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Over the last decade, the issue of uninsured drivers has been looked into more and more by Government and the Police, in order to meet the requirements of the 4th EU motoring directive. The next step along the way is the introduction of “Continuous Insurance Enforcement”, but exactly what is this EU directive?

The EU has brought in this piece of legislation, to help citizens from different member states, claim on the insurance of another person who lives elsewhere in the EU. This is due to the fact that there are over 500,000 incidents between drivers of differing nationalities each year, and the process of dealing with a claim over 2 languages and 2 individual legal systems, would have been a very complex affair without it.

Each country has it’s own national database of all insured vehicles registered there. In the UK, this is known as the Motor Insurers Database (or MID for short). As strong links have been made between the use of uninsured vehicles and organised crime, the Government are more than happy to comply with the 4th directive as it falls in line with Government policy on reducing crime as well as the number of uninsured drivers on the road.

From time to time errors do occur, (as with any system), and any apparently “uninsured” vehicle is very likely to be stopped by a Police patrol in short order. At this point, the officer on the scene will request some form of proof that the vehicle is insured. If this occurs outside normal working hours and no supporting paperwork is available, it could lead to the car being removed from the road and kept by the Police until insurance is arranged, or correct paperwork provided. Until recently, only private car policies were recorded, so business use car insurance or fleet insurance policies could run into trouble, although that is now no longer the case.

C.I.E. -Continuous Insurance Enforcement

The Police are constantly finding new and innovative ways of enforcement, such as automatic number plate recognition cameras, although outside major roads and urban areas, this technology is still not very prevalent due to it’s expense.

Previously, an uninsured driver had to be caught in the act, but surely prevention is better than cure? Using information from the DVLA and the MID combined, it is possible to identify cars that are uninsured, and of those cars, the keepers of the one’s that are not declared off road are liable to prosecution, so they have to either insure them or SORN them.