Safe Speed Forums

I agree, in fact I'd go as far as to say that the simple reason is a desire to automate the detection of insurance offences, which simply cannot be done under the current legislation.

Furthermore, as it stands, the claimed "public friendly" justification for ANPR - ie that it detects uninsured drivers - is bunk, and it can only be a matter of time before the public cotton on and realise that it is simply an excise revenue enforcement system, albeit with a useful mass surveillance side effect.

If they close the "other vehicles" loophole then this in turn plugs this gap, and if they do it quickly enough then hopefully the public will never twig. Meanwhile, the insurers will be "on side" as this change does of course increase their margins.

_________________
CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Of course none of this ANPR stuff will detect the driver who is driving a car that is insured but not for him to drive.

The young driver who is driving his parent's car etc

I know it's slightly off topic but I noticed the text below on this website, it's written down the right hand side of the page.

1 in 5 families will experience an accident this year

Are your loved ones fully covered?

Your motor insurance covers your car but not you or your family. If you have an accident, the chances are you will face losses not covered by your motor insurance policy including your policy excess, hire charges, loss of earnings and legal expenses incurred as a result of your claim. For less than £3 a month family crashguard membership covers all your losses and provides full roadside assistance to any family member in any car anywhere in Europe right at the accident scene.

My bold, surely that statement is incorrect? and they're just after another £3.00 per month.

_________________
Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

I'm surprised no one has yet raised the issue of companies block insuring (so no one car has a particular driver linked to it) or indeed covering the cars themselves in the event of any claims, which I believe is legal?

Not that it makes much difference - only further backs up the point that the driver needs to be insured to drive a particular car, there is no requirement for the car itself to be insured, so that the car could not be insured and yet the driver is covered, or vice versa - the former gets stopped, the latter gets away with murder

Ian

Perhaps the reason people are getting hot & bothered, is the fact that the police can impound a vehicle because they 'suspect' it may have no insurance, the owner then has the inconvenience and cost of retrieving that vehicle, the police saying it's not their fault - it's the insurer's, for not keeping their database up to date.

Well, that's not acceptable to me.

If I'm 100% legal on the road, why the hell should I have to pay for someone else's mistake?

_________________
Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

I wonder, Stephen, if you could give us a view as to the likelyhood of your impounding a car you discover in the following situations? In each case you stop a car late at night following a ANPR check showing no insurance and the single occupant has good ID - say a passport. The ID shows that the driver is the keeper of the vehicle in situations 1 and 2 but not in 3 and 4.

1. Driver produces a seemingly valid insurance certificate for this car only a few days old (maybe just not made it to the database yet - 7days?).

2. Driver produces a seemingly valid insurance certificate for this car some months old.

3. Driver produces a seemingly valid insurance certificate for another car and it allows the driver to drive other cars third party only.

4. Driver cannot produce a certificate but is able to give you the registration of a car he has insured, the certificate of which allows him to drive any other car. ( Does the database allow you to see if the "drive any other" option applies or would you just assume it did?)

Are there any circumstance when you would now just issue a "producer" like the old days when all driving documents could safely be left at home?

Sorry if this sounds a bit third degree. I want to keep the yobs off the street as much as anyone but not if it results in legal car being impounded without their being some automatic redress.

Everyone seems to be missing the point, I mentioned in one of my previous answers that I / we will make dilligent enquiries with whoever you say you want us to make enquiries with to show that the vehicle or you have Insurance.

The scenarios that you present Stormer are out of office hours, then a note of the policy details and company are recorded along with a thorough check of the policy to make sure that all the details on it are correct, especially the reg as this is the single most common mistake by Insurance companies and this is why it is not on the database.

We make enquiries with the insurance company and more often than not the ones with the policies a few months old have cancelled it and not returned the policy and just keep showing it, so they get reported for No Insurance .

I repeat if you are a law abiding motorist and you can give all the basic details to us at the time ie who you are insured with or the reg no of the other car you say you covered to drive in then no problem.

HO/RT/1s are virtually becoming a thing of the past as most of the documents required to produce are or should be on the PNC ie D/L Insurance and MOT.
Stephen

Sorry, Stephen, but AFAICT you are missing my point.

The rules allow you on suspicion that a vehicle is uninsured, to impound that vehicle and if the owner (not the driver, and hence not the person who would be guilty of an offence) cannot prove to your (not a court of law's) satisfaction that the car is insured, you (the police) without requiring higher authority (such as a court of law) can have that car destroyed.

Again AFAICT, if your suspicions are wrong, the owner is not entitled to compensation and, to add insult to injury, must pay to get his property back even though it was morally wrongfully confiscated. There also exists the possibility that a blameless individual could be permanently deprived of his vehicle and would not be compensated for the morally wrongful penalty, that could amount to tens of thousands of pounds, levied upon him.

In addition, the confiscation of property amounts to imposition of criminal penalty without due process in a court of law. At the very least, this is contrary to the spirit of the ECHR because the penalty is imposed without fair trial.

It stinks.

Now this is not a personal attack against you, or indeed any member of your profession; it is an expression of my disgust at yet another poorly planned piece of legislation so typical of the present government. They see something that they want to address and then don the metaphorical blinkers and don't consider the side effects, which are often worse than what they wanted to cure in the first place.

_________________
Will

We can't have it both ways. We don't want uninsured drivers on the road so we need to give the police powers to stop any they catch. Yes there is some room for error. So we have to rely on the police to exercise discretion and judgement. That's also what we're asking for in relation to speed enforcement. Let's give them a chance before we criticise them for mistakes or misjudgements they haven't yet made.

I think the fear is that ANPR will develop to a point where the police's discretion will be removed and automatic enforcement will follow.

I'm willing to give them a chance, but I want to see a mechanism in place to properly compensate anyone who is wrongfully penalised when the police get it wrong. After all, what have the authorities to fear from putting such measures in place. If, as Stephen claims, the police use all due dilligence and do not make mistakes then they have nothing to fear from a duty and obligation to properly compensate anyone so wronged.

_________________
Will