Nexuas

I think we are now all aware of the case of the illegal imagrant that ran over and killed the young boy and who was given 6 months for his misdeminer.

During the ITV new report into this last night, they quoted the figure of 1 million unlicensed drivers on the british roads

There are apparnetly IRO 1.2 million untaxed cars

and over 1 million uninsured drivers The cost of this is increasing the average insurance permium by £60 a year.

I have yet to discover the number of cars on the raod without MOT's but I am guessing the number is in the same region?




So I ask you this, would you support the following system?


If all driving license photo-cards contained a smart card micro chip, and on this chip it contain details of the following:-

Driving license
Insurance and that it is valid
MOT for your car
Roadfund tax for your car

Now imagine that everytime you went to the petrol station you had to insert this car into the pump Before it would dispense petrol.


Without petrol you can not drive. It would be harder for people to steal petrol from a petrol station as you have to have a card to obtain petrol. Everyone whould have to pax for tax and insurance and would have to have a valid MOT. Why should I pay £1000 a year to have the above when other people do not?


So would you support a sytem like this? or is this too big brother?

jaycee

Gets my vote! But once you start going this route before you know it you've got to have all the right i.d. just to take a ****.

Jason

Mice_Elf

...and within minutes there would be "clones" out on the market, unless it was very, very highly encrypted.

But there would have to be one system, compatible with the petrol pumps in different stations (not sure if these differ).

It would be harder, yes, but every system is crackable. It would mainly catch out those whose MOT had run out 2 days prior and they'd forgotten or whose tax disc expired yesterday and they were driving in to get it renewed. Simple human error, as opposed to wanton disregard for laws.

That said, I would support any system that would get rid of anyone in this country living illegally, the gang members who import this cheap trade at great risk to the importees lives and anyone who thinks that flauting laws by not insuring / taxing or holding a licence for the vehicle that they drive.

It's just finding one that would catch the hardened element, rather than the forgetful law-abiding citizen.

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

NIce idea but again it would only catch the innocent motorist not tha hardened criminal.

I have nothing to hide so I personally do not care about having a chip in my licence but I recon it will soon be abused by the authorities.

And like the gun and knife amnesties only the innocent will be effected.

Dracoro

How would someone with a petrol lawnmower (or any vehicle that is used on private land) get petrol? You take your petrol can to your local but get refused?

The ideas people have on these issues are well meaning but the most effective (and probably the cheapest all in all) thing to do is to have more traffic police and do away with this stupid campaign against minor speeders. Most the idiots on the road (crap drivers, people in illegal vehicles, joyriders, no insurance/tax/mot-ers etc.) will continue to be idiots on the road unless there's a good chance of being caught by the police. Also, more education on the dangers of the above is required too.

chaos.

Its a $hit idea. Theres already an easy way to clone the new unclonable chip and pin CC's, easier than before apparently.

I don't want the government to know where I am 24/7, they already know too much.

I fkukin hate all this **** country, theres no anonymity anywhere!

screw the majority to **** the minority, as always

Redkop

It just wouldn't work when you own more than one vehicle or have access to drive others

Geezer

What if you got pick pocketed? Stranded somewhere because you can't get petrol through no fault of your own.

No easy answer to this problem, but I don't think this is a viable one.

Geezer

ajm

Completely unworkable mainly due to the fact that, as someone has already ponted out, there are many other genuine uses for petrol other than driving a car on public roads!

Nexuas

Quick question.

Do you purchase items on your credit card or with a debit card? If so then your whereabouts can be known everytime you make a transaction. Do you have a clubcard or nectercard. They know what you buy everytime you go to the shop. What is the problem if you are a law abiding citezen? I don't see what this big fuss about being tracked/invasion of privicy. Just by posting on this website your details are logged and are tracable back to the computer you are using.

The problem I think is arising from people being anonomus, if there was transparency to everything we did then people would not be able to get away with illegal acts?


As for the cloning of cards, well yes that will be an issue, that always will be, as soon as you have the system to make the cards you must have the system to clone the cards. But i am sure less people will have access to card cloning than just not paying tax/insurance.

If you are happy to subsidies the illegal and imoral, then who am I to stand in your way. It is just hacking me off that I have to struggle to pay these things while the rest of the country takes a free ride at my expense.

douglasb

Like the previous posters, I'm in favour of anything that gets the unlicenced/uninsured/no-MOT squad off the road as this has to make the roads safer and also make it cheaper for the law abiding among us.

However, I can see other flaws in your idea. What about company car drivers? (and there are a few million of them) Their normal vehicle could be perfectly legal - insured, probably no MOT necessary as it is likely to be under 3 years old, taxed - but what if they drove into a petrol station in a different vehicle that didn't meet these criteria? The chip says that they are legit, but the car may not be.

Nearly 20 years ago, I was in exactly that position. I had a company car, but also owned a Mini that I used for road rallies. As it happens, both cars were legit, but say I had only taxed the Mini for 6 months and then taken it for petrol while not taxed? If the company car details were the only details on the chipped card then I can still fill up with petrol. OK - record details of both cars on the card and ask for a reg. no. before filling up. That's fine until the car is in for a service and I am driving the courtesy car; or am helping a mate to move house and we've hired a Transit.

More Police concentrating on stopping drivers looking dodgy would seem to be more practical.

Doug

boomer

Q: Do GATSOs stop uninsured drivers?
A: NO!!!

Q: Do GATSOs stop un(road)taxed drivers?
A: NO!!!

Q: Do GATSOs stop unlicenced drivers?
A: NO!!!

Q: Do GATSOs stop drunk drivers?
A: NO!!!

Q: Do GATSOs stop un-MOTed drivers?
A: NO!!!

Q: Do GATSOs stop untaxes drivers?
A: NO!!!

Q: Do GATSOs stop drivers with bald tyres?
A: NO!!!

Q: Do GATSOs stop drivers who drive dangerously (but don't speed)?
A: NO!!!

Q: Do dedicated traffic officers, out there actually on the roads and streets, potentially stop ALL of the above?
A: YES!!!!


FFS, why can't the powers that be - effectively enforce existing laws properly - before resorting to untested (and probably totally useless) technological solutions



mb

OllyK

1) Because we are in a technoligal time and the powers that be feel they have to be seen to be using it if they are promoting it.
2) It saves them money as they need less police, in theory and it makes them shed load in fines.

When everybody has been banned except the problem drivers and accidents have gone through the roof, they may start to realise!

Nexuas

If everyone was paying road fund tax, then the 1 million currently untaxed motorists would genertae in the region of £100million, not sure but I think this will possibly cover the cost?

I like the way everyone is quick to knock an idea they don't disagree with, but very few of you have seamed to suggest an alternative? I don't think more traffic officers is the answer. How much do people moan on here about being wrongly stopped by the police, and moan cause they were given a fine or a producer for an illegal number plate? Traffic can not stop every car if they did there would be uproar. Every car needs petrol THIS IS A FACT(Except diesel and LPG cars) The petrol station seams to be the logical place to check this.



The company car issue.
Issue company cars with a card containing insurance/tax/MOT details and then you have to insert your own driving licene as well.

Lawn movers etc. allow the issue of petrol in small quantities I.e. 5 litres or less, and introduce something like red diesel, so it has a dye in it which can be checked for at MOT time and so pervent the use of this petrol in a car?

Mice_Elf

And the hiring of courtesy cars / transit vans?

This past week I have driven no less than 5 different vehicles. My company car, my personal car, my boyfriend's car, my mother's car and my dad's van.

I can see the benefit with this kind of thing and I don't mind people knowing where I am and what I'm doing - as mentioned I have credit / debit cards, nectar / club cards and a mobile phone which is invarably switched on.

However, the red dye won't stop them filling up in 4 different cans in 4 different petrol stations and then selling the car before its first MOT is due. My parents have a ride-on lawnmower and they often fill up 2 cans for it - one to use straight away and the other to top up, as their garden is too big for 1 can of fuel alone. Would they need to make separate visits to fill up each can?

Like it or not, more physical police are needed on the streets, removing the drunken drivers, the dangerous drivers, the tailgaters etc. Which if nothing else is a start on getting the roads that little bit safer.

douglasb

I don't think this solves the issue mentioned in my earlier post. What would stop a company car driver with another (non taxed) car taking the non-taxed car for petrol but using the company car's insurance/tax/MOT card and their own driving licence?

Technically, the answer would be that the driver would need to punch in the reg no and have this matched by Optical Character Recognition software before the pump would dispense petrol, but the system is now getting more complicated and could encounter resistance from the public because of all the farting around with cards.

Imagine that the company car driver is filling up at Tesco and is using a "Pay at the Pump" petrol pump.
1 Insert "company car" card.
2 Punch in reg no.
3 Wait for this to be verified.
4 Insert driving licence.
5 Insert credit card.
6 Insert Clubcard.
7 At last! I can get some petrol!

The cost of the system has also just increased due to the OCR software. Also, who pays for replacing every petrol pump in the country?

Another question. How does the card get updated when your insurance is renewed? Tax and MOT are easy as the Post Office and garage could update the card when a new tax disk/MOT are issued. If you have to post your card off to the insurance company when your policy is renewed, how do you buy petrol in the meantime?

As the DVLA computer has a record of whether a car is taxed and insured (and will shortly have MOT records as well), camera vans with police on motorbikes to stop offenders seems like a good start. It obviously doesn't provide the 100% monitoring that you want and it also doesn't catch unlicensed drivers or prove that the person driving the car is actually insured to drive it, but it is a move in the right direction.

Perhaps another answer is to hit untaxed/uninsured/un-MOT'd motorists hard by making the fines hurt. £100 plus 4 points for no insurance is hardly a deterrent.

Doug

Nexuas

Not when I have to pay over £700 a year to insure the car. Shame I have morals and believe the law should be followed

Nexuas

Shame with over 300 views more people have not voted?

GaryK

maybe because although its a great idea, thats all it is, you could run a million polls like this on SN but isnt going to change anything is it?

Unless a poll on here reflects a real life proposal then all its going to be is a discussion point, or have I missed something and this is being proposed???

Nexuas

I think Scoobynet gives a good cross section of the motoring public? It has enough members to represent most ages and social groups? Think I was trying to judge peoples veiws before I considered taking the idea further. Was going to see what the feedback was, and try to come up with appropriate answers.

Know your subject.
Do your research.
Improve the idea.

Tell someone who might care....

No scoobynet has not become some goverment ideas testing ground. (Not from me anyway)

Groups like the RAC and the AA do polls like this all the time. The RAC relased the results of one of there polls about a month ago which suggested that most drivers would like to do away with road fund tax and would then accept a small increase in petrol duty. (Of cousre the goverment then overreacted by suggesting a huge increase in petrol duty [20pence per litre iirc]which would affect the average motorist by £350 a year)

My plan just seamed a logical progression from this? I do not want to be one of those people who just moans about these things but never comes up with any soloutions on how to solve the problems.

GaryK

good for you nexuas, like i said a very good idea and I would be all for it.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

It's a good idea, but the system wouldn't really work IMO. Due to 3 things:

Cloned/duplicated/hacked cards -if it is created/coded by humans, it most certainly can be cracked by them.

The easiest: Getting your legit "mate" to fill up the car.

and Stealing, or borrowing a card in order to get fuel. This would be even easier if the system was fully automated (if you swipe the card at the pump).

If the govenment ever did suggest this idea, it would simply be another way to introduce robot enforcement instead of getting more police out on the streets...any automated sytem to prevent crime is useless without proper phyical human enforcement (i.e Speed Cameras).

The only workable solution to these problems as with many other vehicle/crime related problems is simply to get more police patrolling out roads and streets.

Nexuas

I am guessing this would use a similar system to the chip credit cards? Most people now use them, and yes they can be cloned. But as I have said earlier in this thread, you would have to activly go out and get a cloned card rather than just failing to pay tax/insurance and passing a driving test.

Yes there would probably be a black market in stolen cards, but all you would have to do is phone up and report your card stolen and so this would then be cancelled and the card would no longer work in any pumps. This system seams to work fairly well with bank and credit cards at the moment.

Intreasting moral point? The card should relate directly to the car you are filling up, but you are right there is nothing to stop you from filling up the car, driving home draining the tank into an illegal car and then going back and filling up again.

Maybe you need to enter the cars milage at the pump, and this will then build up a database of you petrol consumption, this may then be able to spot any anomilies? As the data base is linked back to the DVLA computer, when you buy a second hand car/or MOT it, they will tell you the last known miles on the clock, and if the car reads under that milage then you know it has been used to steal petrol?

THE POINT THAT YOU ALL SEAMED TO HAVE MISSED SO FAR...

My main concern and the reason I think this system is less likely to work, would be due to the increase in petrol stolen from parked cars, any car without a locking petrol cap would be a game traget for any criminal needing to fuel their illegal car habit...I imagine you would also see petrol tankers being stolen from motorway service stations, and even possibly being stolen from storgae tanks at the more remote petrol stations.

No system is 100% perfect or unflawed but I think we need to take some steps in the right direction. More traffic police may help, but I don't think so. So they stop and unlicensed driver in an uninsured, untaxed car! They crush the car give him a fine (£100 or so) even ban him from driving for 12 months, what does he do? Goes out buys another £50 death trap and goes on his merry way until he is stopped for the next time, and how long will that take 1 month? 6 months? 1 year? Till he kills an inocent motorist/child?

You can not drive without petrol, how else can you stop them?