Road safety - Insurance cheats are a risk to others

THE number of drivers using our roads without insurance is indicative that there are gaps in the system which, as a matter of urgency, need to be closed.

Too many of them have been convicted of drink driving and because they do not want to incur any further penalties as a consequence of that offence, such as more expensive insurance, they are more than willing to risk another.

Anybody who is unconscionable enough to venture behind the wheel of a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, and is apprehended and convicted, must face the consequences which the law prescribes for such wanton behaviour.

Another consequence is that they will face far higher insurance premiums if, as they are obliged to, they declare a drink driving conviction on a renewal form.

Thereby hangs a very serious problem. According to a spokesman for the Hibernian - a company with a quarter of the motor insurance business - only a fraction of convicted drink drivers are honest enough to make such a declaration.

That company estimates that as few as 5% of such drivers actually notify their insurer about the conviction. According to their figures, they should be insuring 2,000 offenders, yet there are only 100 on their books.

This means that in one company alone, there are 1,900 drivers on the road who can claim they have insurance if stopped in a routine garda check point, whereas in fact they have not.

This is probably proportionately increased for as many drivers as there are other companies who offer motor insurance.

The reality, of course, is that to avoid higher premiums, a substantial number of drivers are prepared to drive without insurance.

Unfortunately, the gardaí have no way of checking, short of an accident, and insurance companies have no independent method of verifying if a driver has been convicted of a motoring offence.

Last Christmas, over 1,600 people were arrested for drink-driving and final figures for a six-week garda safety campaign at that time showed a 26% rise in the number of people breath-tested.

The arrest this week of former minister Jim McDaid on suspicion of driving while over the alcohol limit was a high profile example that the problem is not a seasonal one, but a year-round one on our roads.

Obviously, there is no inference that he was driving without insurance but for those that do and are the cause of an accident, then they transfer the financial liability to other responsible drivers.

A graphic illustration of this recently was when a passenger was injured by an uninsured driver and the subsequent damages award of more than €2 million was paid by the Motor Insurers Bureau of Ireland, to which drivers contribute.

Anybody driving while uninsured is committing a criminal offence and possibly a suggestion made last year may be revisited again. It was that gardaí should have included in their powers the right to seize uninsured vehicles.

If a person is irresponsible and reckless enough to drive while uninsured, it is more than likely that they are equally indifferent to the safety of other road users.

Collaboration between the gardaí and the motor insurance industry should be capable of arriving at effective ways to reduced, if not totally eliminate, the scourge of uninsured drivers.