recall from a post elsewhere. Our jails are already full to bursting with people as it is for various trivial and extreme breaches of the law so it's not the answer IMO. But I don't actually have a suggestion as to what is the answer, lets face it, you increase the fine they can't afford it anyway and get off with £2 a month or whatever. You crush their car they buy another banger.

[gumsie]

Actually I must admit. I think road tax should be added to fuel as well. You cannot escape it then. It wouldn't cost any money to administer or to clamp down on dodgers. A whole government department could then put their resources somewhere else.

Crooked politicians probably cost the country more. Why don't they put a levy on petrol? (I know that it's already taxed. Heavily). The extra money could be to give a certain, (not sure how much though), level of insurance to all drivers, and to prevent our premiums rising by £50.
I think they do the same in Australia.
After all the more time you spend travelling the more insurance you need right?
[/quote]
instead of doing it on fuel add it to road tax? lesser performace cars tend to pay less road tax and thats usually the rule with incurance.

just a thought.... but then again you have to make sure every one has roadtax. Ah balls put it on fuel Next time I am buying petrol for the lawnmower I will at least have the satisfaction of knowing I am paying for some nobber to drive round un insured.

Pass the vasaline so at least I can get shafted to much pain....

Edited by gumsie on Friday 5th September 13:52

[matmoxon]

Yep it is ridiculous it really is. I remember three or four years ago when I was an apprentice (and this is a true story before anyone asks); one of the other apprentices had been done for drink driving, we all assumed it was on his moped as he didn't have a car licence, how wrong we were. He had been caught driving a car with no insurance, no experienced driver next to him, no L-Plates, and of course no licence, plus he was 3 times over the drink drive limit. Thankfully plod caught him before he could do any damage/harm. He went to court and walked away with a 2 year ban £150 and six points. He was also sacked for gross miss conduct two years ago.

Matt

[skimmo]

Tottally agree that the penalties are not hard enough. The offenders get thier cars taken off them fair enough but normally the cars will be some sh!ttr they bought from a scrappy for 50 quid!! Like they will pay the fine to get it back when they can just go and get another one for less. Scum mate, I've been done twice by uninsured drivers, they need locking up!

[7mike]

Isn't it £1000 fine for no TV licence? A good start might be when this government started taking road safety GENUINELY at least as important as Jonathon Ross' pay packet!

[Ravell]

Government view on criminal acts:

"You've been a very naughty boy, no pocket money for you this week! Promise not to do it again? Okay then."

[gumsie]

Thing is, a road tax/insurance dodger is much harder to catch and when caught may well put up a fight.

7mike said:

Isn't it £1000 fine for no TV licence? A good start might be when this government started taking road safety GENUINELY at least as important as Jonathon Ross' pay packet!

[Fetchez la vache]

we've been raving on about this for years. When will it change?

There is nothing in the article to say that anyone why has the ability to change anything, is about to do so.

[7mike]

gumsie said:

Thing is, a road tax/insurance dodger is much harder to catch and when caught may well put up a fight.

7mike said:

Isn't it £1000 fine for no TV licence? A good start might be when this government started taking road safety GENUINELY at least as important as Jonathon Ross' pay packet!

Yes you have a point, much easier to stick to the easy targets to fund this country.

[Funk]

Why not make the fine double the amount it would've cost you to insure? That way if it would've cost you £500 to insure, your fine's £1000, £1,000 to insure then then the fine's £2,000 etc. It would certainly give younger (and therefore higher-risk) drivers second thoughts about not paying insurance.

[cptsideways]

Funk said:

Why not make the fine double the amount it would've cost you to insure? That way if it would've cost you £500 to insure, your fine's £1000, £1,000 to insure then then the fine's £2,000 etc. It would certainly give younger (and therefore higher-risk) drivers second thoughts about not paying insurance.

They can't afford insurance so a fine they won't be able to pay either


Stick it on the cost of fuel, works well in plenty of other countries

[sprinter885]

Fetchez la vache said:

we've been raving on about this for years. When will it change?

There is nothing in the article to say that anyone why has the ability to change anything, is about to do so.

Quite.. PistonHeads.. THE source of all known facts (since time immemorial )
They should have listened to us eh? Quite honestly I'm with those on here suggesting put car tax on fuel prices. Trouble is 2 things- it gets "lost" in overall fuel pricing structure along with tax/VAT etc and 2nd no doubt there'd be an "admin" cost which no doubt Oil Co's would pass on to UK Govt who then have another reason & means to stiff us further to recover that cost.

Otherwise it makes sense to avoid the scrounging tossers who don't pay AND reflects actual motoring cost in relation to usage. Pity the insurance cost would be difficult to do same with.

Edited by sprinter885 on Friday 5th September 14:32

[dpbird90]

NismoGT said:

"Insured drivers face extra costs of between £30 and £50 due to uninsured motorists."

Proof that honest , law abiding people get stung in this S**T country

Yep, and young honest law obiding people like me, an 18 year old lad, get stung twice as hard because our premiums are so twice as high as anyone else's because of the uninsured s of our age smashing cars up. This country is a fking disgrace

[randlemarcus]

dpbird90 said:

NismoGT said:

"Insured drivers face extra costs of between £30 and £50 due to uninsured motorists."

Proof that honest , law abiding people get stung in this S**T country

Yep, and young honest law obiding people like me, an 18 year old lad, get stung twice as hard because our premiums are so twice as high as anyone else's because of the uninsured s of our age smashing cars up. This country is a fking disgrace

Hmm, not sure that one washes. Insurance is a business, and I suspect uninsured drivers, via the MIB, dont count hugely towards a bottom line loss on a generic 18 year olds policy. The underwriters may regard insured losses as slightly more relevant, and price accordingly. Been there, bought the policy (and had it pay out)

[cowellsj]

Same thing different subject.

The regular law abiding citizen picks up the bills for it.

We pick up the bill for Crime, Government inefficiency and we even seem to be bailing out banks because they are greedy and have overstretched themselves.

[Deva Link]

This article is just softening us up for the forthcoming law change making insurance mandatory for all registered vehicles.


Re the comments on 3rd party being added to fuel etc: Surely the problem there is that the vast majority of 17-25yr olds (and many others too) would simply not bother with any other kind of insurance, and would drive around in powerful old bangers with no attached consequences. You imagine the result of that.