Fine just laughable
I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments expressed by B Price about the havoc caused by uninsured drivers (August13), but this problem, although increasing, is nothing new.
I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments expressed by B Price about the havoc caused by uninsured drivers (August13), but this problem, although increasing, is nothing new.
In December 1979 my parents and I were involved in a serious collision with a vehicle driven through a red light at speed. My father and disabled mother were left very badly knocked about and traumatised. They suffered the ill-effects for at least six months.
My poor, insured dad, who has never caused a collision in his life, also lost his car and his no claims bonus, while the amount awarded by his own insurance company was far too small to replace his car. So to add insult to injury he was also around £1,500 out of pocket, after doing nothing wrong.
My injuries resulted in three months in hospital, nine months off work and four operations in two years to repair my mangled right leg, leaving me with 22 inches of scarring, as well as pain and discomfort which continue to this day.
Four years later I was awarded damages of around £11,000 from the Motor Insurers' Bureau which is, of course, funded out of the premiums paid by insured drivers. I was not awarded legal costs so had to pay my solicitor out of this. (In the same year a schoolgirl was awarded £1,500 when she sued her school for giving her a TB inoculation, later deemed unnecessary, which left her with a one-and-a-half-inch scar.)
As for the uninsured driver, he was physically unscathed by the collision (aren't they always?) and, as far as penalties are concerned, was smacked with the legal equivalent of a wet lettuce leaf.
Following his conviction for at least six motoring offences he received a one-year driving ban and a total fine of around £300 which, even in 1980, was laughable.
I fired off a letter to the then Secretary of State for Transport to ask why we made it so easy for people to drive without insurance. Predictably, his reply consisted mainly of complacent, pathetic, non-productive "oh buts".
Surely anyone can see that pitiful fines which are a fraction of the cost of an insurance policy are no deterrent?
They should be replaced by punitive, index-linked fines of at least £2,000 and immediate confiscation of the offending vehicle. This should then be sold and the proceeds used to help victims, or taken on a final journey to the crusher (preferably with the owner still in the driving seat).
Yet again, wrongdoers escape virtually scot-free, while those who behave responsibly are penalised.
Laraine Beranic, Moatbrook Avenue, Codsall.
