One from The Telegraph showing that the current lot are just as obsessed with pointless legislation as the last set of authoritarian shits :

Mike Penning, the road safety minister, is expected to change the law to make it an offence for the first time to keep an uninsured vehicle rather than simply to drive while uninsured.

Sources at the Department for Transport (DfT) claim that the move will help reduce the £30 estimated annual cost to every responsible motorists in additional premiums to cover crashes involving uninsured drivers.

…

Under the new system the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) will work alongside the Motor Insurers’ Bureau to identify uninsured vehicles, many of which are never taken out on to the road. Their owners will then be contacted by letter to warn them they face a £100 fine if the car or van is not insured by a certain date.

If the vehicle remains uninsured, regardless of whether a fine has been paid or not, it could then be seized and crushed, according to the DfT.

…

Police gained powers at the end of 2005 to seize uninsured cars, but to use their powers they have to catch the driver at the wheel. Under the new offence of keeping a vehicle while uninsured, the onus will be on drivers to prove that they have insurance, or have completed a statutory off-road notification.

The last part of the article that I have highlighted above is where I am left confused here.

At the moment you either have to tax your vehicle or complete a Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN). Whilst annoying that you have to declare that you won’t break the law by saying that you are not going to use your own property on the public highway via a SORN declaration, it is at least fairly painless to complete the process.

Under the proposed law, you will not be allowed even keep a taxed vehicle (on or off the road) without insuring it as well.

Untaxed vehicles will be fine as long as you have completed the SORN but anything taxed will need insuring as well.

I can see many situations where you currently don’t need insurance on your taxed vehicle. For example, historic vehicles have a zero tax rate so people “tax” them for the full year and renew as necessary but only insure the vehicle when it is being driven – usually in the Summer show season. Under the new system they will either have to bugger about with SORNS and tax disc renewals or keep the insurance going all year.

How this will prevent people driving whilst uninsured is beyond me. Those who choose to do so are unlikely to be taxing the thing in the first place. And, even if you have completed the SORN, what is to stop you driving it anyway (albeit illegally)?

All I can see happening is an administrative burden being placed on people who do respect the law whilst doing bugger all to stop those who choose to ignore the law.

There is also the issue of the Motor Insurers’ Bureau database not being updated accurately which has lead to vehicles being seized by the police because “the computer said no” even though no law was being broken. You only have to Google “car seized insurance computer” for example to bring up a shitload of articles where the police have used their shiny new powers of seizure (running at 500 vehicles per day according to this article).

To add insult to injury, most of the people have to pay a £150 “release fee” to get their car back even though they can prove it was insured at the time it was confisated.

Even the mafia cannot get away with that sort of protection racket!

In summary, whilst people driving uninsured vehicles may be a problem, I cannot see how this will change anything at all other than adding to the pile of exisiting laws and paperwork and allowing our useless fucking government to say they are taking action on the issue.