The Manchester Evening News reports that the local plod have crushed over 10k cars belonging to owners who are wanted for a criminal offense, dare drive without a proper registration or insurance, and/or haven't maintained their vehicle properly. This "bounty" stems from new police confiscation powers enacted in January 2006 and deployment of patrol car-mounted Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras and software (which can identify a car's legitimacy or outstanding warrants attached to the registered keeper in seconds). As awesome as that may be for insurance companies and road safety– "police say uninsured drivers are six times more likely to have convictions for driving un-roadworthy vehicles and nine times more likely to have convictions for drink-driving"– the fines involved are equally staggering. Offending vehicles are hit with a £200 on-the-spot fine; or a larger one meted out later, in court. There's also a £105 charge for recovery, plus £12 a day storage AND offenders get points on their license. As the Greater Manchester Police seized 25k cars during this time frame, without storage charges, we reckon the crackdown has dumped over £4,575,000 in revenues into the City Council's coffers. You know, byproduct-wise.
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I wish they would do that here. Getting uninsured drivers off the road would solve a lot of the problems the rest of us face on the road. And, yes, uninsured drivers are the type of people who carry other legal problems onto the road with them.
I like the fact that they are actively doing something about uninsured drivers, but this seems a bit extreme perhaps. Under US laws, could this be deemed as unreasonable seizure of property? What defines an un-roadworthy vehicle? Where does the money from the fines go, exactly?
but why crush the cars? don’t they realize that they will need to be replaced with new cars, the production of which involves the release of lots of CO2, which, in europe anyway, causes global calamity?
strike the root! crush the criminals, not the cars.
Illegal aliens from Mexico and other countries where a driver’s license proficiency test consists of scraping together the local officialdom’s standard bribe are a huge problem.
Having gotten away with surmounting one “inconvenient legality” to get here, they tend to think that ALL of our laws are just mere technicalities to be waved away by charges of “racism” and “Xenophobia”.
If we “unfairly victimized” these people by confiscating and promptly destroying their unisured (and frequently not even properly registered) rides , maybe they’d get the message that we’re damn sick and tired of them and they’d go the Hell home and stay there.
These people need a constitution.
“why crush the cars? don’t they realize that they will need to be replaced with new cars”
Habitual offenders driving uninsured are not out there piloting new Mercedes. They’re limping around in worn out POS rides. If they’re driving a new car, they stole it, and the owner probably won’t want it back when they’re through with it. Crushing these crap boxes will probably reduce emissions. If you drive inunsured, your car should be confiscated. If you wait until they destroy your property or kill someone in your family, then it’s too late isn’t it? And, they know they will walk away with no responsibility!
You guys realize car insurance isn’t required in the United States, right? It’s on a state by state basis, and no not all states require it (New Hampshire anyone?)
I would imagine that any car worth having never made it to the crusher anyway. It is probably the Captains new ride.
Insurance may not be mandatory in New Hampshire, but it is in Nebraska and Iowa, two states that I regularly drive in.
The problem is that offenders pay ridicuylously low bonds to get out of jail, prosecutors let them off the hook for the offense if they’ve got something juicier like drugs in the trunk to go after, and the few who are actually punished get off with a $200 fine, no jail, and they get their car back without having to make an ironclad commitment to not using it again until they do get insurance.
The least that the state legislators could do is mandate that uninsured cars stay in impound until
the owners come up with valid insurance cards.
Another scam is that people will buy 1 months’ insurance just before buying their one-year tags,
let the insurance lapse, and drive 11 months “free”.
With modern technology, state insurance directors could know daily when people drop one company and fail to pick up another. They could then inform law enforcement, who could tow the cars ASAP.
With a stiff fine structure in place for insurance agents who fail to properly file
information, “false positives” should be rare.
If the drivers are illegals put them back into the car before processing it.