Do you belong to the 20% of motorists who drive regularly without insurance? Be careful, your car could end up being sent to China’s biggest scrap yard.
Police now have the power to seize, impounded and crush any vehicle found on the roads without insurance. Durham was the first city to implement a pilot scheme. Police have taken possession of more than 1,200 vehicles since then. About half of those cars were crushed into cubes, and then packed away for smelting.
Operation Takeaway, the pilot scheme, was so successful that the UK’s police forces are now eager to polish up their tow trucks. A new national database supporting the scheme has been created by the police and is supported by the insurance sector. This database allows police to check every vehicle’s insurance status while they’re driving around the UK.
If you are caught with your car keys uninsured, you will be asked to surrender them to the police. There are no exceptions. This applies to everyone, it doesn’t matter whether you’re driving with no insurance or a forgetful error.
You’ll need to start your skates! You only have 14 days to provide a valid insurance policy and pick up your car from the police. Other costs add up. Before you can collect your car, you have to pay the cost of kerbside recovery (around £105) and the cost of secure storage – and that could easily amount to £15 a day. So, if you leave collecting your car to the 14th day, you could be in for a bill for £315.
Don’t forget to take your car to the crusher if you aren’t interested in reclaiming it!
Direct Line partially funded the cost of crushing cars during the pilot program. Operation Takeaway saved up to 2,000 injuries, according to the team. Many of the cars that were impounded by police were unroadworthy.
A spokesperson for the police stated that uninsured motorists are often guilty of other crimes. For example, having no driving license nor MOT certificate. We will do everything possible to remove these illegal and dangerous drivers from our roads.
Uninsured drivers pose a much bigger problem than we might think. According to the Department of Transport, 1 in 20 motorists drive without insurance. Research by the Association of British Insurers found that uninsured drivers can be among the most dangerous on roads. They are three times more likely than others to cause an accident every six months, and they are three times more likely that they will be convicted for driving without due care.
Who pays for these uninsured injuries? We do! The average car insurance premium is loaded by £30 to cover the cost of damage caused by uninsured motorists. Across the UK that adds up to an extra £500 million paid out each year by the law-abiding motorists!
But this is not the end for our financial woes. Uninsured vehicles can still collide into your car and it will be recorded on your policy as a “fault case”. If your car is damaged, you will have to pay for it. Claims Protection won’t protect your no-claims bonuses. Over a two-year period, the reduction in your no claims bonus could easily cost £275 in higher premiums.
Association of British Insurers has welcomed the move to remove cars from the roads and crush them. Although the Association of British Insurers has always criticized the inflexibility of the punishments handed to uninsured motorists by the courts, they are still pushing for tougher penalties. Offenders are typically fined just £150 to £200 – with time to pay – and this is much less than the average car insurance premium. This is not true justice.
