How can there be so many uninsured motorists ?

M

MrEarl

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Hello,

Can someone please explain to me how there is apparently over 150,000 motorists in Ireland with no insurance cover ?

  • As I understand it, every car owner is on a register.
  • Also, as I understand it, when someone tries to pay their road tax, the need their motor insurance policy.
So, am I correct in understanding that:
  • We also have over 150,000 private motorists driving around with no motor insurance (if it's less, then how did they pay their road tax, without a current motor insurance policy) ?
  • Ireland in the 21st centuary is unable to run a simple electronic comparison to check the register of car owners with a list of motor insurance policies, to see who does and who does not have motor insurance, then take the obvious follow up action ?

What am I missing here ?
 
You don't need motor insurance to pay your road tax online anyway, don't know about if you go into the office. You can put in any random numbers and it works, it is not linked to any system that will check. I do it all the time because I can't be bothered going to find the policy number (I am renewing 3 monthly usually, for 3 different family cars), I put in the correct company and rough renewal date but just stick in 123456 for policy number. You could just as easily click any company and put in any renewal once it's in the future.

Was advised of this 'fault' in the online system years ago by a garda!
 
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The road tax is a bit irrelevant.

Surely the Gardai should be able to check the car registrations numbers against the insurance details.

Anyone who is driving without insurance - car is confiscated, end of story.

At the same time, we would have to take the cost of uninsured drivers onto the public purse and not just charge the insured drivers for it.

And a huge cut in personal injuries and legal fees.

Brendan
 
But there is no central register of car insurance policies and car registrations, if there was it could have been linked to the motor tax system.
 
A work colleague of mine recently got a fine and three penalty points in the post for no NCT.

He was not stopped, his car was photographed by one of the Garda vans on a public road and they knew there was no current NCT registered to that car, hence the fine and points.

Why can’t the same tactics be used for insurance ?

Surely it is not an insurmountable task to oblige all insurers to notify a central body of all registrations with current insurance policies.

I know there are reasons why there might not be an insurance policy registered to a specific car, in that case one should have to prove insurance was in place, otherwise the points / ban will apply.

When you think about it, the M50 can photograph tens of thousands of cars a day and apply fines where appropriate, why can’t the Garda ?

I accept this would not solve the problem completely as there are many cars out there with current insurance policies on them, but are being driven by a person not covered under that policy.
 
There is already an industry wide database of no claim bonuses. The data would be available with some relatively minor work...

Why do we pay tax and insurance if both are legally required? Why not subsume one into the other...

Plus one wonders how many criminals are already using cloned plates. We need the IT solution for the average evader but dont always assume the reg is reliable.
 
There was new legislation before the Seanad in the lead up to Christmas aimed at clearing the way for Garda use of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras and roadside drug screening tests amongst other issues (20 kph speed-limit is one).

See Oirish Daily Mail Page 2 21/12/2016 (free copy courtesy of Supervalu otherwise I would't read the rag)

I wrote to Sean Molony and the Minister's Office seeking clarification on a number of technical issues but have so far received no responses (surprise surprise). Neither Molony nor anyone in the Minister's office seem competent to comment on such matters as demonstrated by the article itself.

There should be no issue merging two data-bases (or extracts / excerpts from them) to high-light registered vehicles which are uninsured or registered vehicles which are untaxed or unNct'd or other other anomalies, e.g. duplicated reg nos, duplicate VIN's, no registered owner, etc. Slightly tougher are the unregistered vehicles, or illegally imported vehicles with false plates. It is the simplest of simple jobs once data access is granted.

Similarly the holes in the motortax.ie system are very easily plugged. It just needs will and ignore the unions because there is too much at stake.

BTW all of the work I describe above could be undertaken and completed without ANPR legislation or equipment once the data-access issues are resolved. There is no in-car technology needed to resolve 99% of the problems of safety, lack of licences, revenue, illegal drivers, etc.
 
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Why so many uninsured drivers?
1). Maybe because some people can't afford insurance.
2). Because the odds of getting caught aren't too high.
3). Rebellious behaviour against authority and perceived inequality in society.
(I always have insurance myself, but I do understand some people not having it )
 
Subsume road tax into the cost of fuel. Extra 1 or 2c per litre. Simple.

Insurance. I'm heading home to the West for a few days soon. When I'm down the local having a few pints, I bet I could walk out to the car park and high % of the older cars in particular won't have insurance. (But it's just as rampant IMO in parts of Dublin etc). There is no policing off the issue.

A high % will also drive home with a few beers on board, turning down offers of a lift. The nearest Gardai stations are over 20 miles away in any direction. If there is a checkpoint set up on a rare occassion anywhere nearyby, all in the pub will know about it within 5 minutes. But thats for a different thread
 
RichInSpirit said:
Why so many uninsured drivers?
1). Maybe because some people can't afford insurance.
2). Because the odds of getting caught aren't too high.
3). Rebellious behaviour against authority and perceived inequality in society.
(I always have insurance myself, but I do understand some people not having it )
Click to expand...

Yep. Motorists are treated as a cash cow by government. The current system is manifestly and very obviously unfair. It fails at a basic level.
 
Treated as cash cows by private enterprise as well. If I didn't know the alternate routes, visiting my brother & his family could have cost me €12.80 in tolls for the return journey. It's a struggle for me to keep my car on the road so avoiding tolls, parking charges, parking fines and speeding / driving fines are my priorities. The outrageous part for me is we pay for enforcement of the law but we don't get it if the 150,000 figure is correct.
 
Delboy said:
Subsume road tax into the cost of fuel. Extra 1 or 2c per litre. Simple.
Click to expand...

I don't think it would be that simple. At least an extra 30c per litre I reckon, sending everyone in border areas to the North, a scenario that successive governments have been avoiding with their fuel taxation policies.
 
mathepac said:
Treated as cash cows by private enterprise as well. If I didn't know the alternate routes, visiting my brother & his family could have cost me €12.80 in tolls for the return journey. It's a struggle for me to keep my car on the road so avoiding tolls, parking charges, parking fines and speeding / driving fines are my priorities. The outrageous part for me is we pay for enforcement of the law but we don't get it if the 150,000 figure is correct.
Click to expand...

Yes except that the tolling system strictly speaking isn't private enterprise. State contracts. Which I'm sure were all done in the proper manner, Ireland being well-known internationally for its lack of corruption. Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas!
 
Delboy said:
Subsume road tax into the cost of fuel. Extra 1 or 2c per litre. Simple.
Click to expand...

Must admit, I rather that suggestion to the one above where road tax would be collected as part of insurance premiums. Also, it would mean those using more fuel, would pay more road tax, which seems a reasonably fair way to apply road tax.


Interesting that the general concensus is that there's a fairly straight forward technical solution to tracking down most, if not all, of the uninsured drivers and yet we don't do it (whether it's comparing the ownership of vehicles with insurance records, motor tax records etc).

I can't beleive the people who designed the Motor Tax website set it up in such a way as to permit people to submit dummy numbers into the system and still renew their roadtax, its just facilitating those doing wrong.

Hopefully the minister with responsibility might take a lesson or two from this discussion thread....
 
mathepac said:
......I wrote to Sean Molony and the Minister's Office seeking clarification on a number of technical issues but have so far received no responses (surprise surprise). Neither Molony nor anyone in the Minister's office seem competent to comment on such matters as demonstrated by the article itself.
Click to expand...

What Minister did you write to ?

Did you send a follow up referrring to your original communication and calling for a response ? ... I found on a previous occassion that doing this, with a copy of my correspondence to a couple of the opposition TDs quickly got me the response I was waiting for ;)
 
MrEarl said:
I can't beleive the people who designed the Motor Tax website set it up in such a way as to permit people to submit dummy numbers into the system and still renew their roadtax, its just facilitating those doing wrong....
Click to expand...
Data protection, EU waffle, interdepartmental demarcation, laziness, don't care, "not our job Boss".

When you handed your insurance cert into the individual in the L.A. motor-tax office, s/he could check it was current by looking at the date and for the vehicle you wanted to tax by looking at reg no. I know, simplistic version, but bear with me.

To check validity online, motortax.ie would need the insurance companies to turn over their clients' motor-insurance details to a 3rd party. They can't do that or won't do that. They can do it in the UK and other jurisdictions, but not here, why not - unions / demarcation? Or was it a Government decision to allow uninsured cars to be taxed, maximising revenue while ducking an enforcement opportunity?
 
mathepac said:
Data protection, EU waffle, interdepartmental demarcation, laziness, don't care, "not our job Boss".
Click to expand...

Afraid you forgot one of the more regular Irish ones when you posted the list of possible reasons above ... "eh, we're a bit thick and not capable of foresight or joined-up thinking" ;) :rolleyes:

I don't think validating a specific insurance policy number would be a breach in data protection, would it ? ... sure, if there was a recognisable link provided by the insurance company to the individuals identidy then there's a breach but thats not what would be happening here, only the insurance policy number (which I believe is a random number) would be confirmed as being valid and active. The insurance companies would not be releasing details of individuals names, level of cover, DOBs etc.

Bottom line - with circa 150,000 uninsured motorists, this is a massive problem and something the government should have put right already (but in keeping with most other things, they probably won't do a single thing to fix the problem, they'll just kick the can down the road and leave it for someone else to fix :mad:)
 
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