Driving Without Insurance

Mr. Gordon Prentice
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has considered the merits of the use of windscreen insurance discs to combat uninsured driving; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Coaker
We consider there are significant drawbacks to this approach. It is not vehicles that have to be insured, but a particular driver’s use of a particular vehicle. The presence of a disc on a vehicle’s windscreen would not prove that the person driving it at any particular time was properly insured to do so. Improved use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology linked to the Motor Insurance Database, the power to seize a vehicle being driven by someone without insurance and the introduction under the Road Safety Act 2006 of continuous enforcement from the record are likely to be more effective in dealing with uninsured driving.