The owners of a million uninsured cars face having their vehicles seized and crushed under a crackdown to be announced this week by ministers.
Mike Penning, the road safety minister, is expected to change the law to make it an offence for the first time to keep an uninsured vehicle rather than simply to drive while uninsured.
Sources at the Department for Transport (DfT) claim that the move will help reduce the £30 estimated annual cost to every responsible motorist in additional premiums to cover crashes involving uninsured drivers.
Uninsured and untraced drivers kill 160 people and injure 23,000 every year, according to the department.
Under the new system the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) will work alongside the Motor Insurers’ bureau to identify uninsured vehicles, many of which are never taken out on to the road.
Their owners will then be contacted by letter to warn them they face a £100 fine if the car or van is not insured by a certain date.
If the vehicle remains uninsured, regardless of whether a fine has been paid or not, it could then be seized and crushed, according to the DfT.
Around four per cent of British motorists -about 1.2 million – drive whilst uninsured. The penalty for doing so is a maximum fine of £5,000 and six to eight penalty points. Around 242,000 offenders are convicted every year.
Police gained powers at the end of 2005 to seize uninsured cars, but to use their powers they have to catch the driver at the wheel.
Under the new offence of keeping a vehicle while uninsured, the onus will be on drivers to prove that they have insurance, or have completed a statutory off-road notification.
In November, Mr Penning told MPs: “We are working closely with the insurance companies to make it mandatory for vehicles to be insured. There are millions of vehicles on our roads that are not insured.
“People say, ‘Well, it’s sitting outside on the road outside my house. I’m not using it. It’s taxed but doesn’t need to be insured.’
“It has to be insured, because if someone decides to use it even for an emergency they will not be covered. We are moving fast on that.”
A poll of 2,000 people by Direct Line, the insurance company, in November, asked what amount should be imposed as a fine for driving without insurance – and produced an average figure of £900.
In addition, 34% wanted those caught to have to take their driving test again, while 28% supported life bans for offenders.
Edmund King, the RAC Foundation’s director, said there were dangers in creating an offence which assumed that people were guilty even when their only crime was not to have filled out the correct form.
He added, “This will also only catch those people who are already known to the DVLA. The problem with the motoring underclass is that those who pose the greatest risk to others do not appear on databases.”
Source : The Telegraph
