Safe Speed Forums

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8272054.stm



What measures other than detection are the government taking to protect other law abiding members of the public from suffering as a result of all these uninsured drivers?
Insurance via fuel duty would mean those that drive the most would pay the most... is this a fair way ahead?

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

2 Million uninsured. 500 per day seized = 18,000 per year.

Percentage seized = 0.9% p.a.

Not exactly a huge deterrent.

I'd start at traveller's camps.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Nah, that would be racist

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I heard this report on the radio this morning and the point was made that young drivers are less likely to be insured because of the massive premiums they have to pay. Not very surprising. The point was also made that insured drivers are paying the damages caused by uninsured drivers.

For some time I have felt that the current car insurance market has developed, - with its NCDs, weightings for this, discounts for that - into such a strange thing that can hardly be considered to meet the definition of insurance anymore. When the premium for different drivers in the same car can vary by a factor of 25 or more the basic concept of shared risk seems to be getting lost.

I am not sure what the answer to eliminating uninsured drives is but I fear that it will certainly have to cost careful drivers more. Some thoughts.
Most drastic - eliminate third party car insurance altogether and set up a fund which pays the damages of innocent victims. The fund could be financed in several ways; by central taxation; by an increase in VED; by a levy on new car sales or a tax on tranfer of ownership. Or by a levy on SCPs
Forbid insurance companies from having such large differentials in their premiums, - effectively a subsidy for new drivers from established drivers. Over a driving lifetime the total premiums would be very similar, bearing in mind that we wouldn't have the same cost of supporting uninsured drivers added to out premium.s.

What did surprise me is that 10% of the uninsured drivers said that they did not know that insurance was compulsory. If that is true that is a thing that should be attacked with some urgency

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I don't get what the big deal is with insurance. It seems to me that if someone has no insurance then people think that they are at the least driving with no regard for anyone else, which is clearly not the case. I am especially enraged at the rates they charge young drivers. Teenagers get quoted rediculous figures, so much that it is a national scandal. I don't blame any 17-21 year olds who drive around without insurance because even the insurance on an everyday standard car like a VW Passat, Ford Mondeo, Peugeot 306 etc is completely extortionate when one has a new license. The older out of touch folk tend to get very annoyed by uninsured youngsters, but that is because they have long forgotten the injustice

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Currently undergoing training with the I.A.M.

Just some thoughts on this. This would make drivers of low risk pay more due to the risk caused by poorer ones. This would take away the financial imperative of driving well to build up no-claims. This would increase the role of "big government" in our lives. It would increase our tax bill. Please remember that insurance itself doesn't make us drive more safely. If anything, it allows us to drive more dangerously, because it offsets the risk to some extent. If we are being radical, why not have digitally signed, non-transferable, publicly remotely readable certificates? It's a doddle... and you'd be able to tell if a youth has insurance before you go near him on the roads!

Most young people do not want to drive a small low-powered car. No cred.
So they pay the cost for that attitude.
You may as well say there is no reason for someone who has had an accident/s to pay higher premiums as a result of that ?
The difference is the same. Younger people have a proven ability to have accidents, until they have got some sort of driving history the accident carriers will not know.
Maybe the NCB could be graduated better for inexperienced drivers...with a 25% first-year NCB being a start ?
Along with the New Drivers Act (first two years = more than six points then back to the driving test) it may introduce an element of realism into young minds ?
In any case, an across-the-board same cost insurance is not going to be popular...and the good drivers will still be paying the cost of the bad anyway....with the bad paying less there will be no incentive to become, or stay, good.
There is already a reward scheme of sorts....passplus and others will reduce premiums of those who have taken the trouble to take the courses.
I don't feel that the socialist way is the way forward in regard of insurance premiums !

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

The concept of shared risk noted above could be extended into a system where everyone pays the same flat fee for insurance to use a car on the road (like VED used to be). It could be a Governmental scheme rather like a tax.

Would this work? Would it be fair?

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Trouble is, the current system aint working too well either.

Where do we go from here?

we are not even talking about supercars here, todays 19 year old can face a premium 3 or 4 times the value of the 8 year old 1.4 clio that they just bought.

Make the penelties harsher one might say.

OK

1) Higher fines (Erm, they dont have any money, if you take what little they have they are even less liky to be able to afford insurance in the future)
2) More prison sentances. (Well sending 2,000,000 young people to prison! Thats going to save us all money isnt it!)
3) Driving bans.(See #2 above! of course in cyclobustopia a car is an optional extra, but for most of those 2,000,000 loss of licence will mean loss of employment or a further cycle of "Criminality" by continuing to drive on a ban. (Again, see #1 and #2 above)

we are not talking about a small number of tax/licence/insurance "Criminals" here. We are looking at a whole system that has completly and irreprably broken down.


I understand the NZ model seems to work quite well, quite appart from anything else, taking the ambulance chasing lawyers out of the equation should cut the costs by a third

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Yes - the state would organize the insurance and we'd all pay the same, just like the welfare state/NHS etc. It would make no difference if you crash frequently - you'd get your payout just the same. And it would make no odds if you took a great deal of care; you'd pay just as much as the others. We could apply the same principle elsewhere - home insurance, pensions, and social security for example. It makes no odds what you have done, how old you are, or how much you have paid in, etc. Everybody would get the same, full entitlement, good and bad, thrifty and spendthrift, wastrel or paragon of virtue, etc.

It's an interesting idea - the system is broken because people drive without insurance. Let's apply it elsewhere. The law on litter is broken because people drop litter? That doesn't seem right. What about this - the law that you have to be 18 to drink in pubs is wrong because people under 18 do drink? I'm not sure I agree with you here, Dusty.

They pay a fee attached to their "car tax" for basic injury/medical costs.
Anything else is extra.
The point is being missed. The "uninsured" (here) are insured via us (the insured). We pay: they don't.
So the low-cost-insurance-for-high-risk-drivers utopia exists anyway
I suppose we could move to the flat-rate insurance for all.
But there would be no incentive to improve driving...in any case, there is no point in moving to the NZ system. Those uninsured are frequently un-taxed. So there would still be no insurance.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

They've closed off some roads near here because of some dead traveller funeral. You should see the cars that turned up last time. I thought it was a footballer that had snuffed it not some caravan dweller. Brand new everything. I'd certainly expect the police to check plates as they hound modified car owners so I'd expect them to hound travellers for the same reasons.

Also I think the change to the tax and insurance rules will make it much easier to drive uninsured as those with half a brain will realise that it will be better to declare SORN, not bother with insurance or tax or MOT and just drive anything. The chance of being stopped is minimal. Cloned plates would remove most of the likelihood of being stopped as you can go to any car park and get a few car plates and descriptions and just buy something similar. You can buy replacement plates easily. There are plenty that don't ask questions or claim 'they're for show'.

Ultimately I don't think there is an easy answer. Insurance is too expensive for the young. Driving without insurance is only a problem really if that person has an accident. If they don't then there isn't an actual harm apart from to insurance companies who actually may be better off by not insuring the dangerous ones!

I think driving without a licence is a far more serious issue. The whole business of learning to drive and having insurance has become so expensive only the reasonably well off can afford it. Is it time to consider motoring a preserve of the middle and upper classes only??? Is the idea that anyone can have a car and afford to run it legally run its course? There are some awkward social issues to address on how much you discriminate against the poor with costs that lead to personal transport restrictions. Is it part of social mobility to subsidise the cost of insurance and learning to drive for the less well off? I suppose it depends on whether you see freedom of movement as an essential or as a perk. Food, shelter and heating/lighting are necessities. Is travel?

Draconian measures won't work as they're too easily circumvented and end up just peeing everyone off as you'll always get people that have made a genuine mistake being treated like ne'er do wells that haven't done an honest day's work in their life and that know how to cheat the system.

You'd have to crack down on car ownership to do any good. No more cash purchases. No more private sales. Only purchase with proof of id. Only tax with proof of id. Only MOT with proof of id. Only insure with proof of licence and id. May even have to have stop points on many roads where you had to provide proof it was really you. It could end up a total orwellian nightmare.

Maybe just holding those responsible for accidents they cause and make them pay for all damage, even if it takes a lifetime is the only option. Perhaps it would engender a greater responsibility. But it won't as they'll just pretend it was someone else driving and the someone else blamed will say it was them and without proof you can't get a penny out of them.

Maybe automatic third party liability insurance which covers the entire population against each other, funded from taxes /taken off benefits which pays out for all damage that people do to each other is a solution? Cyclists would be covered. Normal criminals could be covered. Then they could be pursued for damages and made to pay back at a higher rate until they'd paid off their debt to society. They could earn money off for jail time perhaps. If you wanted your own insurance then you could pay on top. Then everyone would be insured. Not sure who'd take it on though....

500x365 = 182,500

It does say "as many as" though so the average daily number is probably far lower, I thought there was some stat that the chance of getting caught was equivalent to once every thirteen years.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

You are missing the point jomukuk. We are not talking about teenagers expecting to buy anything "powerful". What's so powerful about a Mondeo. Or a Pug 306? Or a Honda Accord? They are just regular, everyday cars, not particularly flashy or powerful, perfectly ordinary acceptable cars. Besides, if you actually give a decent person a powerful car, they will learn to respect that car.

The new drivers act is a load of shite to be honest, how does that teach skills of observation and how to act on that observation? It just takes their license away which they have spend THOUSANDS to earn and scams them by taking yet MORE money off them. The insurance companies need to be cracked down on for the scam that they are committing.

Pass plus did help, don't get me wrong, it bought the quote down by a few hundred which is good...except when the price is in the thousands. So in terms of making insurance affordable, Pass Plus does naff all.

It is somewhat unfair that you say "So they pay the cost for that attitude.". You are saying they pay the "cost" for driving around an everyday normal car, instead of a plastic shopping trolley?!? If you saw what American youths piloted you would have a fit!

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Currently undergoing training with the I.A.M.

It doesn't and was never intended to. Driver training is supposed to do that and the driving tests are a check that they have done so.

Only if they fail to drive at the required standard - which they proved they have the ability to do by passing the driving tests.

Insurance companies are not charities and are obliged by company law to do their best to trade at a profit. Insurance premiums are worked out according to potential risk. Too high a premium and the company fails to get customers and doesn't make a profit. Too low a premium and they make a loss on the payouts for claims. Young drivers present a high risk and the premiums are set accordingly. From memory the accident rate for drivers in the 17 to 21 year age group is about 4 times that of the 60 to 65 age group, with young males presenting a higher risk that females of the same age.

All young drivers pay a high first premium, but that can be kept to a minimum by careful choice of car. Staying away from Saxos and Astras and other cars favoured by groups with high claim rates and buying something more normally used by older people, will reduce the premium. Taking some kind of advanced driving tuition ASAP will also help. My kids did Pass Plus, starting the day after they passed their tests. They then took extra driver training and gained advanced driver status before the first insurance renewal was due. A few years down the line neither has had a claim or conviction and they pay a LOT less than their friends. It is a constant source of amusement for my children that their friends complain about high premiums and the fact that they can't afford more powerful cars of the sort my kids have, but won't take on advanced training. I can only assume they think their driving is so bad that they have no hope of passing an advanced test.

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I am not a lawyer and can't give legal advice. I do have experience of the day to day working of courts and use that knowledge to help where possible. I do not represent any official body and post as an individual.

The new drivers act was never intended to give training.
It just says: "6 points in less than two years and you go back to square one"
A message that HAS got across.
They pay more for insurance because they ARE a proven high risk. As is a driver disqualified for drunk-driving, who also has a high premium afterwards.
In any case, they can shop around for a low quote. My son had his premium go from £1700.00 to £900.00 (+-) in less than a day.
Motor insurance is not a high-profit enterprise, in fact it is a loser. They make profits on other insurance. So, your house insurance is probably higher because of lossy car insurance. Mind you, the repair outfits are creaming a good living from it.
£1700.00 to replace a mondeo front bumper and paint it ?
Pass test + pass plus + advance motorist = lower insurance and a better driver.
Cannot be bothered = high insurance cost.
Their choice.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Yes indeed. It is very public spirited of the insurance companies to run this loss making enterprise with no benefit to themselves other than the acquisition of a huge data base of names which they can use for marketing their other products. Perhaps it would be better if they did pull out of the market and force the government to do a rethink.

On reflection I think that I would favour a central fund financed by an additional fuel duty. That would at least make the amount you pay roughly proportional to the distance you travel and hence the time you are at risk. The insurance companies. for all their supposedly sophisticated risk assessment, rarely take into account the mileage travvelled.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Putting third party insurance on fuel is a logical step forward (anyone who wants greater coverage can pay for it as normal). However, it doesn't factor the additional risk from inexperienced drivers. Would those drivers have to pay an additional premium, or should such a scheme force other drivers to absorb that risk?

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

We already absorb the risk for riskier activity for everything. Smokers cost the nhs, obese people cost the nhs, heavy drinkers cost the nhs so it seems logical to spread the cost of dangerous drivers across all drivers as the bottom line is we're all equally at risk of being hit by one of these idiots. If they just hit each other then it wouldn't be a problem