Uninsured motorists should be shot.
Ben (Yes, i've been hit by one...)
On my 3rd Citroen. Saxo, Xsara, C5.
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Uninsured motorists should be shot. Ben (Yes, i've been hit by one...) On my 3rd Citroen. Saxo, Xsara, C5.
SHOT. HUNG DRAWN AND QUARTERED. BURNT AT THE STAKE AND RE-SHOT!
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TWICE!
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Adding basic cover with the price of fuel? not thanks! I don't pay over £1600 a year to pay yet another premium via increased fuel prices.
Increase punishment for offenders when caught is more in line. I don't think we need to punish all the law abiding drivers through additional costs.
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Obviously a bleeding heart liberal ...
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Oops. That comment applied to Martin Devon!
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Obviously a bleeding heart liberal ...
Dear Leif,
What is "A bleeding heart Liberal." Really. Please explain.
Regards.
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Dear Leif,
What is "A bleeding heart Liberal." Really. Please explain.
Regards.
MB: It is a term for someone who is soft on crime, a liberal a softy. Obviously used in jest by me. FWIW I agree with your comments.
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Dear Leif, What is "A bleeding heart Liberal." Really. Please explain. Regards. MB: It is a term for someone who is soft on crime, a liberal a softy. Obviously used in jest by me. FWIW I agree with your comments.
Phew! Soft on crime. Thank God I don't fit that box. Glad it was used in jest.
See Ya.
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MB: It is a term for someone who is soft on crime, a liberal a softy. Obviously used in jest by me. FWIW I agree with your comments.
Leif: "MB"????
Are you posting to me?
I haven't said a thing in this thread! Anyway nice to see that people who agree with me are breaking out all over the place, even when I have not made the alleged comment!
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Uninsured drivers should instantly lose their licence and car.
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Repeat offenders should anyway.
Someone I know was caught driving with no insurance as he ran a red light on, say, 26 April. His cover expired at midnight and the new policy started on 27 April. That is a world away in culpability from someone who buys a banger for £100 (or less) and drives it with no tax, MoT, insurance or concern for others. The standard result seems to be a small fine and three points on the licence. Assuming they have a licence.
The result is that there is a large section of the community that is completely out of the reach of speed cameras and every other motoring law except maybe dangerous or drink driving when it becomes worthwhile for the police to actually make an effort to catch and punish them. Even if they are caught, it can be much cheaper for someone under 25 to take the fine than to pay the legitimate insurance premium.
Even if they had to make a claim, they are virtually unsuable because they have a low income and virtually no assets. Their car is worth the price of a night out and is never maintained, so it pollutes more, and is essentially disposable. If you are caught without road tax (and they can identify the person, not the car) you are fined large amounts. If you are caught on a train without a ticket, you are charged double the fare. By the same principle, fines should work out at double the annual insurance premium (with the conviction taken into account) and taken out of benefits or salary over no more than 12 months so that being caught causes real hardship.
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As a bare minimum they should be fined the equivalent of what their annual premium would have been had they been insured. As it is typical fines of say £200/300 simply invite people not to be insured with no real penalty.
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I am insured of course, and my annual premium is just a shade under £300, fully comp with two named drivers. So actually what you suggest is already in place for a lot of people; I doubt I'm untypical.
Chris
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I think you're missing the point, Chris. I'd imagine the majority of uninsured drivers are the type who have premiums of the high hundreds and in to the thousands of pounds. That said, even £300 can be a lot to someone on a low wage who can only just afford to run a banger.
As Mark suggests, maybe removal of the car would be a better deterrant, possibly even preventing them buying a car for x years afterwards. Very few people are dependent on a car, but they do make life easier for those that have them. They should not be treated as a right, and if you can't afford one, you don't have one, simple as that.
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They can afford the car, not the compulsory insurance because the premiums are way too high for them. I am sure there are plenty of young people out there who are perfectly safe drivers but are paying over £1000 tpft a year on a 500 quid banger. If car insurance for any driver was no more than £500 tpft then there would be no excuse for someone not being able to afford it. As the mib is already paying out for these drivers setting minimum insurance levels at something affordable for everyone would probably see a net gain in contributions for insurance claims. We the consumer are already paying twice, once for contributions to the mib and more for the insurance company's lost revenue. Put reasonable insurance costs in place then go after those who continue to flout the law. You'll have much more support that way.
It would also be wise to target the explosion in personal injury claims and false claims. These alone would probably knock off 10-20% of the average person's premium. Add into that better driver training and other carrots and sticks for being a safe driver then it starts to make sense for the population as a whole to drive better.
Alternatively make it easier to get costs of repairs out of uninsured drivers so they are paying for their accident for many years to come. If the mib fund was used to loan money to repair cars hit by uninsured drivers then the drivers themselves were traced and had their benefits and salary for many years to come reduced then it would be cheaper for them to be either insured or more careful in the first place!
Paying the cost of the missing premium won't make them change their ways but making them pay the full whack for an accident they are involved in where paying the premium would have been cheaper would be a better lesson.
teabelly
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They can afford the car, not the compulsory insurance because the premiums are way too high for them.
If they can't afford the insurance then they can't afford the car! It's no good saying you have enough to buy a £500 car but no more - the car alone is useless, you need the things that go with it, petrol, servicing, and most important insurance.
I do agree with your point that it's hard to get started though - maybe a system where premiums start out at more sensible levels but do rise or even you become uninsurable for a year on a fault accident under a certain age would do more to persuade people to take care?
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I was being a little bit provocative. How would they decide how much the insurance "would have been" other than phoning up insurance companies? Then how do they decide which companies--cheapest or most expensive? Or maybe they could use the average for drivers as a whole. I'll bet that's near to £300.
As for your comment about if you can't afford one you can't have one, I'm with you--except that poor areas have the most prohibitive premiums. The problem is also that the erosion of public transport since about 1980 has hit the poorest hardest so they are battered both ways. I know of a large housing estate in the north east where you can walk up to a mile to the nearest bus stop. No good if you're ill, old, and/or infirm, or have a couple of kids to bring up on your own (maybe through no fault of your own). Those are exactly the people who have no money. In those conditions you might just risk it with an old heap and heavier penalties won't make you change your mind because a tenner is as impossible as a ton.
Like a lot of motoring issues, the whole way we run our society has an effect.
Chris
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ChrisR: Your posting raises the question of who these people are. Are they predominantly young men, or people on a low income, or people with a bad accident history who would consequently have to pay very high premiums?
As for the suggestion of making insurance for a young person low until they have an accident, insurance premiums are set at levels that companies think will give a decent return. Thus the only way for this to work would be for someone to subsidise young people. Can't say I want to do that. Anyway, I doubt most young people would consider driving uninsured. Harsher punishment in the form of prison sentences for persistent offenders might work. Anyway, most young people don't need a car. 20 years ago - when ah wuh' lad - most people in their late teens and early twenties did not have a car. Only when they got a job was a car needed and by then premiums were lower and the job paid them.
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Most people don't NEED a phobile moan but they have them.
Regards
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It certainly does beg that question. But postcode, on-road parking etc. also have a big effect. It can be the case that certain poor people are poor because they have a bad driving record. Isn't life nasty?
Chris
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Most uninsured drivers do lose their cars, but you lose the back of yours too.
We should see more maximum penalty point and max fine from the courts.
Ben
On my 3rd Citroen. Saxo, Xsara, C5.
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Hairy Harry,
Not quite right (in NSW at least), To pay the annual car registration fee you must show a valid 'green slip', this is a Third party medical insurance policy for the car and is transferred with the car if you sell it. The green slip used to be underwritten by the NSW government but the system was privatised over 10 years ago and the usual insurance companies now compete for your business meaning that the cost is going up massively!
So the green slip is administrated separately from the rego which is done by the equivalent of the dvla.
Of course this does not covering third party property, theft, fire or your own car so many australians also have a comprehensive policy to cover all of this, but the green slip is all the insurance required to legally run the car on a public road
In addition to the rego, green slip you must also have (for cars over 3 years old) a pink slip (MOT) and valid drivers lisence which must be carried with you when driving.
regards
Ian
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How about a scheme whereby a person repeatedly convicted of driving without insurance is treated the following way?
1. All his relevant details (including claims and convictions) are provided to the court
2. The court obtains 3 quotes for insurance based on those figures and identifies the lowest one (probably still a whopper!)
3. The offender is then ordered to pay a sum twice that amount to the MIB, to be used by them to defray the costs of dealing with uninsured claims
4. If the offender cannot afford it, he/she has the option of either some jail time, or agreeing that their liscence will be suspended for say 10 years?
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One small point about all the suggested penalties that include loss of licence, penalty points etc.
Why would someone who is *already* driving illegally be deterred by a driving ban?
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I didn't say deter them, I said stop them. Take the car.
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They'd buy another. Or steal one. Or have a missed something?
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Accept this is a controversial posting but what about;
1. Everyone has to have and carry an ID card at ALL times.
2. Not allowed to buy fuel without it. No ID card no fuel no driving.
3. If banned from driving ID card is so marked on its chip whatever. So ban in force no fuel again.
4. Tourists/visitors/asylum seekers/etc need to be dealt with separately, maybe by passports or temporary issued cards for duration of stay being required.
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Certainly is controversial!
You proposals punish the many for the sins of the few. I accept the argument that says we should be prepared to accept constraints on our civil liberties in order to increase our security,/freedoms in other ways, but it seems to me that there is nothing wrong with dramatically increasing criminal penalties for offences that are partricularly prevalent from time to time. Driving withour insurance or a license is not the most heinous crime by any means, but I have no problem with a temporary doubling of the punishment in order to deal with what has obviously become a bit of a plague.
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Joe - what is controversial about carrying an ID card, if you have nothing to hide and follow the rules - i.e. insure your car, what is the issue? Why should those who continue to flout the rules which so many law abiding people follow throughout their entire lives, be allowed to drive uninsured with the only probable outcome being an accident where someone else is maimed or killed. Confiscate all their cars, ban them, and lock them up if they continue to do it, anything to let us all get on with our lives in peace.
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Problem is we'd have to pay for the increased bureacracy associated with maintaining a database, and accessing the database at each petrol station. The bureacracy for foreigners would be a pain, and temporary id cards would become a black market item.
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Leif,
I sometimes drive in a country where if I wish to pay for fuel using a credit card I have to show picture ID. I do accept there is a different motivating force in place here.
Nevertheless the transaction is not complicated, I swipe my credit card, punch in PIN no, they swipe my UK plastic card driving licence. Receipt prints out. Sorted.
That is speaking as a foreigner who does not have their national ID card.
I accept there would need to be some sort of datalink updated at intervals. Jesus! if they can handle this sort of data thing in order to allow people to throw money away on the Lottery why not another purpose.
What is lacking in Britain is some evidence of SPINE! Replaced by spin unfortunately.
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Possibly they wouldn't. On the other hand, I could easily borrow someone else's car or buy myself another one without insurance and drive around with it. No one would know any different unless I was stopped for some reason.
On the other hand, if someone is known to plod as a banned driver, there is no way they can be driving legally and they WILL be pulled if they are recognised. As a Londoner this is fairly unlikely but I'm sure it would work well in small towns.
Anyway, we are not trying to deter just those who would drive illegally but also those who would if there were no effective punishment.
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The ID card thing works in theory but in our political system is extremely dangerous. What's to stop a government putting your religion, race, sexual persuasion (or anything else about you--BMW drivers, anyone?) on the card and then preventing you accessing certain public services, or justice, on the strength of them? With our constitution and lack of a bill of rights, absolutely nothing.
Chris
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