[UK] Uninsured drivers may have cars confiscated, crushed

seamus

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3552586.stm

Something I would love to see here. People who drive uninsured are more of a risk on our roads than those who are insured. They pick up more penalty points for speeding, and are more likely to be involved in an accident. It's completely ridiculous that someone driving uninsured can be stopped by the Gardai, charged, have all their paperwork sorted out, and the next day, back on the road, driving around uninsured. If someone is willing to drive uninsured, then being stopped for it certainly isn't going to stop them doing it again.

Remove their car, and you remove their ability to continue driving uninsured. They could buy a new car, but if one had the money to continue buying new cars, one would insure themselves.

Obviously, it would need some sort of leeway. To immediately confiscate and destroy someone's car, and then they're later found not guilty, introduces issues.
I would love to see some monstrosity with 18" alloys, an exhaust too big, and a 5 foot high spoiler getting taken and crushed though

dahamsta

It's a ridiculous idea. If the cars are going to be confiscated they should be sold afterwards and the money put towards road repairs and the like. Crushing the cars is just plain childish.

adam

seamus

dahamsta wrote:

It's a ridiculous idea. If the cars are going to be confiscated they should be sold afterwards and the money put towards road repairs and the like. Crushing the cars is just plain childish.

adam

Yeah, I was just dreaming about that boy racer's car getting mangled. Or a big hulking jeep.

Selling them to anyone but the offender is the best outcome.

dcGT

seamus wrote:

Selling them to anyone but the offender is the best outcome.

The episode of the Simpsons where Homer buys Snake's car springs to mind

Would people have a problem buying some scumbag's car and run the risk of the offender hunting their car down ?

DC.

mike65

They reckon a million cars are uninsured so if the campaign hit hard and fast
that would be a hell of recyling problem! The cars that are fit to be driven should be auctioned off to raise funds for the victims of uninsured drivers.

I would make an exception for cars-

with 18" alloys, an exhaust too big, and a 5 foot high spoiler

Mike.

dahamsta

Nah Mike, in those cases you simply revert the car back to stock and forcibly insert all of the mods up the modders arse. Think about it, the bigger the spoiler...

adam

Merrion

The biggest difference would be made by preventing the cancellation of insurance. In the UK what happens is that people buy 12 months insurance and get their MOT disk with it then cancel it and reclaim 11 months premium. If the refund were given in such a way that it could only be passed on to another insurance company or encashed with proof of sale of teh vehicle concerned this would not be a problem.
This "crushing cars" idea is just a way of getting politicians ugly mugs on the television news.

K2

how about crushing the offending drivers along with their cars?

PBC_1966

Saw a brief report about this on the BBC news this morning.

Let's hope that the project is enforced with some common sense and not a storm-trooper approach which ends up affecting innocent people (e.g. What if somebody lends somebody else their car believing him to be insured and it's then discovered he's not? It would clearly be wrong to confiscate the car belonging to an innocent party.)

I agree with other comments on crushing being stupid, but it's typical government hypocrisy. They're already complaining about the problem we have with abandoned and scrapped cars, so they want to add to it? If vehicle are going to be confiscated, then at least sell them on so that others can make use of them, or if the vehicle is unroadworthy and beyond economic repair, let it go to a junkyard so that at least some parts can be recycled and made use of.

Merrion wrote:

In the UK what happens is that people buy 12 months insurance and get their MOT disk with it then cancel it and reclaim 11 months premium.

I think you mean TAX disk. Another way is to take out insurance, wait a few weeks, then claim that the certificate never arrived and have the company send a replacement. You can then send back the duplicate and cancel but still have a certificate in your possession which would satisfy any police document check. It would only be likely to come to light in the event of an accident. (No, I haven't tried it! The idea occurred to me a few years ago after a certificate did go astray in the mail, the company sent a replacement, then the original showed up a few days later.)

If the refund were given in such a way that it could only be passed on to another insurance company or encashed with proof of sale of teh vehicle concerned this would not be a problem.

Can't make it conditional upon sale of the vehicle, because somebody could legitimately be taking a car off the road but not selling it. Perhaps it could be linked to sending in the tax disc for a refund in some way though.

This "crushing cars" idea is just a way of getting politicians ugly mugs on the television news.

Undoubtedly. I think it's another one of Blair & Co.'s ridiculous attempts at trying to convince people that he's "Tough on crime." :rolleyes:

seamus

PBC_1966 wrote:

Can't make it conditional upon sale of the vehicle, because somebody could legitimately be taking a car off the road but not selling it. Perhaps it could be linked to sending in the tax disc for a refund in some way though.

I understand (I may be wrong) that in Britain, if a car is not taxed, the owner will get a knock on the door by the local plod wondering why his car hasn't been taxed or declared as off the road?
So if the system was changed so that a person can only obtain motor tax on a vehicle up to the end of the month that their insurance expires, then the police instantly can spot those who are uninsured, as they'll be untaxed too, and a quick check on any licence number should flash a big "Declared off-the-road" when the thing is blatantly driving in front of them.

To work in Ireland, that would require quite a few changes.

PBC_1966

In the "old days," if you failed to renew your tax nothing would happen, unless the vehicle was spotted on a public highway. It was assumed that if you didn't renew it was because you were taking the vehicle off the road.

If the car was pulled up by the police, then the driver could get a ticket for failure to display a tax disk, plus the usual request to present proof of insurance, MoT certificate etc. at a police station within 7 days if he couldn't produce them on the spot. If the documents were not presented, then a summons would follow.

In the case of a car observed parked somewhere with no tax, certainly they must have sent a cop out sometimes to the registered owner's address. I had such a visit a few years ago about a car I'd just sold a couple of weeks previously, the registration obviously hadn't been updated by DVLC's system.

I'm not quite sure how the details are handled since the introduction of SORN (Statutory Off-Road Notification). According to the govt. advertising, if you fail to either renew or return the off-road declaration now, it's supposed to be an automatic £80 fixed-penalty.

Seth Brundle

and the UK system compares to the Irish one whereby a garda on motor-tax duty along the grand canal in Dublin last week doesn't say boo when my turn comes and he checks the various discs. My tax is out (keep meaning to renew but I feel I currently have better things to do with €850) and I keep forgetting to put up my NCT!
Fair play to ya Muldoon!

Guy:Incognito

seamus wrote:

Selling them to anyone but the offender is the best outcome.

no, offer it back to them at full market price. Then keep taking it off him. I fhe wants to keep buying back the car its his choice. After all its not an offense to OWN a car thats not insured, just to drrive it.

Merrion

Of course the ultimate deterent would be to require garages to ask for proof of tax/insurance/NCT when filling up with petrol - but then it has to be pointed out that this suggestion is related to the amount of Guinness and whiskey I have drunk in the last couple of hours

PBC_1966

Merrion wrote:

Of course the ultimate deterent would be to require garages to ask for proof of tax/insurance/NCT when filling up with petrol

Ah, but you would have to allow people to buy fuel in cans for other purposes. People would just start using 5-gallon jerry cans to get fuel for their untaxed/uninsured car.

Seth Brundle

Merrion wrote:

Of course the ultimate deterent would be to require garages to ask for proof of tax/insurance/NCT when filling up with petrol - but then it has to be pointed out that this suggestion is related to the amount of Guinness and whiskey I have drunk in the last couple of hours

it is not a garages job to enforce the law

Seth Brundle

just thinking about my post above - if this was truly the case then it would not be a publicans job to enforce the smoking ban

Victor

kbannon wrote:

just thinking about my post above - if this was truly the case then it would not be a publicans job to enforce the smoking ban

I'm quite sure garages enforce the smoking ban. It's just tempting fate to have fifteen smokers hanging around the door between the premade barbeques and the petrol pumps.

unkel

kbannon wrote:

a garda on motor-tax duty along the grand canal in Dublin last week doesn't say boo when my turn comes and he checks the various discs. My tax is out

So what happened?

Victor wrote:

I'm quite sure garages enforce the smoking ban. It's just tempting fate to have fifteen smokers hanging around the door between the premade barbeques and the petrol pumps.

Having a smoke and a BIG fry

Seth Brundle

unkel wrote:

So what happened?

"where are you going?"
"Im heading home to Leixlip"
"Grand so!"

unkel wrote:

Having a smoke and a BIG fry

Like the owner of the Maxol near Dodsboro in Lucan?

Merrion

it is not a garages job to enforce the law

Nope - but in a litigiuos society it is not beyond possibility that you could sue the garage that supplied the petrol to a uninsured driver if that driver was then involved in an accident with you....such is the <perverse> nature of things