Insurance proposals ignore foreign offenders

Item Added 21 April 2009

Continuous insurance enforcement scheme will fail if it continues to ignore uninsured foreign vehicles on UK roads

Proposed regulations for continuous insurance enforcement have a fundamental weakness in that they exclude data on vehicles registered and insured outside the UK.

The CIE scheme will identify uninsured vehicles by comparing data held in the UK’s motor insurance industry database with registration and keeper data provided by the DVLA.

While this will cover the majority of vehicles on UK roads, it ignores a significant number of foreign-registered vehicles that are driving in the UK both legally and illegally.

SPARKS research conducted during 2007 revealed that an average 142,000 FRVs are in the UK at any one time. One per cent of all vehicles on UK roads are foreign; this rises to three per cent in London and two per cent across the South East.

“Scheme enforcers will be unable to tell whether a foreign vehicle is legally insured in its own country and therefore will have to ignore FRVs, even though some may be completely uninsured,” said SPARKS Network manager Bill Blakemore.

“A further complication is that FRVs that have been in the UK more than six months should have been re-registered with the DVLA and insured under a UK-compliant policy. CIE systems will not pick this up.

”This scheme is another example of UK traffic laws creating inequality. We believe all EU drivers should be treated fairly and equally no matter their country of residence or where they drive.”

SPARKS Network members want the proposed CIE regulations to be expanded to cover all vehicles driven on UK roads, both UK and foreign registered and insured.

This will mean greater cooperation at a European level between national licensing authorities and motor insurance industries, as well as systems for sharing vehicle registration and insurance data.

SPARKS submission to public consultation on proposals to inform regulations for the introduction and operation of a scheme for continuous insurance enforcement of statutory motor insurance