Millionth uninsured vehicle seized is welcome news says AA
AA Insurance has welcomed the seizure by West Midlands Police of the one-millionth uninsured vehicle on Tuesday 21 August.
This underlines progress being made by police and the Motor Insurers' Bureau (MIB) in the fight against uninsured drivers.
Since 2005, when police were given powers to stop vehicles identified as being driven without insurance, an average of 500 vehicles have been seized each day. Of those, an estimated 30% are crushed.
Simon Douglas, director of AA Insurance, says: "A million cars seized is great news, yet there are still an estimated 1.2 million vehicles on Britain's roads, being driven without cover - that's around 1 out of every 25.
"The MIB, which provides compensation to innocent victims involved in collisions with uninsured drivers and drivers who fail to stop, is doing great work with the police and community leaders to get through to persistent offenders.
"But we are still a long way from cleaning up Britain's roads," he says.
"In uninsured driver hot-spots such as parts of Birmingham, innocent motorist are eight times more likely than average to be hit by an uninsured vehicle."
West Midlands Police alone is seizing, on average, one uninsured vehicle per hour. Police identify them with automatic number plate recognition (anpr) technology which compares registration numbers against data provided by the Motor Insurance Database (MID), which is operated by the MIB.
Mr Douglas added: "Every year, uninsured drivers kill 160 and injure 23,000 innocent people. What's more, the cost of the work carried out by the MIB adds around £33 to every honestly-bought car insurance policy.
"It is not a victimless crime."
Mr Douglas believes that the penalties meted out by the courts to uninsured drivers are too lenient.
"Honest young drivers may have to pay £3,000 or more for their first car insurance policy, a figure that has been pushed up by uninsured drivers, yet the average fine for driving without cover is only about £200. Many go on to re-offend.
"Most are young men often with a string of motoring and other offences behind them and may not have a driving license. Their cars are frequently poorly maintained, have no MoT or tax and are driven with little regard for traffic laws."
The AA has consistently called on the Government to impose much more harsh penalties on uninsured drivers that should at least reflect the premium they would pay were they honest drivers and could include, for repeat offenders, custodial sentences.