19,000 uninsured vehicles seized last year

Brendan Burgess

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Crackdown on uninsured drivers leads to 19,000 vehicle seizures

A motor insurance database has been heralded as a “new dawn” after its use by gardaí led to a huge spike in the number of vehicles being seized.
www.independent.ie

A motor insurance database has been heralded as a “new dawn” after its use by gardaí led to a huge spike in the number of vehicles being seized.
A total of 18,676 uninsured vehicles were seized by gardaí last year, a 67pc increase on the 2023 number.
The increase has been attributed to the introduction of the Irish Motor Insurance Database (IMID) last year.
It was set up to provide motor insurance details for all vehicles on Irish roads.
It allows gardaí at checkpoints to identify any uninsured vehicles within seconds through their hand-held mobile devices or via automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) systems.

What happens them? They should be confiscated and sold. That would reduce the amount of uninsured driving significantly.
 
Great work (if belated) to everyone in government, industry, and AGS in making this work.

Uninsured driving is an absolute scourge. It’s also a pretty good proxy for bad driver behaviour.

Once stamped out it should lead to lower premiums for the rest of us.
 
JoeRoberts said:
Presumably the owner must show a new insurance policy to claim it before driving off ?
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Or can he just turn up with a pal who is insured to drive any car with its owner's permission, pay the charges and just drive it out of the compound?
 
I note in the report that the MIBI estimated that there were "approximately 188,000 uninsured vehicles on our roads in 2022".

At an annual confiscation rate of approximately 10%, is it reasonable to assert that this issue should be finally reslved in about a decade?
 
Marsupial said:
At an annual confiscation rate of approximately 10%, is it reasonable to assert that this issue should be finally reslved in about a decade?
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No, because I would imagine that there would be a lot of new uninsured cars flowing onto the roads.
 
JoeRoberts said:
Presumably the owner must show a new insurance policy to claim it before driving off ?
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Yes. And it must be properly taxed and have a valid NCT.


Marsupial said:
Or can he just turn up with a pal who is insured to drive any car with its owner's permission, pay the charges and just drive it out of the compound?
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Also yes. Another way of reclaiming a vehicle is to have it trailered out of the pound by a driver with a properly taxed and insured vehicle.

The initial cost to the vehicle owner, correct as of late 2023, was €130 plus €35 per day thereafter.
 
Marsupial said:
I note in the report that the MIBI estimated that there were "approximately 188,000 uninsured vehicles on our roads in 2022".
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I'm always very suspicious of any figures given out by any interested party.

In almost all cases they are wildly exaggerated.

The MIBI say there are 188,000 uninsured private vehicles in the country.

That magically translates by the press who like to add sensationalism to "188,000 uninsured cars on our roads"


I'd have a wild guess that unsold cars on garage forecourts and the rusting jalopy outside many rural homes are included in the MIBI figures, but they don't want to ruin the exaggerated story for the media headlines

According to DoneDeal, there are 89,000 used cars for sale at the moment. Some will be private owned and on the roads, but my guess is 70% of them will be sitting in a garage forecourt. That's 65,000 gone out of the MIBI figures
 
peemac said:
That's 65,000 gone out of the MIBI figures
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If you want to get really pedantic about it you'd also have to eliminate all cars parked on private property, they're not on the roads either

In reality though, they are more likely focused on the more relevant stats to authorities and just looking at the numbers of cars which have not been formally declared as 'off the road'.
 
are they just taking the number of registered cars and subtracting the number of active insurance policies?
 

No.
Even if the 188,000 figure is correct it suggests that 10% of these were seized in the first year that the new database is in operation. And it was only partially in operation - until late in the year at least as it was still being updated during the year. If that rate continues the message would start to get through. But will the checks continue?

I imagine if 10% of cyclists who ride on the footpath, or break lights, had their bicycles seized they would soon "stick to their lane".
 
I wonder when the government (Revenue) will properly go after UK/Northern Ireland registered vehicles being used as daily drivers over here. I see the same cars and vans daily, some of them for years.
 
But can't people resident on one side of the border and working on the other use their cars without the need to register the car/van where they work?
 
The figures are welcome and I would be interested to hear how many of the seizures result in prosecutions and convictions. I'd expect such a volume of cases will put a fair amount of pressure on the courts system. It will probably be a couple of years before the seizures translate to convictions.
 
mathepac said:
But can't people resident on one side of the border and working on the other use their cars without the need to register the car/van where they work?
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That's understandable for the border counties. But one can see this happening all over the country. I can hardly envisage many people commuting daily from South Connaught or Munster to NI for work. I also wonder how they manage to insure such vehicles long term, as I expect you need to have an Irish reg to insure a vehicle in Ireland long term, so I suspect many of these vehicles aren't insured either.
 
mathepac said:
But can't people resident on one side of the border and working on the other use their cars without the need to register the car/van where they work
Click to expand...

None of these are being driven from NI to South Dublin each day. Most are parked outside the same houses each evening/morning when I am walking the dog.
 
peemac said:
the rusting jalopy outside many rural homes
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Excuse me, that is what is known in my part of the world as a 'parish car'. Its never driven out of the parish.

My neighbour keeps some blocks behind the wheel so that it appears to any passerby that the car is resting on the blocks.

There is no requirement for Tax, Insurance, or NCT, for a parish car and it drives well while under the influence.
 
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