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Uninsured Drivers

Volume 494: debated on Thursday 25 June 2009

16. To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport what steps the Secretary of State is taking to reduce the number of uninsured drivers. (282114)

We have already enabled the police to have data on uninsured vehicles for use with their automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) equipment, and to seize and destroy vehicles being driven uninsured.

We introduced a new offence in August 2008 of “causing death by driving while unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured”, which carries a custodial sentence of up to two years.

The Road Safety Act 2006 introduced a new offence of being a registered keeper of a vehicle for which there is no valid motor insurance, to be enforced from the record by a procedure of Continuous Insurance Enforcement. We intend to bring in further regulations to bring these provisions into force. It is planned to commence the Continuous Insurance Enforcement scheme in 2010-11 starting with an initial publicity campaign to raise public awareness.