Enforcing the law

Even when the times were good, some people drove without insurance. Some were simply too poor to be able to afford the premiums. Yes, the gap between the have and have-nots has been steadily increasing over the last fifty years and there's more poverty today than you imagine. Then there were those who simply refused to pay. This is a mixture of perversity and lack of respect for the law. Such people do not accept traffic laws apply to them and, anyway, they think the quality of their driving is so good, they will never get in an accident. Such confidence is not always justified. Now the recession has been around for more than two years and unemployment shows little sign of changing for the better. This is pushing more people into driving without insurance. Let's face it. You can't get anything done unless you have a vehicle. So rather than give up this necessity, you just continue driving and hope for the best. This means about 19% of the drivers on our roads are uninsured.

It's worth just pausing for a moment. Almost one-fifth of all drivers are uninsured. That means the chances of you being involved in an accident with an uninsured driver are high. Why has the situation been allowed to get so bad? In all but three states, basic liability coverage is mandatory. With the law on its side, every state could have a major purge and force every uninsured driver off the road. All it takes is a single database run by the state driver registration bureau. All vehicles would be registered. All drivers would have their licenses recorded. And all insurance companies would notify whenever a licensed driver paid for insurance or failed to renew. This would give the states a current list of uninsured drivers on the road. The police could access the list in real time when on patrol and pull over any vehicle thought to be uninsured. They could call round to the last recorded addresses to ask for proof of insurance. Drivers failing to produce evidence of coverage could watch their vehicles being towed.

As it is, enforcement is often a lottery. Some police forces wait until a moving violation to ask for proof of coverage. Other states run random checks. Ohio is an example. Every week the insurance-verification program sends out 5,400 letters to Ohio drivers asking for proof of insurance. Those who fail to reply within 90 days must pay a fine - their licenses are suspended for 90 days. Just by chance, this busts about 500 uninsured drivers every week. Except most drivers who get the letters take out a 30-day policy and then let it lapse again. Without effective policing, the intention of the law is easily frustrated. If everyone did have insurance, the average premium rates would fall. When those car insurance quotes arrived, we would all be paying less. As it is, the car insurance quotes rise on basic cover and we are forced to pay extra for uninsured/underinsured coverage. All this extra cost for the law-abiding because states have no will to enforce the law.