Safe Speed Forums

How do we encourage the 63% of uninsured drivers, aged between 17 - 30's to pay up.
How do we solve this problem?
Idea:
1) Buy a single 3rd party annual payment (cheap) all pay, then choose additional cover as we require (in fire, theft, comprehensive etc ).
2) Could we place a few pence or even just 1p on fuel to pay for 3rd party only insurance for ALL.

By having all people insured, it alleviates Police time and enables all drivers including the younger drivers a way to get onto the road legally covered, isn't this what it is all about - having everyone covered. Young drivers can then start to confidently drive about and concentrate on the road ahead instead of police location !

What else ?
How else can we record and monitor without placing the onerous on the driver/owner to notify DVLA of insurance.

Do we have to start defending ourselves when the Insurance Company fail to place the paperwork properly, and some people find that they are not covered through no fault of their own. How much time can motorists spend on Court fees and how much time - before they are sacked even !

We need to take a step back and overview this properly this constant persecution of the motorist only encourages a worsening state not an incentive to improve the condition as it fails to properly address this root cause.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Sorry but I don't understand this. You pay your premium, and onc you get the cover note and you are insured.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Are but there have been several cases where the policy has not been put on the insurance database, so when the police check the vehicle comes up as being uninsured.

IIRC there was a case discussed on the forum recently where such an omission on the database left a family with small children stranded on the hard shoulderand the car impounded with fees reaching nearly £500.

The police copped out and blamed the insurer, the driver STILL hade to pay the impound and storage fees and only by the driver conatcting the press did the insurance company settle the bills as an apology.

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In New Zealand (the birthplace of the speed camera), everyone pays into a State insurance based on mileage returns. The exact ins and outs I’m not sure of, but will e-mail my Kiwi pal for the details. But NZ is different, they drive at 15(?) and have a drink drive death rate that would sent the HSE into frenzie!

Hence adding insurance tax to fuel seems a very good idea. Although low risk drivers can’t be differentiated by this, but then low risk drivers’ premiums are surely loaded to recover the costs of the irresponsible at the moment?

Re Insurance database – at times some people get let down by it and it’s often said that you should keep your documents in the car. However I don’t because I fear the car being broken into or nicked altogether. However I came across someone who had photocopies of all their documents, whilst not definite proof I would imagine that the reasonable officer would accept them until you produced the originals.

However if you are stopped and the database says no insurance, the officer should attempt to contact the insurer, although some people genuinely don’t know the name of the insurer if a partner deals with such things. What happens “out of office hours” I don’t know.

Sadly the Pay-as-you-go insurance with satellite technology ceased after lack of public take-up. Whilst the strong objection is the big brother issue, I can see the benefits that it can bring – whilst totally against the recent satellite speed limiting proposals on safety grounds, which is different.

I see that the Government are making the keeping of an uninsured vehicle an offence. This will mean that the registered keeper will be prosecuted for no insurance rather than the driver. Fitzpatrick was at pains to assure people that "if they have a good reason" they will not be liable. Oh yeah? Just look at SORN problems with the DVLA.

I await the details of how this is going to work with motor dealers etc.

Don't they realise that people wanting to evade insurance will simply not register thmeselves as the keeper. The poor last owner will then get threatened. Then there are the inaccuracies in the motor insurance database ...

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Considering that there is currently no legal obligation to insure a motor vehicle (any more than there is to insure a house) I am extremely confused by the purpose of a data-base of insured vehicles.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

With reference to the Motor Insurers Database:
The insurers have told the police that the database should not be used to check whether the vehicle IS NOT insured, only whether there IS an insurance in force on that vehicle.
Following several instances where I was stopped after the check came back blank, I enquired about the situation via my mp.
Next:
The police, in the case where the check comes back blank, will NOT accept a certificate of insurance as proof of same. They assume it is not in force.
Next:
I know of two cases where a vehicle was stopped on the basis of a negative MID check, where the drivers queried the MID at the roadside via mobile phone/inet and showed the result to the officer at the side of the road. In both cases the check came back with insurance in force. So, it seems, MID checks may well be used as justification for a stop where there is no other reason for same.
I recommend that everyone develops the ability to query WWW.ASKMID.COM at the roadside.
And that you also require the officer to fill-in the account for stop and search form.
It's long.
Then you can refuse to sign it on the basis that the reason for the stop/search is a lie.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

I do wish we could stop talking about insuring cars. It is the driver who has to be insured. This is not a subtle or arcane point. I, for example am insured to drive my own car so that the car appears on the MID. But insurance is only in force when that car is being driven by myself or my wife. If my son were to borrow it there would be no insurance in place but the MID check would not spot that. On the other hand I have a friend who had a policy which allowed him to drive any vehicle he owned (with some restrictions). None of his vehicles would appear on MID.

The whole idea of using MID as an enforcement tool is deeply flawed. It was never intended for that purpose.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

The idea of “free 3rd party insurance for all” is no different from simply saying that the taxpayers will fork out for all car crashes. They are equivalent ideas – no difference at all. Paying for your own insurance provides a moral hazard that punishes bad drivers. There is no moral hazard at all with free insurance, so driving would get worse.

Here are some other ideas:

(A) Live with it, but ban the perps for 10 years.

or

(B) If so many are uninsured, we should simply raise the age limit to (say) 25 (!)

or

(C) The assumption should be that drivers under 30 are uninsured, and they should need to carry proof that they are insured.

or

(D) The public/private key infrastructure solution, which is an automated form of option (C). For this, you need to plug a digitally signed certificate into any car in order to start it. The digital certificate will have proof of insurance, and will bind the owner of the certificate to an insurance policy. It would be digitally signed by a trusted insurance company. To prevent the exchange of certificates, biometric data would be contained on it. Moving vehicles will broadcast the authentication status and the biometric match. Any car which fails to broadcast is suspect.

A, B and C are the cheap options. I suspect D is the one we will get eventually, as it can be used for so many other purposes.

To prevent uninsured driving I think the reasons people give are needed to be looked into. Firstly there will be those driving without a licence, those that have been banned and those that can't afford the insurance. It is really only the latter group that would benefit from TP on fuel or similar. What proportion of the uninsured drivers on the roads are those driving on a foreign licence? I think all car purchases should be required to show a valid driving licence and proof of address and that insurance would have to match both. The car trade will just sell to anyone and if you pay cash they say you don't even have to give a correct address!!!

It's the first two that are more worrying. The banned drivers driving is a serious issue and perhaps police need to be instructed to hound these people until they get fed up of having their car crushed. Perhaps all banned drivers need to be tagged and told they can only either at home or a place of work. Anything other location would require permission and would result in prison if they disobey. Slamming all banned drivers that drove while banned into prison would create further problems with prison over crowding. It might be effective if the sentences were harsher eg 2nd time caught driving while banned gave you 3 years inside.

I am surprised the insurance companies themselves aren't doing more about this but I'd imagine it is the riskiest drivers that aren't insured so they aren't bothered.

There is already a TP coverall in form of the MIB so putting the cost of the MIB onto fuel might be a good way of funding it. Using the money from the MIB to catch uninsured drivers and punish them might be a better use of the funds. They could also use some of it to investigate insurance fraud.

I don't think there is a simple solution. Technological ones are complicated and expensive. More roadside ANPR could be used to track movements of uninsured vehicles so they could be easier to catch. But again the more sophisticated criminal will just use the ASKmid thing to check a car the same as theirs is insured and clone the plates. The anpr system should be flagging up vehicles with the same plates being in two places at once as this would be a good way of cutting down on cloning. I don't even know whether any police forces actively cooperate with each other to do this.

This is one (rare) occasion when we in the Antipodes do something better than the Old World!Subject to Lucy's confirmation I believe that the NZ compulsory insurance equivalent is paid out of a levy on fuel. I understand that the (no fault) accident compensation scheme is about rehabilitation and support for the injured and NOT lump sum payouts. In short you are covered for incapacity but your heirs do not profit. Using a fuel levy is a crude nexus with exposure but does not take into account any other risk factors which has both advantages and disadvantages.

In Australia the system is different but still, in my view, better than the UK system (or as it was 42 years ago when I emigrated). The States vary slightly but in principle you cannot re-register (the equivalent of road fund taxing when I was young) your vehicle without having taken out compulsory insurance for the period of registration, usually 12 months. This insurance cannot be cancelled unless the registration is cancelled and the number plates handed in (with provisions for destroyed etc plates). Nominally the insurance is in the name of the owner but if the vehicle is transferred the insurance is transferred to the new owner for the balance of the registration period.

The big advantage of these systems is that if the vehicle is currently registered, which in Australia is evidenced by the presence of a current registration sticker, you and authorities KNOW that compulsory insurance is in force. There is no risk that the insurance has been cancelled, not renewed or covers only specified drivers. Property damage is another issue- you are NOT covered for that automatically.

Until a few years ago in New South Wales the premium was the same for cars (with differences between country and metropolitan areas) whether it was a Ferrari owned by a teenager with a string of traffic tickets or a shopping trolley owned by a 40 year old penalty virgin but this changed, not for equity reasons but to enable the politicians to claim that the headline price of compulsory insurance was low by charging those under 30 much more so we oldies paid less. This disguised the continual rise in premiums which was a reflection on the failure of road safety policies.

The significant issue about insurance is the beneficiary; the injured who needs support is the most important person not who is the nominal holder of the insurance policy. Similarly in my fairly interesting life I have never come across anyone who changed their behaviour because it was they or some other person who paid the premium nor how much it cost.

Insurance companies seem not to have heard of the KISS principle. The system would be more effective if they remembered to "Keep It Simple Stupid"!

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The only thing that should be prohibited is prohibition.

Admittedly this was for a new car, but I was required to produced proof of insurance and full uk driving licence before the dealership would release my new car to me.

Perhaps the second hand dealers should adopt this policy?

Possibly not. The public key encryption solution would solve that as well, of course. I'd guess that secure plates should be the first goal. Everything, e.g. ANPR, depends on that.

I buy small, slow, battered old cars in cheap insurance groups because they are less risky to firms and therefore cheaper to insure. My Peugeot was under a ton this year. I'm frankly amazed that you've never met others who do the same. I also drive them very carefully to protect my no-claims.

The actual words that I used were:-


Quite clearly the subject is driving behaviour not lifestyle. I have, of course, met a number of people for whom low cost was an imperative but this was a lifestyle choice and was apparent in everything they did.

If you wish to quote me please use the full sentence and please do not pick and choose the words to alter the original meaning.

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The only thing that should be prohibited is prohibition.

I thought so. Nobody at all wants high costs. And it is the moral hazard of high costs that should stop us taking poor risks. That's why I am against "free insurance" and other forms of government bailout. We don't want the nanny state "encouraging" people to take road risks. Traffic accidents stats in Australia are far worse than here, and New Zealand's are even more appalling.

Oh, and welcome to the site.

On the car or driver insured.

The car is insured against fire and theft and to be driven by the nominated drivers, each car I drive has a separate policy and it is illegal for a car to have more than one insurance policy on it.

If I was insured then I would have one insurance policy covering me to drive a set of nominated cars. If I want to insure more than one car then I need an NCB for each car even though I can only drive one car at a time.

Perhaps vehicle insurance should split like house insurance, the owner insures a vehicle against fire, theft and vandalism. A driver insures themselves to drive a certain set of nominated vehicles or vehicles up to a certain risk level.

On the uninsured drivers.

Being uninsured does not necessarily make a driver more of a risk, some indeed argue that they drive more carefully to avoid being caught, even though they may be more likely to be a high risk driver. There should be a difference between being caught without insurance and being unable to pay for the results of an incident. If a knowingly uninsured driver has an accident then they should remain banned until they have repaid all costs covered by public funded insurance payouts to the third party, also the burden of proving they were not at fault falls on them. If they are caught without insurance they are banned until they have paid as a fine (into the public insurance scheme) the cost equivalent to insuring themselves for the period they can be proven to have been driving without insurance for. The burden of proving this period has been less than, for example, one year falls to the driver.

Driving while banned should attract a prison sentence unless for extenuating circumstances, e.g. to save a life.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Could you elaborate on that a bit? It seems weird to me.

Well, illegal may not be the technically correct term, however insurance companies certainly suggest this is the case. It may be that having a car insured on two policies makes both policies invalid therefore you become liable to driving uninsured. I think the basis is to prevent claims for loss on more than one policy.

One of the reasons for suggesting the separating insuring the vehicle and driver.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

I am not sure if Motor Insurance is a special case but with property insurance if you have cover with more than one company then each company will only pay a pro-rata part of the claim. It would certainly be illegal to claim the full loss from more than one company without informing the others. That is why there is the question on the claim form about other insurance.

And with some very high value items a single compnay might not be prepared to underwrite the full risk so it would have to be spread btween compamies.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown