M.I.B. collects for once.

Henry Ford III

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/beauty-entrepreneur-ordered-to-pay-29k-within-seven-days-following-personal-injury-claim-37281671.html

A lot more of this type of recovery is needed. They guy had plenty of assets just didn't bother insuring the vehicle.

Eggs For Dinner

Delighted to see it. I know it would often be throwing good money after bad, but there needs to be a fast track way of getting judgements from everyone else who does the same, regardless of their means

CiniO

Very good that it's happening, but pity it's so seldom.

I personally know few people who caused accidents uninsured and were never pursued by MIBI for the costs.

Generally speaking something has to be done to the system, as I recall reading that about 6% of drivers on the road drive uninsured in Ireland, which is outrageous number comparing to other EU countries where average is well below 1%.
This together with fact that vast majority of uninsured drivers who cause an accident never gets pursued for money paid, makes a joke of a system.

Eggs For Dinner

The only way RTA laws will be respected is by proper detection, not the random method that Gardai come across wrongdoers

4ensic15

CiniO wrote: »

Very good that it's happening, but pity it's so seldom.

I personally know few people who caused accidents uninsured and were never pursued by MIBI for the costs.

Generally speaking something has to be done to the system, as I recall reading that about 6% of drivers on the road drive uninsured in Ireland, which is outrageous number comparing to other EU countries where average is well below 1%.
This together with fact that vast majority of uninsured drivers who cause an accident never gets pursued for money paid, makes a joke of a system.

In other non British UK countries, the car is insured, not the driver. A simple number plate recognition system linked to the insurance database easily detects uninsured driving. If someone is stopped and doesn't have paperwork that might show the computer might be wrong, they are out of the car and charged straight away.

Eggs For Dinner

4ensic15 wrote:

In other non British UK countries, the car is insured, not the driver. A simple number plate recognition system linked to the insurance database easily detects uninsured driving. If someone is stopped and doesn't have paperwork that might show the computer might be wrong, they are out of the car and charged straight away.

Exactly my point. We have excellent traffic laws, we don't need harsher ones, just detect and enforce what's there

CiniO

Eggs For Dinner wrote: »

Exactly my point. We have excellent traffic laws, we don't need harsher ones, just detect and enforce what's there

But how are you gonna enforce what's there?

There might be no disc on a windows but driver still insured, or there might be a disc on a window and driver not insured.
Gardai can request cert within 7 days, but still no certainty that it's not forged, so ideally you'd want Gard to ring insurance company to verify.
And on top of that hundreds of possible cases where driver lied to insurance company or didn't disclose some details which might make policy void.

It's just so many possible options to be uninsured and so much work for enforcing services to check/verify that it's imo insane.

Thats why don't agree that we have excellent traffic laws. It's pretty much opposite. Laws in regard compulsory third party car insurance in Ireland are probably among the worst across europe, making it very hard for enforcement services to detect uninsured and hard for regular people to make sure they are insured.

Eggs For Dinner

You're just arguing for the sake of it. We have excellent road safety laws, they are just not enforced because of lack of manpower and technology. Because there is a low chance of detection, there is widespread abuse by motorists.

The insurance disc is a dinosaur from the days before domestic colour printers became common place. ANPR linked to tax and insurance will lead to more compliance if fitted to every patrol car. Fines for motor offences should be ringfenced for expanding the traffic corp

CiniO

Eggs For Dinner wrote: »

You're just arguing for the sake of it.

Not at all. I'm arguing, providing valid arguments.

We have excellent road safety laws,

I thought we were talking about insurance laws which have absolutely nothing to do with safety.
Road safety laws in Ireland is a subject for another discussion.

they are just not enforced because of lack of manpower and technology.

That's the main point of discussion. You're saying they are not enforced because of lack of manpower and technology, and I'm saying they are not enforced because they are very poor laws which require huge amount of manpower to enforce it, incomparable to other countries.

Because there is a low chance of detection, there is widespread abuse by motorists.

Agree.

The insurance disc is a dinosaur from the days before domestic colour printers became common place.

True, but still used a lot for enforcement, which is very ineffective due to it.
Example is gard looking at insurance disc which is valid and waving a driver to keep going, without actually checking if driver is covered by the insurance policy.

ANPR linked to tax and insurance will lead to more compliance if fitted to every patrol car.

I won't, as it still won't be able to tell if driver is insured or not. It will just tell if car has insurance policy attached to it, which in current system where only certain drivers are covered, is not enough.

4ensic15

Eggs For Dinner wrote: »

Exactly my point. We have excellent traffic laws, we don't need harsher ones, just detect and enforce what's there

The way the laws are enforced is far too unwieldy, resource consuming and expensive. This 10 day production at a garda station requires a garda to stop a car take a note of the date, time reg no and model, drivers name and address as well as the nominated station. The garda then has to check later that there was a declaration of insurance. At the station, another garda has to manually check a certificate when one is presented. If none is presented, a summons has to issue. Nine times out of ten there is insurance and the summons has to be struck out. It is hugely wasteful of Garda and court time. The current laws cause this and it is entirely understandable that detection rates are low. A simple system of an alert to a garda station that an uninsured vehicle has passed a camera and is travelling in a particular direction would be far better.

Marcusm

Eggs For Dinner wrote: »

You're just arguing for the sake of it. We have excellent road safety laws, they are just not enforced because of lack of manpower and technology. Because there is a low chance of detection, there is widespread abuse by motorists.

The insurance disc is a dinosaur from the days before domestic colour printers became common place. ANPR linked to tax and insurance will lead to more compliance if fitted to every patrol car. Fines for motor offences should be ringfenced for expanding the traffic corp

ANPR for insurance will not work without amending the insurance system to require each and every car to be insured in its own right. This was an issue in the U.K. about a decade ago and the law (which was like ours) had to be changed. In the UK, any car on the road has to have its own policy even if it’s being covered under a third party extension. This allows ANPR to trigger unimpeachable fines. Before the change, a common defence to uninsured driving was to assert it was covered under a third party extension thereby undermining the effectiveness of ANPR-based enforcement.

Eggs For Dinner

Marcusm wrote: »

ANPR for insurance will not work without amending the insurance system to require each and every car to be insured in its own right. This was an issue in the U.K. about a decade ago and the law (which was like ours) had to be changed. In the UK, any car on the road has to have its own policy even if it’s being covered under a third party extension. This allows ANPR to trigger unimpeachable fines. Before the change, a common defence to uninsured driving was to assert it was covered under a third party extension thereby undermining the effectiveness of ANPR-based enforcement.

I agree. The abuse of the driving of other cars extension in Ireland has led to some insurers insisting that the vehicle must have it's own current policy and others will follow suit in due course. In addition, the European Court of Justice has recently ruled that even a vehicle left immobilised on private land is still subject to compulsory motor insurance unless officially declared off the road. Hopefully, it leads to widespread introduction of ANPR