“Motor Insurers’ Bureau has reported that nearly 33% of motorists are driving without insurance, with the worst affected areas including Bordesley in Birmingham, parts of Essex, Manchester and West Yorkshire.”

😯

One third !?!??

“The research also showed that 10% of 18 to 34 year-old drivers are unaware that car insurance is a legal requirement”

How on earth do you get to the age of 34 (never mind 18) without knowing this?

I’m assuming as well as no insurance they have no MOT or VED either?

Vicious circle isn’t it. Less people have insurance, the higher the premiums are for the rest of us. Higher the premiums are, the more people try to avoid it.

The only way to fix it is for the police to actually put significant time and effort into prosecuting people for not having insurance. i.e. spot checks (which are common in other countries).

The only way to fix it is for the police to actually put significant time and effort into prosecuting people for not having insurance. i.e. spot checks (which are common in other countries).

Surely in this day and age of fancy tech, they can use the ANPR system to identify cars being driven without insurance and prosecute accordingly. Stick cameras up everywhere with ANPR systems.

Buy a banger for cash with 10 months tax and test, don’t bother with or falsify V5 details on change of keeper. Drive. Tax runs out, drive. Get pulled, maybe lose car. Tiny fine/points. Repeat. If the fines/punishment are less than the insurance cost, where’s the incentive.

Edit: Meant to say ANPR fixed cameras no good unless you pull drivers at the time since loads of the details will be missing/out of date/false on the uninsured cars.

The police are doing more than you think as part of my job, I visit the recovery yards where the seized vehicles are stored. There are always close to full, quite often with expensive cars. The fine is probably less than than the cost of the insurance but its 6 points, and you can’t get the car back until its insured which is not easy with the conviction.

It may be worth forgetting about a £300 Metro but not a £65000 Ferrari??

Just take the cars off them at the side of the road – load’em onto a transporter and take’m away. Judge Dredd style summary justice dished out on the street!
And now for an image to highlight my balanced and sensitive view…

Privatise this Police activity and make it a profit making concern.
Bet that will change the percentages 🙂

i suppose the question is why Bradford and certain parts of Birmingham are so affected?

car insurance hotpots

in rochdale they regularly set up on an A road and pull every car via anpr all that fall foul get put on a low loader.. the get out of jailh free is use your mates grandads name to insure the car for tuppence and an 18 yr old drives it.. and grandad knows nowt about it.. a month or so back i was in a house and the lad circa 18 was on his way to court ‘ driving with no insurance’ he’d ‘hired; a range rover sport for 4 hours on a saturday night for 200 quid from one of the local ‘pharmacists’ and got pulled..

ANPR is a waste of time (mostly)
It will find uninsured cars but not unisured drivers. A small but very important difference.

[EDIT] As per Total’s grandad…