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Wednesday 7th January 2009 Make us your HOME PAGE  What is RSS?
 
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ARTICLE SUMMARY

Should all uninsured drivers be jailed?

UNINSURED drivers are killing four people a week – yet the penalties are getting softer.

HARVEYMIFF... YOU MUST LIVE A VERY INSULAR LIFE..

09.09.08, 1:50am

Certainly not anywhere near me..

I see old age pensioners being treated like sex offenders cause they sun-bathed naked in their back yard.. I see school teachers lives ruined because strait consensual adult porn is found on their computer.. I see good drivers who have never had an accident have their license taken away for looking at a mobile phone while waiting at the lights.. Decent folk ending up in jail for little more than using bad-language in front of a police officer.. Students, jailed and interrogated for peacefully protesting without permission.. Holiday makers have their car crushed for buying 1 too many packets of cigs in France.. Now our BDSM community risk 3 years in jail for living their own lives.. Our students are told which propaganda they can and can not read..

I could go on, but all of these things ALL OF THEM are justified by the flawed philosophy that one thing leads to another.. so we just skip the inconvenience of the presumption of innocence and go strait to the presumption of guilt, there is a name for legislating in the manner you are advocating, its called draconian, look it up.

we don't even know how many uninsured drivers are out there, only the ones we catch, so the figures are not only misleading, they are completely unknown.

And sure there are other examples; everyone on heroin addict probably smoked cannabis at one time, but if everyone who has smoked cannabis went on to heroin over 1 third of our population would be junkies, if everyone that downloaded music from the net went on to sell it they would be lined up on every street in the country.. The idea is ludicrous and completely baseless.

Your whole argument is the stuff of fairytales and bad crime films: that if someone is dishonest it means they must be hiding an A-bomb somewhere as there are only good -law abiding citizens and evil doers on the planet, no gray areas, no reason, monkey see monkey do, if monkey swears in public well, monkey must have an AK47 hidden in his car.. ludicrous.

• Posted by: cor • Report Comment

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BUT, IT'S TRUE. IT'S A FACT!

07.09.08, 11:47am

One thing does lead to another. If a person who is lawless in one thing, subsequent investigations will always reveal more crime. It's also a fact that in the 1960s when a mandatory six month disqualification was the penalty for no insurance, there were fewer offenders.

Minor sex offenders who flash, then go on to do noncing and worse. It's a fact of life. Unless you nip it in the bud, you end up with a serious problem.

• Posted by: Harveymiff • Report Comment

HARVEYMIFF...

03.09.08, 11:39pm

Just because a statistic says you are a bit more likely to be a gun toting maniac if you are not wearing your seat belt -does that mean the police should open fire on anyone driving without a seatbelt?

Ok, enough examples, but you are advocating the assumption of guilt; which goes against everything justice stands for: To be innocent until proven guilty is the basis of our justice system, if it were the other way around then this would be a truly horrid place to live..

Your way is rather sneaky; to assume someone is guilty of a crime they can't even defend against, while charging them on a lesser crime that carries the punishment of the much worse crime that they are already guilty of before going to court...

'One thing always leads to another.'

No it does not. this is the kind of useless premise that has been the base for all the really bad laws recently, to assume that if someone who enjoys a trashy horror / porn euro flick they must be rabid rapists and so lock them up for 3 years and put them on the sex offenders register... If someone reads the terrorist handbook (lol) they must be a terrorist so lock them up / interrogate and deport them.. Hell if someone wears a 'Bollox to Blair' t-shirt within a mile of parliament they are 'assumed' to be terrorists or worse peace protesters and locked up...

The bottom line is that people are complicated, someone who doesn't think twice about not paying their insurance might be abhorred at the thought of speeding or driving recklessly and taking away their right to be innocent until proven guilty of that crime over a few statistics is cold and unjust.

• Posted by: cor • Report Comment

PUT THEM TO WORK IN THE COMMUNITY

03.09.08, 11:28pm

They should be banned from using the road, and sent into doing community work if they offend more than once. The jails are already full, and these wrong-doers should be put to doing something useful for the Community.

• Posted by: lilies • Report Comment

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IN A WAY, YES; YOU ARE RIGHT THAT UNINSURED DRIVERS ARE NOT NECESSARILY BAD DRIVERS BUT...

01.09.08, 9:36pm

Drivers of vehicles who refuse to take out insurance or take out a policy, receive their certificate and then cancel the payments are law breakers. People who do this have no regard for the law and are most likely to be driving with no regard either. One thing always leads to another. Coppers pull a driver with no seatbelt (a minor misdemeanor) but then after stopping him or her, other things always come to light.

No tax, no insurance, no licence, drunk or drugged. In general, once a person is proved to be dishonest in one thing, further investigation usually reveals other crimes. We are not talking about a driver who discovers that they are not covered by a mistake due to direct debit payments to the insurance company which, can be proved to be a genuine oversight. We are talking about drivers who have made a conscious decision to deliberately drive without having any insurance whatsoever.

The law of the land is fairly flexible and deliberate intent as opposed to innocent oversight is ironed out in a court of law with an educated judgement given after all of the evidence is heard.

• Posted by: Harveymiff • Report Comment

I DO NOT AGREE TO DRIVE VEHICLES WITHOUT INSURANCE, BUT

31.08.08, 11:09pm

I do not agree that the drivers should drive vehicles uninsured.

However, due to exorbitant insurance premium, drivers should not be blamed for this. Year after year the insurance companies are making huge profits with the blessings of the Government Legislation and at the expense of innocent and defenseless drivers.

Hence please review the whole situation by the concerned Authorities for appropriate action and also for reducing the high insurance premium for the benefit of the whole driving population at this critical economic situation.

• Posted by: MGeorge • Report Comment

ARE YOU SERIUS?

29.08.08, 3:12am

driving without insurance and driving recklessly are two entirely different things...

UNINSURED driver are NOT killing four people a week, RECKLESS drivers, who happen to be uninsured, are killing four people a week.

how does being insured change your ability / desire to drive carefully?

these ridiculous parallels that have nothing in common are part of what is destroying this country, I could draw a parallel with 5 people are killed every week by motorists changing their radio stations, do we imprison everyone with a radio in the car?

penalties have to be proportionate to the crime, if someone is driving recklessly they should get a harsher punishment, if someone's only crime is a piece of paper and a financial risk then they should get punished accordingly.

and to all you idiots responding, try and think of the system they would put in place for this, the DVLA can already issue fines automatically, so you are advocating automatic imprisonment if the computer spits out your name as being late with your insurance payment??

for god sake as if we don't already have enough draconian laws in this country.

• Posted by: cor • Report Comment

SHOULD ALL UNINSURED DRIVERS BE JAILED

27.08.08, 1:01pm

Of course they should and their vehicle impounded and sold off-but due to the shortage of prisons this is unlikely to happen and of course this might offend their "human rights" by courtesy of europe.
With the general shortage of prison places available could I suggest the resurrection of prison hulks moored offshore - then when enough offenders from a particular country are in prison they could be towed and moored on the coast of that country - thus killing two birds with one stone

• Posted by: dyingbreed1 • Report Comment

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WHAT BUGS ME

27.08.08, 1:53am

is all of the drivers who come here from abroad, either for work or pleasure, and drive cars that wouldn't be allowed as roadworthy in this country.

And old banger from the continent trundles over here. Who checks if they have insurance, tax or MOT?

No one is the answer.

Who cares if they cause accidents? Same as above - no one.

Many of the huge articulated lorries on the roads cause terrific problems - it happened to someone I know, his car was a write off.

The driver was Polish, admitted at the scene it was his fault, then changed his story and his insurance company - in Poland - won't pay up.

These people should have to pay British Insurance when they enter our country - not have people here fighting with Polish companies who don't give a monkeys.

If they have no insurance, road tax or MOT, yes jail them!

Knowing this stupid Government though, they will release rapists and murders to make room for the drivers.

Their brains don't consider building MORE prisons.

• Posted by: SandieL • Report Comment

UNINSURED

24.08.08, 8:46am

why should I, as a pensioner on a fixed income pay insurance and why should my 18 year old grandson pay his insurance of £780. when all the uninsured people, who incidentally cause our premiums to be increased, get away with it. If they are untaxed and uninsured the vehicles should be impounded, and their licenses. if they have one, should be withdrawn.

• Posted by: SRM • Report Comment

VHAK .................. YES . FOR STUPIDITY ?

19.08.08, 7:17pm

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some peopl "think" they are insured when they are not, due to a genuine mistake, would you really jail them?

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Howabout , sorry i don't possess a driving Licence , but i " forgot " to actualy take the test !

If they can prove the " genuine" mistake then fair enough , no jail time for them . but at what level of Stupidity does the Law draw a line !

PS: Supidity and ignorance is no form of defence , Take the expert in that field , Gordon Chunk Mc Stumbler , he could vouch for that .

• Posted by: HarriUK • Report Comment

SHOULD ALL UNINSURED DRIVERS BE JAILED

19.08.08, 6:23pm

christ is that the best the police can say about uninsured drivers. dogs running loose are a menace. motorcycles with these loud exhausts are a menace. loose paving stones are a menace. noisy rowdy people leaving pubs at midnight are a menace. well i'd like toknow what the police are a danger to the public. ah yes i know, posters with dogs/puppies on them recruiting for policemen

• Posted by: ledzep • Report Comment

SHOULD ALL UNINSURED DRIVERS BE JAILED

19.08.08, 6:18pm

dont be silly. no one gets jailed now unless you commit a crime against businesses not other fellow people. you can molest a child, burgle a house, rob a pensioner, rape a woman, beat up another person to nearly killing them, drive without tax-insurance-mot and kill someone and walk free, ooops i forget you will get community service. commit fraud against an insurance company whos profits yearly run into hundreds of millions of £'s a year then expect imprisonment. after all the remaining few spaces left in jail could house these fraudsters. where are these new prisons that were promised 3 years ago. oh i forgot these cost millions with no return for the governmnent like bin fines being imposed by councils

• Posted by: ledzep • Report Comment

HOULD ALL UNINSURED DRIVERS BE JAILED?

19.08.08, 5:22pm

some peopl "think" they are insured when they are not, due to a genuine mistake, would you really jail them?

• Posted by: vhak • Report Comment

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UNINSURED DRIVERS

19.08.08, 10:51am

All uninsured drivers should be jailed, thier car removed and crushed.
I moved back to the UK four years ago after a absence of 25 years, In all my travels I have seen at least 8 patrol cars on the M1 between Sheffield and Leeds, and police patrols are like hens teeth very rear.
10 year old car maximum paid £150, fine for driving unroadworthy, uninsured car £150.
cost of insurance in most cases for under a person under 15 plus minus £500, it is not rocket science as to why the law is broken.
As for overseas vechiles, they are not checked for tax or insurance as there is no data base.

• Posted by: mike1951 • Report Comment

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