February 10, 2007
Lawless London
Its official, the police are turning a blind eye to untaxed, uninsured, unregistered vehicles! Whilst you run the gauntlet every time you stop to use the loo or get a take-away coffee, millions, yes millions, are using our roads illegally, with little chance of being nicked. Department for Transport figures show that the number of untaxed vehicles rose to 2.19 million in 2006. That’s up 640,000 on the disgraceful 2005 figure of 1.55 million. Whilst our police and the government concentrate their efforts installing ever more cameras to persecute the ‘law abiding’ motorist who taxes, insures and registers his vehicle, these millions of criminals are getting away with murder.
It’s a bit like TOCU concentrating on nicking cab drivers who leave their cab unattended on a rank in order to use the loo, and ignoring the lines of minicabs forming illegal ‘ranks’ whilst waiting outside clubs and restaurants.
I suppose the police are just like anyone else at the end of the day. Why give yourself more work and aggro when you can make an easy nick? Just remember that next time a copper asks you for assistance with this or that. “Can you just drop this drunken woman home, cabbie?” or “Please be on the look-out for this wanted person”. Yeah right, I’ll just help make your life that little bit easier shall I?
This lack of enforcement is predicted to cost £217 million pounds in lost revenue in this financial year, compared with £147 million last year. You would think it worth the effort to catch these criminals, but it appears that precious little is being done. The cameras employed to catch you for stopping at a cash machine for one minute in order for your passenger to get the money to pay you, could be used to identify untaxed and uninsured drivers. These vehicles should be confiscated and sold at auction with the proceeds going into a fund to pay for damage and injuries caused by uninsured drivers.
So, who are the likely offenders? apparently people that own cars or motorbikes more than ten years old are said to be more likely to avoid paying road tax. I’m not sure that is true, but it does seem to me that those who look like they can’t afford to pay, such as very young drivers with powerful cars, most likely don’t and I have spoken to a couple of cab drivers that have been hit by kids on scooters that have later turned out to be uninsured.
In a report by Nottingham University to the Secretary of State for transport in 2004, it highlighted that in 2001 there were almost 267,000 findings of guilt in Courts in England and Wales for the offence of using a motor vehicle without insurance. When you examine the data it shows that over 90% of those convicted were male. Even more worrying, 60% of those were under 25, and almost half of these were under 20! In addition the report goes on to say that “The segment of the population most over-represented among defendants are those described as in the ‘welfare borderline’ and those in ‘municipal dependency’. Both are over-represented by a factor of 2.5.”
The former are ‘people who are struggling to achieve rewards and are most reliant on the council for accommodation and benefits’; the latter are ‘families on lower incomes who often live in large council estates where there is little owner occupation’.
Those most under-represented are those described as ‘Symbols of Success’. You might find the report an interesting read: it’s called Uninsured Driving in the United Kingdom, and it’s by Professor David Greenaway from the University of Nottingham.
The report is almost three years old, so you would think that more was being done to address the problem. You would think that with all this information at their disposal the authorities, through the police, would have little difficulty finding untaxed, uninsured cars. According to the report, they need look no further than their nearest council estate. What’s wrong with towing these vehicles away and selling them at auction? At least the law-abiding residents of those estates (the vast majority) will find it easier to park. My real gripe is that the police are just not interested if you report the fact that you have been hit by an uninsured driver. They are quite content to let them continue to drive on our streets putting our lives and our livelihoods at risk.
This is yet another example of the police taking the easy route. If you report a crime, such as being bilked or having your cab maliciously damaged, you are usually directed to the small claims court for redress. Not much use when you are dealing with the dregs of society, who are already claiming benefits and have no means to pay even if they had the inclination. One thing you can be sure of, if you attempt to defend yourself against a bilker, or the thug kicking the doors of your cab, it will be you in the dock. Why? Because you are the easy nick, that’s why!
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