Stay
insured: new penalties for vehicles without motor
insurance
From
early 2011 a new scheme is being introduced to make
sure that all vehicles stay insured or a Statutory
Off Road Notification (SORN) is made. The Driver
and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and the Motor
Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) are working together
to reduce the number of uninsured drivers.
The fight against uninsured vehicles
Latest public estimates are that around 1.5 million
of all UK motorists drive uninsured. These drivers
cost the UK about £500 million annually, which
adds up to an average cost of an extra £30
per car insurance policy.
The police already seize about 500 uninsured vehicles
every day. To help combat uninsured driving even
further, when the new law is introduced it will
result in:
| o |
fines
|
| o |
prosecutions
|
| o |
clamping
of uninsured vehicles that have not declared
Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN) |
Records
held by DVLA will be compared with those on the
Motor Insurance Database (MID).From
early 2011, if it appears from the database comparison
that a vehicle has no insurance or no SORN, a letter
will be sent to the registered keeper.
If the keeper takes no action, the keeper faces:
| o |
a
fixed penalty fine of £100 |
| o |
court
prosecution and be fined up to £1,000
|
| o |
having
the vehicle clamped, seized and destroyed |
The
material above is from the Directgov website. More
|
Continuous
Insurance Enforcement Chris Hunt Cooke
reports Continuous Insurance Enforcement was
provided for in the Road Safety Act 2006 but
has not previously been implemented. This
was noted in a V8 Website report
in August 2008. It is now planned to introduce
this early in 2011 - see the Directgov
website for more information.
This will be somewhat like Continuous Licensing
which was introduced in 2004, so every vehicle
registered with the DVLA will have to be insured
for road use, unless a Statutory Off Road
Notification (SORN) has been sent to the DVLA.
The DVLA database and the Motor Insurers Database
will be compared, and any registered keepers
of vehicles that are neither insured not SORNed
will get a letter seeking clarification. The
keeper therefore will have the opportunity
to get insurance, declare SORN or find out
why his insurers have failed to update MID
if insurance had been taken out and get that
put right. If he fails to do that, he will
be sent a £100 fixed penalty notice,
and if that is not paid, then he will be given
a summons. The offence does not carry penalty
points.
Owners with standard classic car insurance
which provides cover for road use all year
round should not be affected at all. There
might be a timing problem for anyone who insured
their car only during the summer, if they
cancelled the insurance for the winter while
the road tax was still current. They would
need to declare a SORN at the same time to
avoid a timing mismatch.
The Motor Insurers Database can be checked
online to ensure that your car is correctly
recorded at www.askmid.com |
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