Compulsory passenger insurance starts next year
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• Passenger liability insurance for motor vehicles will become compulsory in Great Britain on December 1 1972.
This was announced in Parliament on June 9 by Mr John Peyton, Minister for Transport Industries, when he answered a question by Mr Winston S. Churchill. Mr Churchill's Priliate Member's Bill on the subject recently received Royal Assent and is now the Motor Vehicle& (Passenger Insurance) Act 1971. Mr PeytOn said that an Order was to be made on June 10 fixing December I 1972 as the date on which the Act would come into operation. The Act extends the scope of motor insurance law (which has existed basically unchanged since 1930) to make 10,bilities to "voluntary" passengers compulsorily insurable. It applies to all motor vehicles to which the present compulsory motor insurance requirements of the Road Traffic Act 1960 apply.
Mr Peyton explained that the interval (until December. 1972) was necessary to allow insurers time to identify and adjust those policies which do not at present include cover for liabilities to passengers. It is estimated 30 per cent of commercial vehicles do not at present have passenger cover.
It is expected that insurers will notify the policy holders concerned of the need for the additional passenger liability cover as their policies become due for renewal in the 12 months before December 11972.
During the passage of the Bill through Parliament, it was stated that insurers would relate the additional premiums as closely as possible to the additional risks involved. For experienced "good risk" drivers, or owners of types,of vehicles which only rarely carry passengers 4 the increases should, it is stated, be modest.