Illegal drivers and paltry fines

21/05/2008

Recently Ian Austin, M P, drew the attention of Jack Straw and Jacqui Smith to the continuing menace of un-insured and other illegal drivers and the threats they pose to legal drivers and all other road users.  Due to the present small penalties and the long odds against them getting caught there are about one and a half million illegal drivers on our roads.

 

The UK insurance industry estimates that illegal drivers cost the rest of us about £500,000,000 annually.  They also claim that uninsured drivers are three times more likely to be convicted for driving without due and attention and ten times more likely to be convicted of drink driving offences. These figures are based on those few actually caught and prosecuted therefore the real figure must be far higher.

 

Far more money should invested on the sophisticated Automatic Number Plate Recognition camera system which immediately recognises illegal cars rather than ever more speed cameras that penalise legal motorists for what is far too often only a technical offence but do not catch illegal drivers.

 

If there were more ANPR cameras in use and more traffic police were on the roads looking for real offenders and penalties for illegal car use were much higher the roads would be far safer for all us legal motorists and our insurance would cost £30 less since this is the hidden addition to all our policies to pay for the damage done by the illegal ones. There would be an appreciable drop in the one and a half million illegal cars currently on the road that threaten all honest road users. This would also help lessen congestion and reduce the emissions from poorly maintained illegal vehicles. 

 

All responsible legal drivers such as Mature Times readers should all be pressuring our MPs for this to happen.

 

 

R. Bruton

Dudley