Crackdown on uninsured driving gets underway

New laws to tackle uninsured driving will be enforced from today.

Under the new Continuous Insurance Enforcement law it's an offence to be the keeper of an uninsured vehicle, rather than just to drive when uninsured.

From today, registered keepers identified as having an uninsured vehicle will be sent a letter telling them that their vehicle appears to be uninsured, and warning them of the consequences if they fail to take action.. Those who don't act on this warning - either by taking out insurance or declaring their vehicle off the road - will receive a £100 fine and could have their vehicle clamped, seized and destroyed. They may also face a court prosecution.

All drivers can check their vehicle is recorded correctly for free at askMID.com

Under the new system:

DVLA will work in partnership with the Motor Insurers’ Bureau to identify uninsured vehicles

motorists will receive a letter telling them that their vehicle appears to be uninsured and warning them that they will be fined unless they take action

if the keeper fails to insure the vehicle they will be given a £100 fine

if the vehicle remains uninsured - regardless of whether the fine is paid – further action will be taken. If the vehicle is on public land it could then be clamped, seized and destroyed; alternatively court action could be taken, with the offender facing a fine of up to £1,000

seized vehicles would only be released when the keeper provided evidence that the registered keeper is no longer committing the offence of having no insurance and the person proposing to drive the vehicle away is insured to do so

Vehicles with a valid Statutory Off Road Notice (SORN) won't be required to be insured.

For more details, visit direct.gov.uk/stayinsured

It is about time something was done about the number of people who do not insure their cars. It will also be a major plus if the insurance companies reflect this by reducing premiums as they are inflated by at least £30 to cover un insured cars.

I also feel it necessary to add that insurance companies should get real on the quotes for 17 year old drivers, £3,000 to insure a £300 car, what are they on?

We were all young once and if I am not mistaken in all my years of owning cars I have never paid more than £500 to insure one, even when I first past my test.

Let's hope things improve and we all make a saving in the future

It is a good idea but still will not able to stop the Cloners.

*Edit*

I fail

Edited 20 June, 201114 yr by TriggerFish

I thought it's the otherway round, it can be insured And untaxed, but can't be taxed & uninsured?

Matt

My bad! It even says: "Vehicles with a valid Statutory Off Road Notice (SORN) won't be required to be insured."

There needs to be a clamp down on SORN as well. People tend to think they can SORN a car and leave it parked outside their house on the public road. The DVLA can give the Police the addresses of all SORN vehicles, and plod can check if and when they pass an address with a SORN listed vehicle.

with insurance up 40% on average this year, regular law abiding drivers are getting reamed, due to the free loading ******s of this country.

I wouldn't even knock at the door, just lift the car and crush it, then summons to court and slap them with a £5000 fine, no exceptions.

Every 7 or 8 months a DVLA van drives round the more deprived areas (i.e chavland), ends up having quite a number of clamped cars on the roads or grass verges lol.

They should make it that each town has their own clamping van that drives round every day, mind you they'd prob run out of clamps on the second day

I also feel it necessary to add that insurance companies should get real on the quotes for 17 year old drivers, £3,000 to insure a £300 car, what are they on?

We were all young once and if I am not mistaken in all my years of owning cars I have never paid more than £500 to insure one, even when I first past my test.

I guess you'd find out when that £300 car hits yours. I need to try harder next year - I'd love to be paying £500 pa & I'm 40+ years past 17!

There needs to be a clamp down on SORN as well. People tend to think they can SORN a car and leave it parked outside their house on the public road. The DVLA can give the Police the addresses of all SORN vehicles, and plod can check if and when they pass an address with a SORN listed vehicle.

They basically do that already, SORN'd vehicles are flagged up on ANPR and DVLA vehicles do scour the streets looking for SORN'd vehicles.

John

I have no issues with them chasing uninsured drivers. I have no doubts it'll do nothing to insurance premiums. An uninsured driver 'charge' is just too good a wheeze for them to give up.

We were all young once and if I am not mistaken in all my years of owning cars I have never paid more than £500 to insure one, even when I first passed my test.

My first car with everything insured in my name was £750, I was about 25 at the time. I remember thinking that wasn't too bad. Insurance never really dropped much for me until I hit 30.

I notice a few quoted comments from my post above, firstly I am 38 years old, the car I insure is a new fabia VRS with my wife as a named driver, I pay £330 ish pounds for fully comp insurance wit Aviva.

Cars I have owned in the past have been Minis', Land Rovers, three 205 GTi's, Cavalier SRi, 405 Turbo diesel, Audi A4 etc and all have been under £500 to insure. I must just be lucky or it is the area I live in or whatever I never understand how insurance companies work out the price to insure.

My brother has an 02 plate hdi 206 pug and that is £540 a year, yet a brand new fabia vrs is £330 begs the question how does car insurance really work?

My brother has an 02 plate hdi 206 pug and that is £540 a year, yet a brand new fabia vrs is £330 begs the question how does car insurance really work?

When I was studying AI we were told insurance companies used neural networks to work out prices which I've never seen definite evidence for but given neural networks are very good at that task and can be unpredictable it's not hard to believe.

Also car insurance isn't just based on the value of your own car, it's a collection of different factors which insurance companies use to calculate the total risk of them having to fork out. That is why even for bangers the insurance is high for teenagers as they're high risk and while their own car may be worth little, if they hit another car that could cost a large amount of money. Not that I'm saying insurance always makes sense, I have a workmate in his mid-30s who had a 55 playe A3 1.6 (base spec) who was paying around £300 with many years no-claims and no points on his license. His older sister who has just passed her test got a quote for £400 living in the same area on a one year old Fiesta which my workmate was a bit miffed by.

John

So your now not allowed to park a taxed car on your drive if its not insured

So your now not allowed to park a taxed car on your drive if its not insured

If the cat is taxed it must have insurance. Doesn't matter where it is.

What is the problem with that?

If you don't want to use it or keep it on the road you declare it SORN!

Just sounds like another money making idea to me, another way to make money out of motorist,

I dont believe its the way to sort the problem of uninsured drivers on road, i bet half of uninsured cars are sorn'ed anyway and not even taxed,

The people with uninsured cars dont care about the law so there not going to care about a letter from dvla are they