Insurance News Archive

Crackdown on uninsured drivers 'taking shape'

The crackdown on uninsured drivers is beginning to take shape as police embrace new technologies, a spokesperson for the British Insurance Broker's Association has said.

Technical services manager Graeme Trudgill said that the majority of police forces across the country now have automatic number plate recognition technologies, which have helped them to remove some 30,000 uninsured vehicles from Britain's roads in the past year.

"Most police forces around the UK all have operations where they are using automatic number plate recognition cameras and extracts of the motor insurance data base to find uninsured motor vehicles so that they could pick them up on the road side. They now have the power to seize the vehicle," he explained.

In London police officers have used automatic number plate recognition technology to seize 1320 uninsured cars in the last four weeks alone, all in the boroughs of Hackney, Haringey and Newham.

Mr Trudgill said this technology, together with the new motor insurance database, is going to become a "very important and very useful" law enforcement tool in the fight against uninsured drivers.

23 Nov 2006