boomer

TG might be crap these days, but tonight they had an article on the number of folks who drive _without_ car insurance.

Figures that stick in the mind are that the average car insurance is GBP350, and yet the average fine for driving without insurance is GBP150.

Now why does that get me angry

mb

Mick

iTrader: (1)

Ludicrous

Mick

pslewis

Wooooohooooooo!!!!

Just sent my Certificate back!!!!

Only joking - the scumbags should be banged up - imagine if one wipes out your family??

They tend not to have tax or a licence either!

About 7 years ago my daughter, little as she was then, marked out a hopscotch board in chalk on the pavement and played for a few hours with the other kids. We then went out to the river in the boat, came back and a car was embedded in the neighbours porch, a skid mark ran over the chalk hopscotch board, the youth ran off but was caught.

The police arrived, he had been banned, had no insurance, bought the car for £50 in the pub, had not registered it, it had no tax, it had no MOT, he was drunk, could have killed 5 kids and the police said he will get a slapped wristie but will NOT change!!

Now, this may go down badly, but I would execute the b4stard!! he will be a drain on society for his life .... sorry, rant over!

Pete

ChrisB

With you all the way on that one Pete.

Chris.

AWD

That young toerag who spoke about 4 of his friends (out of 7) driving without insurance, and saying that as long as you are careful and don't hit anything why bother.

What a moronic statement! Makes me mad!!!

Markus

Driving without insurance, grrrrrrr

This get's me really mad. I pay out a fortune to insure my car, yes, it's quick, yes, it's modified, yes I'm young(ish). however, I actaully pay insurance, so why should these little ******* get away with it.

I would say ban them from driving, but they'd still get in a car regardless.

i would say, bang them up, but they'd get in one of these nice local prisions where they get TV, snooker rooms, all mod cons, plus they probably get on one of those courses teaching you how to fix cars, all at our expense.

There needs to be stronger measures for being caught without insurance, knee-capping would be a good start.

RonaldoH

This is unreal!

I have some mates, who don't earn shed loads of money-have cars that are run of the mill and they are so well looked after- Tax'd, MOT'D, Insured without a question- I even offer to get them the best quotes come renewall time.

Driving with out insurance should be something that the Police really take up with motorists- Screw speeding, £60.00 on the spots for failure to produce in 7 days-a summons follows that anyway. But get this, you get tugged in a car, you have No licence, No insurance, No Mot and your in your mates car that you borrowed. You get tugged by a Panda Car in a town, they give you a producer- And all of a sudden your off up the road still with No licence, Insurance, MOT.... :eek Basically, people get away with Blue Murder.

The insurance/tax disk point is the best idea I have heard this year! Without a doubt!

The world we live in is scum, proper scum.

Ronnie

DavidLewis

What carries the largest fine/penalty

Driving without road tax,
Driving without MOT,
or Driving without Insurance

I bet I can guess. I'll be the one that generates most money for the Government!!!

Dave T-S

Still, speaking as an insurance industry employee (NOT motor..), it makes a change from the usual "all insurance companies are robbing ba5tards" thread

My suggestion, insurance disk to be displayed in the window, anybody not displaying it is nicked but also has the car instantly confiscated as leverage against the fine.....if the fine is bigger than the car they pay the full fine and get the car back, or lose the car towards the fine if they don't pay it.

Prison is no good because it costs up to £40,000 a year to keep someone in jail then we all pay more in higher taxes....Mr Honest ends up paying for the dodgers twice.....

wrx

No insurance = prison for a month there and then on the spot.

But the goverment makes no money this way, so it'l never happen.

robski

I work in the industry and so does my wife. She used to work on a section that chased people up for recollection of debts. Its (as per usual) a little more complicated that top gear made out last night, but a lot of uninsured drivers will spend the rest of their lives paying off potentially massive debts, or being chased through the courts.

Im sure after last nights episode people will be encouraged to not have insurance, not the other way round.

Same old ****e though, who would you expext to be looking after this for us? Government and the police. Well its likely to cost more money to chase and prosecute the drivers so Government dont want to do it. Police are too busy catching speeders so they get a cut, to want the hastle of more serious road traffic violations.

Sad sad country we now live in



robski

XRS

Why don't we have to display an insurance disc like the tax disc? I know it wouldn't deter all of them , but at least it would be a start. After all, it's a few years since insurance certificates were issued with no registration number, so you would think it wouldn't be too difficult to send out a disc at the same time.

Jerome

I'm all for the insurance disk idea. How many people walk past a car and notice the road tax is out of date and report it? Not many. If a car had an insurance disk that had expired, I for one would be the first to call the Police.

While we're (sort of) on the subject of people getting away with little or no penalty, a few years back, a mate of mine's younger brother was seriously injured when a rear passenger in his mates car that crashed. He was later declared brain dead and had his life support switched off. The guy driving had been speeding in the rain, with 3 bald tyres, and overtaking through a set of traffic lights when he lost control. He span and hit the kerb. The car flipped and hit a large tree 10 feet in the air. He had also had "a few" pints before driving. The driver and front seat passenger only survived because they weren't wearing seat belts and were thrown from the car.

The next day, as his mate lie dying in hospital, I saw this reprobate driver complaining about writing his car off.

This guy decided to do a runner to Spain to avoid prosecution. They prosecuted him in his absence for careless driving. He couldn't be convicted by the court of a more serious offence because he needed to be there in person. His punishment - 4 points and a £75 fine. He came back from Spain after 6 months or so.

One rule for decent people, another for scumbags. Makes me sick.

Dave P

XRS,

Totally agree mate. This is common in both France and I think Portugal.

Opportunity for the EU to bring in a sensible law........ but there we go.

Dave P

polarbearit

I agree the disc I idea is in theory good, but if they have no tax (also a disc, and one which must have an insurance certificate to get) then I guess they wouldn't be bothered about not having the insurance disk either. Maybe the disc like those on german reg plates are the way to go, at least they are highy visible!

Yep, and make the fine £5000 or something, not that they could afford to pay it!

SDB

I personally thought that article was one of the most irresponsible things I've ever seen.

It was basically a sensationalised advert for not insuring you car.

I know there was a message of "government, get it sorted out", but the guy was practically laughing all the way through it.

There wasn't one mention of the possible problem if you have a crash without insurance, and how you could effectively be paying off that debt for the rest of your life, etc.

Such a shame.

just my thoughts

Cheers

Simon

chiark

The thing that made me laugh was their incessant use of Bloodhound Gang music. We had "The Inevitable Return of the Great White Dope", which starts "like a ******* here it is in a nutshell", but they cut it down it "here it is in a nutshell". Still, suitable title for the scum interviewed.

Followed by "most likely to suck", and then the immortal "ballad of Chasey Laine".

The guys who got those tracks agreed must have been wetting themselves.

Back on track, it was an advert for not insuring your car - in the worst, it'll cost you 150 quid and 9 points, but hey! If you don't have a license, who cares???

[This message has been edited by chiark (edited 04 May 2001).]

Andy Hall

My brother was spun off the M3 last year by an oik with no insurance. No one was hurt (miracle) but his Cerbera was border line write off (but rebuilt). The repairs were paid for by a fund which all insurance companies pay into to cover this type of thing. Yep we all contribute to this in our premiums.

Andy

Steve vRS

To quote the late Kenny Everett

Round 'em up

Put 'em in a field


AND BOMB THE B4ST4RDS!!!

Just my intellectual appraisal of the situation.

Steve

DavidRB

In my opinion, we have the discs the wrong way around.

There are three legal documents you need to drive a car, Insurance, MOT and Road Tax. Insurance covers you for an accident, MOT says your car is roadworthy, yet we only have to display the "beaurocratic" Road Tax on our windscreens.

You should have to display a valid Insurance disc and MOT disc (or expemption for new vehicles) on your windscreen and the Road Tax could just be added to your Insurance bill (or even onto the price of petrol! ).

I had no idea the fine for driving uninsured was so little. No wonder people feel there's no point.

Mad Max

Well, just a bit of my thoughts here in Portugal...

The situation here is about the same, or even worse...

Most people that are in the situation of no insurance, driver's license, etc, are also in personal bankrupcy, which means that even if the fine was £10.000, the court would have no effect... they have no belongings, no job, no nothig !!! Its' descusting the way they get away with it...

Prisons are packed, and therefore there's a lot of people getting away with pretty serious offences... Especially those related to debts...

My Girlfriend is a lawyer, and she comes home desperate with the kind of stories she hears... EX: This guy goes to the north of the coutry, to some kind of luxury hotel, then claims he had to get back because his mom was sick, claims he sent a cheque with the payment, but from an account that isn't his, and therefore he can't get the proof of payment, but in the meantime he has 2 law suites regarding debts in a local superstore (also cheques)... Do you smell the bull ?

+, he lives at his mom's, has no job or belongings... What can the courrts do ? I say LOCK HIM UP !!!

I bet he is one of those guys that drive with no insurance and I would RUN OVER if he hurt any of my family... Damn, how irresponsible can people get ?

The stats here are a lot scarier than in the UK...

At least here we have to display all 3 disks ! Problem is all of them are pretty easy to attain on the black market... Damn !!!

[This message has been edited by Mad Max (edited 04 May 2001).]

Tom Evans

Couldn't believe that the fine was only £150. What sort of deterrant is that?

You can therefore see why people, especially those in teens or early twenties, don't bother with insurance.

Suppose you have an old banger as your first car, the insurance nowadays will probably be a lot more than the cars worth. If it is as easy to get away with as TG made it out to be, then you'd be tempted. If they wrote off their car then they would not have to worry about insurance and just replace the car.

You may be able to write off 3 cars to the value of what the insurance would be.

It is time the government got p***ks like this off the road and start by putting the fine up to circa £2,000.

Cheers,
Tom

AWD

The new police linked insurance info system is a start but more is required.

brickboy

Lived in Denmark for a while, and if you're pulled there without having your insurance disc etc up to date, the traffic police whip out a set of boltcutters, take off the number plates and leave you to it. With no number plates, the car is visibly illegal, and a guaranteed pull for every cop you pass. Why bother with all this producer crap? We should display insurance, MOT and tax discs in the car, then there's no argument.

robski

I would do the following :

calculate the amount due as follows:
unless proof that they had insurance at some point is available, assume they have never had it, and calculate number of years they have been driving (say 10 for example).
Calculate an average insurance premium based on average rating factors, and multiply up, say £350 for example.

Land them with a 10x£350 = £3500 bill.
Confiscate the car on the spot, and only return when they pay the fine, if its worth less, sell it and pursue for rest of amount due.

Driving without insurance should be a criminal offence and carry a minimum jail sentence.

How do you catch em? Well lets start by putting some of the high tech speed enforcing systems to good use. If youve read someones number plate, link to the insurance database and see if they are insured. Could easily have police etc every so often to pull over offenders.

Problem with ins disc would be that the driver of the car is not necessarily the insured.

robski

Andy Banks

In HK, when you go to renew the roadtax, you have to produce third party insurance certificate....seems to work here

Markus

I thought that driving without insurance was a criminal offence?

Regardless, the insurance disk idea is a sound one.

One problem with it though, SIDC would then have to make a insurance and tax disc holder

polarbearit

It is the same in the Uk, but these people aren't buy road tax either, they are often not registering the cars at all, so I quite like the idea of Reg plates being removed. Would clearly show a car up as being uninsured.

n1ckr

On the non insurance point, how about a fine of XXXX, plus the amount of insurance taht the driver SHOULD have had including all penalties plus the admin costs.

My brother had his car written off by an Uninsured B*tard, who gave false details, the police could not trace this guy for prosictuion, and said the only way my brother could persue it was to make a personal claim in court which would cost loads, either way my brother had only just bought the car and the insurance company wont pay up, unless it goes to court and my brother now is in debt and he had to move back home because of some selfish person.

Adan

Don't know if this is true but in the land where if you can breeth you can own a gun they may have got something right for a change.

I heard that in the US licence plates are renewed every year. To renew your plate you have to produce all appropriate documents including insurance and they are a different colour combination each year. This would seem a good start as tax discs are too small to see whereas driving without a number plate would stand out a mile.

As I say I have no idea if this is true but the fact that every poncy theme bar the world over is covered in stupid american number plates would seem to back this up. How many bars have you been to in the US where they have European number plates on the wall?

Regarding driving without insurance, licence, MOT, road tax. I seriously considered this because I would save so much money and the fine is more like £40 in practice. Who cares if you run someone else's wife, children, grandmother over, and like the guy said if you drive carefully this won't happen. If it does, go and live in Brazil for a bit then come back and sponge off the NHS for the rest of your short life. Think of the money you will save and the weather's better in Brazil.

This would work great if you were a scumbag. But most of us, with jobs and a decent life would be out of work pretty quick when our employers found out.

How can you punish someone who has no money and when a prison sentence is likely to improve their career prospects. I say, on the first offence remove a kidney. Their misdeeds will save a life. If they offend again remove the other one.

Rant over! - blood pressure slowly returning to normal....