1 in 14 drivers in Ireland uninsured

IrishZeus

So apparently just over 7% of all drivers are now uninsured in Ireland.

The figures are calculated by comparing the number of registered vehicles to those which have insurance.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2016/1219/839842-uninsured-drivers-motor-insurance/

This seems like a huge figure - I never would have thought it to be so high but given the cost of premiums, it was always going to drive up the rate of the uninsured.

Is there any way to tackle this, other than some form of regulation to decrease policies? There will always be chancers who won't pay, but perhaps lower premiums/harsher penalties would be a good start?

CJhaughey

Without reasonable insurance rates the amount of people chancing to drive uninsured will increase.
They can shout and beat their chests but the simple fact is that insurance is rapidly becoming optional and not legally.
Many insurers won't insure >15yr old cars. Where does that leave people that have a car that is that age or older and do not wish to buy a new car?
The MIBI mouthpiece was on morning ireland talking about introducing ANPR which is an even bigger waste of time.
There will not be enough cameras ever to cover the whole country and instead of dealing with the root cause which is exorbitant premiums they want to try and introduce expensive and unworkable systems that still won't work.

neris

The government won't do anything. They don't like to upset big businesses and their pillaging of the little guy. The way premiums are going the number of uninsured drivers will increase by next year.

CalamariFritti

Unfortunately more people driving uninsured is not going to do anything to drive insurance cost down, quite the opposite. I don't want to sound like someone from the high horse brigade (actually I don't think there is a high horse when it comes to insurance), but insurance is not optional. If you cant afford insurance, you can't afford to drive. And while I know about poor public service infrastructure and all that, driving is not an entitlement.

Edit: Insurance companies are sht1s, fair enough. But the comparably lax attitude to tax, insurance and combo culture is now coming back to bite us. There has to be an attitude shift. No insurance is not a thing that deserves responses like 'snitches get stitches' or some nonsense like that. Enforcement has to be strict. Its a serious matter. Same goes for the silly claims and the massive repair bills when garages know its an insurance claim. The problem is to a large degree our own fault. Not individually as I believe its a monitory ruining it for most, but as a whole. The driving community needs to acknowledge that driving requires a large degree of maturity and responsibility. There just has to be an overall shift of attitude.
What the government can do is not really taking the insurance companies on a leash, maybe a little bit, but what the government can do is set priorities on enforcement

Wanderer78

neris wrote:

The government won't do anything. They don't like to upset big businesses and their pillaging of the little guy. The way premiums are going the number of uninsured drivers will increase by next year.

Ah you d never know, they might just be getting into the spirit of things, it seems like when the going gets tough, they just 'interfere with the market'. Patience

CJhaughey

CalamariFritti wrote: »

Unfortunately more people driving uninsured is not going to do anything to drive insurance cost down, quite the opposite. I don't want to sound like someone from the high horse brigade (actually I don't think there is a high horse when it comes to insurance), but insurance is not optional, if you cant afford insurance, you can't afford to drive. And while I know about poor public service infrastructure and all that, driving is not an entitlement.

I know its not optional but in the current climate where insurers just bend people over and don't bother with lube come renewal time what do you expect?
I have never driven uninsured. Ever. But I do understand that with the way insurance is run with minimal oversight or indeed control that uninsured drivers will increase as insurance becomes unattainable or unaffordable.
ANPR as touted by the MIBI will solve some problems in Cities and on main roads but the ANPR van will never see most rural roads as the money just isn't there to be got for the Govt.

hi5

And the higher premium prices go the more people will drive without insurance.
Whats the worst that can happen?
So you lose your licence and they take away your cheap car, but what good is a cheap car and a licence to you if you can't afford the insurance anyway, you might as well take a chance and keep driving, you might never get stopped.
That's the way many people will see things?
I hate to say it but it might actually be the catalyst that gets something done about the mad insurance price rises.

myshirt

How about 10 years off the road, and an attachment order to any earnings or income you have for the same period; take money from you, week on week, every week, until you f#cking learn.

Cee-Jay-Cee

They need to start making the punishment for the offence of driving without insurance tougher. They need to link court fines to PPS numbers and increase the fines to the point where people won't risk it. Hit them with a €2000 fine payable through their salary or social welfare or against their business for self employed and make it payable within a short space of time (6 months maximum) No deferments, no increase in time and no option to stop payments. Take it at source every week/fortnight.

Nothing drives home something like hitting a person in the pocket, Irish people don't understand anything else. No amount of public education or pleas will work but take money off them and you have their immediate attention.

Banning people from driving is ridiculous. They obviously don't care in the first place so telling them they can no longer drive means nothing to them anyway. Heavy fines is the only way.

Wanderer78

myshirt wrote:

How about 10 years off the road, and an attachment order to any earnings or income you have for the same period; take money from you, week on week, every week, until you f#cking learn.

Sounds very similar to sending people to jail, I.e. very unlikely it 'll work

SteM

After receiving our annual 20% bend-over-and-take it increase this morning I'm beginning to see why more people are chancing their arm.

seamus

They need to start interlinking all of these databases and ANPR. Camera detects your car on the road and you've no tax/insurance/NCT - your court date is in the post.

Resources as usual are the issue. If they had more Gardai, they would have the ability to follow up on notifications from insurers that an insurance policy has been cancelled and pay a house visit to the vehicle owner.

As it is there is more than enough information to produce a weekly report of all vehicles in the state which have not been declared scrapped or off-the-road and are missing insurance/tax/NCT. Just a lack of joined up thinking to put it together. As usual.

El Horseboxo

No surprise given the high cost of insurance. I'm here for the Christmas and was walking around Blanchardstown shopping center parking lot and seen an unbelievable amount of out of date insurance discs when walking through. And not by a time period where they might be still awaiting a disc. I'm talking months. A 2 year old BMW 520 had been up since January. Spend that much on a car but can't insure it. If still driving around thwy have obviously never hit a checkpoint. Maybe that's luck. I've been here 5 days now and hit 2 of them.

GreenFolder2

It should be automatically enforced. If you don't have insurance and you don't have proof the car's off the road, you should be getting a knock on the door. This nonsense of checking printed discs in windows is straight out of the 1950s.

The state also needs to tackle the cost of insurance though. It's absolutely insane and the causes need to be identified and dealt with - whether that's fraudulent / inflated claims or lack of competition between insurers, it has to be addressed.

The reality is Ireland is one of the most car dependent countries on the planet, and by allowing insurance rates to get this astronomically high, you are causing individuals and families genuine hardship and driving social exclusion and lack of employment opportunities.

Oodoov

Jailing people and sending them fines they can't afford, yeah that'll work. Look most people who are driving uninsured at the moment (and i know of two personally) are doing so for a single reason and that's the ever increasing price of insurance. Make the rates affordable and people will pay it. Make them unaffordable and this is the result. Public transport isnt an option for most either so the "well they'll just have to take the bus" option is a non starter also.

This not insuring of car from an insurance company once they are over 15 years old is also a massive problem to many people on lower incomes like myself as i don't have the money to go out and buy a newish type car. Oh and i can almost guarantee those figures are on the conservative side. 1 in 14 is more like 1 in 5 round my way.

Oodoov

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

They need to start making the punishment for the offence of driving without insurance tougher. They need to link court fines to PPS numbers and increase the fines to the point where people won't risk it. Hit them with a €2000 fine payable through their salary or social welfare or against their business for self employed and make it payable within a short space of time (6 months maximum) No deferments, no increase in time and no option to stop payments. Take it at source every week/fortnight.

Nothing drives home something like hitting a person in the pocket, Irish people don't understand anything else. No amount of public education or pleas will work but take money off them and you have their immediate attention.

Banning people from driving is ridiculous. They obviously don't care in the first place so telling them they can no longer drive means nothing to them anyway. Heavy fines is the only way.

So taking money from people who don't have it in the first place. Okay good luck with that. Take it from their wages okay let's try that. Besides the fact legally you can't at present but let's say you do then the person now can't afford their rent or mortgage and they have no home then the onus falls upon the state to house them costing the taxpayer money or should we let them live on the street?

Maybe they can't afford the tax on their car now so they continue to drive anyway. Now you've fined them this amount the school no longer get's that voluntary 200 euro contribution every year from them putting more pressure on the education system. Just some small examples but there are many others.

People need cars to get on with their lives. They need it to get to work, get the kids to school, get the shopping, get the 80 year mother to hospital twice a week for dialysis (like i do) etc..

The ball is in the insurance companies court now but i fully expect the cartel to continue with the government putting their pals first ahead of the people.

seamus

Oodoov wrote: »

Jailing people and sending them fines they can't afford, yeah that'll work.

Very easy to not get fined for not having insurance. Don't drive without it.

This "I need to drive but can't afford insurance" is a nonsense excuse. If these people really thought about a solution they'd find it. But playing the poor mouth is easier than actually making real sacrifices.

b_mac2

A lot of communism in this thread.

If you can't afford it, don't fućkin drive. I'd laugh in to anyone's face, if they tried justify driving without insurance because they can't afford it.

Tazio

I know... get TV license inspectors to chase motor insurance?

You have to buy insurance once a year... up to you to prove you don't have a car.

Works for TVs.

Seriously... always wondered if 3rd party insurance could be worked into motor tax system somehow? Roll to the lot into fuel excise? If you drive you have basic state 3rd party insurance.. It's up to you if you want to buy comprehensive, break down assist etc etc...

punisher5112

Why can't we have a minimum type premium system where you insure yourself and not the car.

If it were reasonable then it would be in everyone's interest to insure themselves.

Also 3rd party only cover across the board and obviously pay extra if you want the rest.

Put tax,nct and insurance in one and if needed add cost to fuel for insurance as more you drive more you pay in.

Lots of ways it could change and claims are way too high but they always have been.

Minimum and max limits need sorting for claims.

hi5

The problem for many people is that they could afford it but then they got a bill for double what they were paying last year, they didn't expect this and therefore didn't make provisions.
Many people live from week to week and have nothing left at the end of the week, they don't have the spare cash.
These type of shocks should not happen in a well run country... and then you've got rent rises too!

Atlantic Dawn

The fine needs to be at a minimum double what the drivers minimum insurance quote would have been. There's plenty of court fines of less than €500 which is far less than a years cover would have been to start with. The vehicle should also be forfeited to the state and sold at auction to cover costs.

CJhaughey

punisher5112 wrote: »

Why can't we have a minimum type premium system where you insure yourself and not the car.

If it were reasonable then it would be in everyone's interest to insure themselves.

Also 3rd party only cover across the board and obviously pay extra if you want the rest.

Put tax,nct and insurance in one and if needed add cost to fuel for insurance as more you drive more you pay in.

Lots of ways it could change and claims are way too high but they always have been.

Minimum and max limits need sorting for claims.

Already done, NZ have this type of system.
Problem is that there is no money sloching around for the Govt to dig into and get their cut from.

Jayop

Seems like an idiotic way to calculate that.

jacksie66

This post has been deleted.

goz83

punisher5112 wrote: »

Why can't we have a minimum type premium system where you insure yourself and not the car.

If it were reasonable then it would be in everyone's interest to insure themselves.

Also 3rd party only cover across the board and obviously pay extra if you want the rest.

Put tax,nct and insurance in one and if needed add cost to fuel for insurance as more you drive more you pay in.

Lots of ways it could change and claims are way too high but they always have been.

Minimum and max limits need sorting for claims.

It's listed in the Book of Quantum, last updated in October this year. There are minimums and maximums covering most types of injury. What it can't cover is a persons loss of earnings. Take someone earning 50k per year and they are 30 years old, who lets say for arguments sake will earn 50k per year for the rest of their working lives (assuming they retire at 65).....you now have 35 years worth of salary if that person has been injured in a way that they can never work again. Lets ignore the fact that they are suffering and can't live a normal life, or interact with their kids in the same way as an able bodied person. The loss of earnings is 1.75million.

Yes, it's an extreme example but is exactly why there should NOT be a limit. A person is entitled to be compensated, insofar as it is possible, to the level they would have been at, had it not been for the negligence of another. You can't give a person back their health if they have been seriously injured, so the only form of compensation is unfortunately a monetary one.

There is no excuse for driving uninsured. I deplore insurance rates myself, but the answer can't be to drive uninsured.

duffman3833

I can see why so many people drive uninsured, to legally have a car on the road now a days without evening owning the car is probably at least 1000. That included tax (cc rates not Co2) and insurance. While people who can afford newer cars pay less tax and less insurance all because they can afford a newer car, how is that fair?

GreenFolder2

jacksie66 wrote: »

I lived in New Zealand and my insurance on a 3.0 v6 was 120 dollars for the year, about 90 euro. Road tax on that car was around 100 also.
I came back home a couple of months ago and I'm paying 1500 euro a year in insurance and over 600 in road tax. It's disgusting..

It's down to the size of claims (many if which have to be inflated) the convoluted and expensive legal system for civil cases.

The insurers and the state need to sort this out.

It's also fairly clear there's lack of competition issue.

Oodoov

I know let's triple the cost of insurance in a short few years just after the worst recession in decades (which is still ongoing for most) and then act all "concerned" that people are driving without insurance.

Owryan

Wouldn't have thought it was that high but purely from my own observation i would guess 1in5 of the cars in my college car-park have out of date insurance/tax discs or drive unaccompanied. And speaking to those in my year they don't see an issue with it. When you consider for most of them they will need clean licences when they graduate it is scary.

Renegade Mechanic

IrishZeus wrote: »

So apparently just over 7% of all drivers are now uninsured in Ireland.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2016/1219/839842-uninsured-drivers-motor-insurance/

This seems like a huge figure - I never would have thought it to be so high but given the cost of premiums, it was always going to drive up the rate of the uninsured.

Is there any way to tackle this, other than some form of regulation to decrease policies? There will always be chancers who won't pay, but perhaps lower premiums/harsher penalties would be a good start?

The problem here is money. And no penalties in the world matter when money starts drying.
Many families in Ireland have less than 20 or 30 quid a month after "existence" bills are paid.

Insurance goes up enough and you have to choose between feeding the Quinns (I know, I know...) and feeding your kids/yourself. Kids win every time.

But here's the thing, it's like losing your license. Yeah, yeah, you shouldn't have but now youre here, without a licence. The world doesn't care. It expects you in work on Monday. So you have to go. If you can't bum a lift for the next few years, you drive. Only now, without a licence there is absolutely no point in insurance, tax, nct or even basic vehicle maintenance because the second you crash/are stopped, you're done anyway.

Same with insurance, people who quite literally have to choose between it and things like household tax, tv licence, Johnny's medical bills and various other expenses are giving insurance the boot. And with that gone, things like road tax and the rest fall off too. I don't get how people don't understand why this is the case for thousands of people - and will be the case for a hundred thousand more quite soon.

Though ironically enough, uninsured drivers are by and large the most careful and alert drivers for obvious reasons...