Are you one in every of the one in twenty motorists who often drive without insurance? You’d better be careful – your automotive might be heading for the crusher and shipped off to the world’s biggest scrap smelter in China!

New powers now permit the police to seize, impound and crush any car found traveling without insurance. A pilot scheme was introduced in Durham last spring. Since then, police have impounded a lot of than one,two hundred cars. Of these around half are crushed into cubes and packed off for smelting.

Operation Takeaway as the pilot scheme was known, has been such a massive success, that police forces throughout the UK are enthusiastically polishing up their tow trucks. The theme is currently supported by a replacement national police database that is supported by the insurance industry. It allows the police to test the insurance status of every automotive in the UK whilst they are sitting in their patrol car.

Currently if you’re caught red handed without car insurance you are forced handy your keys to the police at the roadside. There aren’t any exceptions – this is applicable to everybody; it does not matter if it’s just a forgetful mistake or aware driving while not insurance.

Then you may have to get your skates on! You’ve simply fourteen days to provide a legitimate insurance policy to the police and collect your car. And different prices mount up. Before you’ll collect your automotive, you’ve got to pay the value of kerbside recovery (around £a hundred and five) and the cost of secure storage – and that might simply amount to £15 a day. So, if you allow collecting your car to the 14th day, you may be in for a bill for £315.

And if you don’t reclaim your automotive, off to the crusher it goes!

Throughout the pilot scheme, the price of crushing the cars was partly funded by Direct Line. They need estimated that Operation Takeaway prevented up to 2,000 accidents. And many of the cars impounded by the police were found to be un-roadworthy.

A police spokesman said, “ Uninsured drivers are typically guilty of many different offences. Such as having neither driving licence nor MOT certificate. We do everything in our power to get these dangerous and illegal drivers off our roads”.

Indeed, uninsured drivers are abundant bigger drawback than several people would expect. The Department of Transport recently reported that one in 20 motorists regularly drive while not insurance. Furthermore, research from the Association of British Insurers discovered that uninsured drivers are amongst the most dangerous on the roads. On average they cause one accident every six months and are three times additional possible to be convicted of driving while not due care and attention.

And who pays for those uninsured accidents? We have a tendency to do! The common automobile insurance premium is loaded by £thirty to cover the cost of injury caused by uninsured motorists. Across the UK that adds up to an additional £500 million paid out every year by the law-abiding motorists!

But that is not the end of our financial pain. If an uninsured vehicle collides into your automotive, it’s still recorded as a “fault claim” on your policy. This suggests you’ll have to pay the excess when your automobile is repaired and unless you’ve got got Claims Protection on your policy, your no-claims bonus will take a knocking. Over a 2-year amount, the reduction in your no claims bonus could simply value £275 in higher premiums.

The move to take cars off the road and crush them has been warmly welcomed by the Association of British Insurers. The ABI has long criticised the leniency of punishment handed out by the courts to uninsured motorists however they still want harder penalties. Offenders are sometimes fined just £150 to £two hundred – with time to pay – and this is often a lot of but the common car insurance premium. Surely this can not be true justice! Read more other FREE articles about cheap individual health insurance, health insurance comparisons and tonik health insurance

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