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Catching those without a net
Page 36
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New measures to crack down on insurance cheats should make our roads less dangerous. Juliet Morrison reports.
As you ease to a stop ahead of the queue of traffic, you glance in your mirror in time to see the battered coupe with gofaster stripes, which has been tailgating you impatiently, squeal in slow motion towards your new van's pristine rear. You brace to the sound of bodywork being reshaped and glass showering the carriageway.
Any operator who, through no fault of theirs, has had an accident with one of the more than a million motorists who drive in the UK without insurance, will know what a headache it is to get any kind of compensation short of making a claim on their own policy.
All too often accidents are caused by the very drivers who are unable to pay for the damage that results. According to the Department for Transport, uninsured drivers are 10 times more likely to have been convicted of drink driving and six times more likely to have been convicted of driving an unsafe vehicle than the law abiding majority.
New powers But now the government is cracking down with a package of measures it outlined a year ago and is introducing onto the statute books from this month. Since 6 July the police have had the power to impound and, if necessary, destroy vehicles that are being driven without insurance (see panel). This is likely to be followed by a measure to link the Driver and Vehicle Licens ing Agency's records with a database kept by insurers — so for the first time the authorities will be able to rapidly find out if a vehicle is insured.
Finally,fixed penalties will be introduced for vehicle owners who ignore reminders that their insurance policy has expired, with culprits identified in a similar way to those who ignore VED reminders.
The DfTsays:"It will be a catch-all law but we are not directing this at truck operators, because there is no reason to believe that there is a significant problem with them. The problem is mainly with young, male car drivers."
Martin Ecott of Heath Lambert, which advises the Freight Transport Association on insurance, says only rogue hauliers who fail to