Christopher Bullock

“Sharing the roads with uninsured drivers means we are all vulnerable – not just car drivers, but cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians too”

What should you do? And if that’s not unpleasant enough, try the reverse scenario: in a moment of thoughtlessness, you have bashed the car in front of you at a low speed – but the crash is clearly your fault. Now the same guy is even more unpleasant – he wants to take you to a cashpoint immediately so you can pay him for the damage to his vehicle up front.

Welcome to the nightmare that is uninsured driving. Sharing the roads with uninsured drivers means we are all vulnerable – not just car drivers, of course, but cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians as well. The number of uninsured drivers has apparently grown recently – perhaps because new technology has, until now, appeared incapable of catching them. Some of these criminals also exploit the system by not bothering with a tax disc, or registration V5 sheet, or even an MOT. And as recent tragic cases have shown, they may not even have a driving licence.

And we end up paying for it: uninsured motorists are estimated to cost all legitimate motorists an extra £30 a year on our motor insurance bills. These drivers are the same people who compromise road safety by racing through camera sites, probably throwing in some dangerous undertaking for good measure. Jumping the traffic lights? No problem. Parking fines? What are they?

But now officialdom, in the shape of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) is fighting back. The first automatic £80 fines for drivers who fail to renew their tax disc on time have recently been issued. And because tax discs cannot be issued unless the owner has valid insurance and MOT certificates, increased compliance should mean fewer uninsured and unroadworthy vehicles out there.

The DVLA holds around 29 million vehicle records, but the value and effectiveness of those records is highest only when the information they contain is correct and up-to-date. DVLA estimates that over one million vehicles are not properly registered because many people do not bother to register a second-hand vehicle when it is bought or sold. And around 20% of all used vehicles are sold without a V5 Registration Document so the owners and/or drivers cannot be traced.

Now driver and vehicle data from DVLA records will be directly available to patrolling police officers. Previously, drivers who were stopped at the roadside could elect to produce their driving documents at a police station of their choice within seven days. This placed a heavy (and costly) administrative burden on the police. The new arrangements will allow patrolling officers fast and immediate access to driving-licence and vehicle details. The initiative will assist the police in a number of ways, including immediately identifying vehicles on false plates, unregistered vehicles, disqualified drivers and non-licence holders. So, at least there is some joined-up thinking going on by the various authorities. The government has set a target of halving the number of these “underclass” vehicles by 2007.

It can’t be too soon.

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