What do you think will happen to a country where insurance premiums can be OVER 2000, but fines for being uninsured are UNDER 200?
According to the Motor Insurer’s Bureau, uninsured drivers kill around 200 people every year on Britain’s roads, and injure hundreds more. The sheer scale of the problem is staggering: it is estimated that one in twenty drivers are now uninsured. That’s around 1.5 million motorists in case you were wondering.
As well as the human cost, there is the financial one to consider. To put it crudely – each death is estimated to cost taxpayers around 1.2 million and each serious accident costs around 140,000. The Motor Insurer’s Bureau, which compensates victims of uninsured and hit-and-run drivers, says the financial cost of uninsured drivers to the insurance industry is 500 million a year.
So what does that mean to you as an honest policyholder? Well, that’s 30 of your insurance premium that you shouldn’t have had to pay. 30 each from every single car insurance policy holder in the country to pay for those that refuse to buy insurance.
But while the number of uninsured drivers is on the increase, the average fine for driving without insurance has actually fallen from 224 to 185 over the past few years.
The size of the average fine for driving without insurance simply pales in significance when compared to the maximum penalties for other, lesser crimes such as:
◊ Conviction for graffiti 5,000
◊ Failure to pay your TV licence 1,000
◊ Fare dodging on London transport 1,000
◊ Smoking in a non-smoking area 200
◊ Overfilling your bin 110
Prior to August this year courts could fine uninsured drivers a maximum of 5,000, although they were not able to hand down custodial sentences. Then in the summer of 2008 new legislation introduced prison sentences of up to two years for offenders causing death by driving while uninsured, unlicensed or disqualified.
Campaigners had long complained that the courts seemed to operate under the assumption that driving without insurance is a victimless crime. The tales of misery and hardship resulting from uninsured driver accidents cross our newsdesk every day. It is far from victimless and it is definitely not harmless.
You only need to take a look at the reasons why many are uninsured to see what dangers lurk there. Uninsured drivers are ten times more likely to have a drink driving conviction, six times more likely to drive a vehicle that is not roadworthy and four times more likely to have a conviction for driving without due care and attention. That’s why they can’t afford insurance, because they are generally dangerous drivers to begin with!
Needless to say, some observers remain sceptical about just how effective a deterrent the threat of a prison sentence will be. Even if it is widely announced, most will assume that if THEY are caught, they will probably just get a few points on their license and a small fine – not prison. And most will probably be correct in that assumption.
So where are you likely to be in the most danger? Well, according to new statistics released by the Motor Insurer’s Bureau, it is more of an urban phenomenon than a rural one. Bradford emerges as the overall winner (or loser, depending on how you look at it) with three postcode entries in the top 10. In the Barkerend, Bradford Moor and Thornbury area a staggering two-thirds of car owners do not have insurance – six times the national average. Over half the drivers in Girlington, Manningham and Lower Grange areas of Bradford do not possess insurance policy whilst the BD9 postcode area had 39% of their drivers uninsured.
So what can be done to stop the surge of uninsured drivers?
Well, a large percentage of them are aged 20 and under. To see why, take our example of an 18-year-old male student from Bramhope in Leeds driving a Ford Fiesta worth 1,500 and parked off the road at night – they would pay 3,448 for just third-party cover with Swinton. With the average fine for driving without insurance being just 185 it’s easy to see why some are tempted to try and get away without paying.
So it would seem that one solution would be to help younger drivers get lower premiums. Insurance comparison websites such as moneysupermarket.com and gocompare.com all offer the chance to compare premiums and cut costs, sometimes cutting costs by more than half.
Other incentives to encourage young drivers include the Pass Plus test, designed by the Government’s Driving Standards Agency. Fifteen leading insurers including Churchill, Norwich Union, Swinton and Zurich offer discounts of 5-35% to drivers who pass the six-hour course within a year of passing their driving test.
The best defence, however, is for honest policyholders to take a zero-tolerance approach to uninsured drivers. If you know someone is driving uninsured, you need to report it immediately – remember, any damage they cause whilst THEY are uninsured comes straight out of YOUR pocket.
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