Road Safety GB backs DfT clampdown on uninsured drivers

13.52 | 10 January 2011 | | 12 comments

Road Safety GB has endorsed DfT plans to make it illegal to keep an uninsured car in Britain whether it is being driven or not.

Owners who have not declared their uninsured cars and vans off the road could have them seized and crushed, but those with a Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN) would not be affected.

Mike Penning, the road safety minister, said uninsured cars were a "real road safety issue". The measure, introduced under Labour, will be made law “shortly” but the DfT does not have a definite date for when an announcement will be made.

At present it is illegal to drive a car while uninsured. The police have the power to seize, and in some cases destroy the vehicle that is being driven uninsured. Under the new system it will be an offence to keep an uninsured car.

It will be enforced by comparing the databases of the DVLA with that held by the Motor Insurers’ Bureau, which was set up to compensate victims of uninsured drivers.

Owners of uninsured vehicles will then be contacted by letter to warn them they face a £100 fine if the car or van is not insured by a certain date. If the vehicle remains uninsured, regardless of whether a fine has been paid or not, it could then be seized and crushed.

The DfT says that uninsured driving adds about £30 a year to every motorist’s insurance premium.

Mike Penning said: "If anybody has a vehicle they’re not going to use on the road, they can declare that off the road and that will be absolutely fine.

"But we have over a million vehicles driving around which are not insured which is a huge burden on other insurers and actually a real road safety issue."

Alan Kennedy, chair of Road Safety GB, said: “Any move to help remove uninsured drivers from our roads is welcomed by Road Safety GB.

"Uninsured drivers are involved in a disproportionately high number of collisions which may indicate that they have less regard for their own safety or the safety of others.  We all have a part to play in terms of improving road safety and uninsured drivers have no place on our roads.”

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    Recently my wife’s insurers cancelled her policy in error, which they have admitted even though they are not doing anything about it. As soon as we were informed we parked the car off road so as not to commit an offence.
    Under these proposals my wife would not have been able to avoid this offence no matter what she did.
    I have discovered that this is not an unusual occurance. Have situations like this been considered by the people proposing the new law.
    The other point that worries me is, are private firms, undertaking removal, going to be given powers to go onto private land or break into private garages?
    I am very worried.


    David, Co Durham resident
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    What a tangled web we like to weave for ourselves on behalf of our Lord’s and Masters!

    Why should it be necessary to insure a vehicle to increase road safety? It is the driver who is responsible for road safety, not the vehicle. The current insurance database is available to the police, and it is the police who are the enforcers. It is the police who are most able to apprehend any driver for erratic behaviour or documentation falsehoods. ANPR cameras are already capable of supplying the required information to the police.

    The Minister is spouting nonsense when he states uninsured cars are a real safety issue – there’s more danger in speed humps. As mentioned, it’s the drivers, not the cars. This smacks of a reaction to a set of do-gooders wanting to see some action against uninsured drivers causing accidents. All it will achieve is another set of complicated layering of processes to compound a situation that is already capable of being dealt with – as it is.

    This proposed increase in unnecessary documentation may only provide insurance companies with more income, and will surely fail to increase road safety. Those who deliberately flout the law will continue to do so. Those law abiding citizens who are constantly having to watch more P’s and Q’s are the ones most likely to suffer with fines and what not due to missing a certain date. It will not be long before SORN will be charged for also – because it will bring in more money to the treasury along with their cut if ‘Insurance tax’. THAT is what “road safety” is about, and they can’t get enough of it.


    Derek Reynolds, St Albans
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    Honor
    I am delighted that my remark has given you a refreshing vision of your future years. May they be many. Let me tell you a story. Many years ago, a car was involved in crime. I was given the task of finding the current owner. Not exactly a job for Detective Zen but then again I didn’t have a gorgeous assitant either. The first owner was a highly respectable large company who provided it to an employee as a company car. They sold it to an equally highly respectable business man who lived in a private mews and failed to admit he had become the new owner but admitted that he passed it on to his son, a producer for the BBC. He failed to register it in his name but resold it to his flat mate who had moved to another flat. The present occupier of that flat remembered the car and said it had been sold to a back-street second hand car dealer who admitted that he dealt with the car but, as he had resold it very quickly, never registered it with the DVLA. The man to whom he had sold it was in prison for robbery and had sold the car to his friend who quickly passed it on to an ex-girlfriend as he thought the car was ‘hot’ and, if it was ‘grief’, he wanted the ex-girlfriend to suffer that grief. She sold it to her son, an apprentice criminal, who had used the car in the crime mentioned at the start but was unable to tell me where he was living. I put out an All-Stations Message and – wouldn’t you know it – it was stopped in a routine check by Traffic Patrol Officers and the driver (the apprentice criminal) was arrested. There is no such thing as apparently respectable people, just people who are potentially criminals. I did this job for nearly 34 years so please tolerate the cynicism and the mistrust of data bases. This villain was caught by good old fashioned policing. It happened every day – once!


    Roy Buchanan, Sutton
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    Roy,
    If you are happy to complete the SORN, that’s all you have to do – no problem, no towing away. I don’t see this as a magic cure-all that will get every uninsured car off the road but as one more aspect of the overall task. It’s more comfortable to think that all uninsured drivers must be ne’er-do-wells who live in other areas but most of them are actually otherwise apparently respectable people – our friends and neighbours – who are taking a chance to save some money at the expense of those of us who do pay our insurance.
    By the way, it’s a long while since I was told I was naive, am I entering my second childhood perhaps? I’ll take it as a compliment and look forward to the next stage.
    Honor


    Honor Byford, North Yorkshire
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    You are right Dave, I think I misunderstood the news item. However, if I choose to leave my car on my private drive for a few months because I don’t need to use it until later in the year, why should I tax it, insure it or SORN it? I don’t see the necessity to do any of these except complete the SORN if the vehicle is on my private estate. If it is not on the public road, what am I insuring it against? This seems to me to be a bureaucratic, convoluted way of addressing the inefficiency of the police in policing the roads. Traffic Patrol Officers with the use of ANPR equipment (not available in my day!) will achieve the objective with a programmed strategy of enforcement. Honor’s concept that this new approach will work using the DVLA data base is naive in the extreme. The data base is fine if you are looking for decent law-abiding citizens who take documentation seriously. That is not what we are dealing with here. There is no need for new laws or indeed government employees doing what the police should be doing. Please forgive me for the repetition but to identify the way forward, look backwards.


    Roy Buchanan, Sutton
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    I can see that there are going to be problems with this if it comes to legislation.
    Whilst I agree that uninsured vehicles should not be used on the road there will be circumstances where an innocent gets caught up. Say for example there is an accident and the vehicle is back at the owners house awaiting insurance to view and determine who should pay for damages and through possibly prolonged litigation. After the accident the insurance expires but it is taxed and motd. The owner unaware that he has to sorn a non insured vehicle fails to do so and thus risks a fine and or destruction.

    What a way to go. In my opinion the police have sufficient powers already but not enough of them present on the streets.


    Bob Craven, Lancs
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    There are hundreds of hits a day on uninsured vehicles via ANPR, but no resources to do anything about them. Do I detect a privatisation of insurance enforcement via the DVLA where a contractor arrives and clamps/tows a vehicle as they currently do with unlicensed vehicles?


    Glynn, Preston
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    Honor is absolutely right. The system needs improving.
    I would want to see in addition to this the notification of MOT renewals as per insurance. Driving a vehicle without a current MOT will make your insurance invalidated and the vehicle is then driven uninsured. By informing owners of MOT dates we might have roadworthy insured vehicles on the roads.


    Peter Wilson, Westminster
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    I believe what Roy Buchanan says is true. Why should a private vehicle parked on private land whilst taxed, but not insured, be an ‘offence’? There is only one conclusion: That at some time in the future ALL vehicles that exist in any form anywhere, be it in a barn or in pieces in a loft, will need to pay the government for the ‘privilege’ of being the registered keeper. The state seldgehammer at work yet again. When is enough, enough?


    Derek Reynolds, St Albans.
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    I think the key improvement is intended to be that the detection and notification etc will be undertaken by DVLA from their data base and the police only brought into the final stage of enforcement, which is the only stage at which a warrant card is necessary. It may be that recovery will then be undertaken by private contractors with a police officer attending to oversee as required. This would be cheaper, happen on a more organised and frequent basis and then be an effective measure and deterrent. At the moment the system doesn’t work that well – hence the number of uninsured vehicles on the roads and being picked up on ANPR operations. If this gets them earlier and more systematically it will be welcome.


    Honor Byford, North Yorkshire
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    I think Roy that this would cover an uninsured vehicle parked on private land – which as far as I’m aware currently does not need to be insured. Basically if an uninsured vehicle was on someone’s drive it would need to be SORN’d to avoid an offence. I think the problem will be whether or not the motor insurance database will be reliable by then… Admittedly that would be an interesting insurance claim!


    Dave, Leeds
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    Section 143(2)of the Road Traffic Act 1988 creates the offence of using, causing or permitting a motor vehicle to be on the road without third party insurance. It is a fixed penalty offence carrying a £200 fine. It does not have to be driven. Why is the DfT creating an offence that already exists. There is no need to contact owners by letter and give that person time to get insurance. The PC on the beat makes local enquiries to trace the owner of the vehicle parked outside and when identified reports the owner on the spot having confirmed his details are correct. Failure to trace the owner through enquiries, the DVLA and MIB results in the removal of the vehicle for disposal.(crushing)


    Roy Buchanan, Sutton
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