2011 - A bad year for uninsured
drivers?
03 Jan 2011
by Donald MacKenzie
This is the first in a nine part '2011 predictions series' looking at
how key car insurance-related issues and stakeholders will do during
2011.
Many of the UK's two million uninsured drivers will have entered the
New Year blissfully unaware that things are about to change for them as
the Government brings in continuous insurance enforcement from early
2011.
Now, if you are the registered keeper of a car and your vehicle is not
declared SORN with the DVLA but you have no car insurance,
you will
recieve a letter requiring you to rectify the situation. If you do
nothing, penalities start with a fine of £100 with a range of
sanctions available including fines of up to £3000 or seizure and
destruction of your car.
In effect, you will get one change to 'wise up' to the new realities
but if you re-offend, you could lose your car. It is the latter penalty
that will stop these individuals from further uninsured driving as many
choose to drive even when penalty points have led to suspension of
their driving license. Remove their car and they won't quickly have the
means to reoffend.
Declaring your vehicle SORN but then driving it will not work either as
roadside numberplate recogniton technology will soon sniff you out.
One way to continue to dodge car insurance would be to clone the
numberplate of another car that's the same colour, make and model while
declaring your own SORN. This could make it more difficult to detect
uninsured drivers but this form of deception would lead to heftier
penalties when it did come to light and greatly increases the risk of
seizure of your car.
So is 2011 a bad year for uninsured drivers? Well, not as bad as it
could have been if first offence sanctions bit harder but there is no
doubt that repeat offenders will be hit hard and that is where
continuous insurance enforcement will begin to exert its desired
effect. It could take two to three years for the message to emerge that
uninsured driving is unwise and self-defeating, but it should gradually
happen.
We won't eliminate all these uninsured drivers overnight but there is
every reason to expect their numbers to drop substantially over this
period.
comment...
The 2011 predictions series:
2011 - A bad year for
uninsured
drivers? (above)
2011
- A bad year for the cost of car insurance?
2011 - A bad year for car insurance claims
lawyers?
2011 - A bad year for claims
management companies?
2011 - A bad year for young drivers?
2011 - A bad year for convicted drivers?
2011 - A good year for price
comparison sites?
2011 - A good year for car insurance
companies?
2011 - A good year for greener motoring?
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