1 in 12 vehicles on Irish roads not insured - Motor Insurer's Bureau of Ireland

I'm not surprised, any court case I have ever seen for driving with no insurance the fine given by the judge has been much less than what a years insurance would have cost the driver. This is despite the judge being able to fine up to €5k.

I drive several cars on my trade policy that are taxed and ‘uninsured’. There must be at least another 500 active trade policy holders across Ireland driving multiple different cars. And what about cars that are taxed and get driven on ‘driving other cars’ policies?

And then you have cars that are insured by one person being driven by another. Its probably not the most accurate representation of our roads

funny that these surveys never tell you the parameters they used

The gardai regularly have a checkpoint set up near where I work. Its a very busy road. If 1 in 12 cars were uninsured they'd have dozens of cars taken - the reality is they usually have 2 or 3.

When organisations bandy about hysterical figures like this without giving the full details of how they arrived at the figure, its best to ignore them.

In reality, if you keep to back roads, you could drive your entire life and not meet a guard. I’m sure that there are plenty at it.

All valid points but we are missing out on the main point here.

Anyone driving without insurance is going to drive without tax too as I'd see it as a lesser evil. So the numbers picked up by that survey is most likely horseshit as most of the taxed cars are likely under some form of insurance as you say BUT, how many are out there with absolutely nothing on them. These are completely unknown and I'd imagine the numbers are quite big so they came up with a figure of 1 in 12 uninsured. Probably not miles away from reality but not based on this taxed but no insured nonsense.

And I'd say a lot of the totally unregulated ones would be "culture cars".

No tax, no NCT, no insurance, no licence. Car still registered to previous owner, or fake plates. Bought for cash at a horse fair.

Can't read. No fixed abode to send a fine or summons to. Probably banned from having a licence. 80 previous convictions. Claiming dole on 3 different PPS numbers. Bate the wife.

Gardai can't do anything about these cultured fellows, so they don't even bother going after them.

They are a law unto themselves. And to be honest, fair fúcks to them. I mean if I thought I could get away with flouting every road traffic law going with no material consequence whatsoever, bar maybe a week or two in the clink every now and then, sure I would do it too.

It's simple: central database, every vehicle registered in it has to have insurance, motortax paid and a valid NCT. Failing any of those is an automatic fine. Not using the vehicle, then you have to actively deregister it (temporarily or permanently depending on your future plans with it).

ANPR on Garda cars and overhead motorway cameras do the rest.

Of course there's still people who slip through the holes in the net but it'll already be a whole lot less.

Oh and as for NCT: just have the tests carried out by your local garage where you bring the car anyway for maintenance. They can fix any issues on the spot as well. Government performs a sample test to assure the NCTs are carried out correctly. Job done, no backlogs.

You'd think it's easy enough to tell the difference between these two vehicles, and their purpose:

And while we're on that subject: how does it currently work then with somebody who has a mate working for an NCT centre? Surely there must be some sort of supervision there as well?

Well it was totally illegal for me to drive it there uninsured. But to be honest, I couldn't give a fúck and I wasn't paying some fella a few hundred to put it on a trailer. No way.

But I wasn't reckless either. I chose a route and time where the risk of an accident and of meeting a Guard was minimised. I was willing to take the chance.

And sure fúck it, if I was caught it probably wouldn't cost me much more in a fine than paying a fella with a trailer to haul it down.

Well you see the other thing here is that there is little to no consequence for a person caught taxless/insuranceless/nctless/licenceless here.

You get a fine which you can just not pay, and there is little enough the Gardai can do about it.

Now of course, many do pay and take their scolding.

But what many don't realise is that in this country, if you are shameless enough, and have a brazen neck like a jockey's bollocks, you can get away with nearly everything if you really want to. For driving crimes, unless you are crashing and a public danger, the worst you will get for incessant offending is a couple of weeks sentence which will probably be suspended, and even if you do get custodial, you will go to the prison and the governor will be like "sure you are not a violent dangerous lunatic, what are you doing here? Now sign this form for good behaviour and off home let you!"

And having your car siezed occaionally is not really an issue if you are driving bangernomics things picked up for a couple of hundred euros with no NCT on them. If the Gardai sieze it then leave it to them. Joke is on them because they will have to bear the expense of towing it, storing it, and eventual disposing of it when it isn't claimed.

Not really. It is totally corrupt. Testers have been caught in stings loads of times over the years. But they don't give a fúck because they can't loose their jobs over it, at least not for a first offence.