The Guardian reports that UK police have seized their millionth uninsured vehicle (it was in the West Midlands). The report mentions that out of 34 million drivers in the UK, around 1.2 million are uninsured.
Since 2005, when police gained powers to seize uninsured vehicles, an average of 500 a day have been nabbed! About a third of those have ended up being crushed.
The article says that uninsured drivers kill 160 and injure 23,000 people a year. That’s quite frightening when you think about it.
This Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) “research” (it’s actually just a survey-cum-press release) says:
New research* undertaken amongst communities in the West Midlands and West Yorkshire highlights that a third of people still do not understand the current laws on car insurance, so are risking fines of up to £5,000; points on their licence and having their cars seized by police. Some of the reasons cited by motorists living in these hotspot areas, include: the cost of motor insurance, not understanding the law and penalties, and a belief that they’ll get away with it.
I love the way they completely avoid mentioning the extremely significant cultural issues which are involved here. Even so, they contradict themselves in that paragraph.
On the one hand, they say people “do not understand” the law. Then, in the next sentence they say that those questioned say insurance in “too high” and believe “that they’ll get away with it”. So which is it, MIB?
The postcode areas in question have very significant demographics in terms of ethnicity and poverty, and it is clear that people are anxious to protect that aspect and avoid identifying it. Of course, if you are hit and killed by an uninsured driver, it doesn’t matter to you or your family who the driver was – you’re still dead, and the he was still uninsured.
But the police – and any other authority wanting to change things – should be very concerned about the obvious common denominators.
As I’ve said before, driving is a privilege, not a right. Of the people who drive uninsured, 95% of them KNOW that they are driving uninsured, and they know it is illegal.