Continuing the theme of motor insurance, it seems non-insured vehicles are not just causing a problem for law-abiding drivers.
Criminals are also having a hard time – bless ‘em – figuring out which car they should attempt to deliberately cause a collision with, in order to create fraudulent insurance claims.
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New laws to allow the DVLA to clamp, seize and destroy uninsured cars sitting on driveways took a step closer this week after final regulations were laid in Parliament.
“Advisory letters” will be sent out towards the end of June and failure to sort out insurance will result in fines and eventually destruction of your motor if you continue to flout the law.
The government wants us all on board with its plans, and keeps highlighting how uninsured drivers add £30 to our premiums.
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VOSA has now been granted an extension to its stopping powers in England and Wales that allows officers to pull vehicles over for reasons beyond routine worthiness.
In the past stopping officers could only exercise their authority without a police presence if they suspected there was a mechanical fault with the vehicle.
The Road Vehicles (Powers to Stop) Regulations 2011 extends this so that they can also stop an HGV to check drivers’ hours compliance, weight checks, document and recording equipment inspections, as well as O-licence and cabotage checks.
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Austere times call for new ideas to plug funding gaps and concerns over soaring fatality rates after speed cameras were decommissioned certainly seem to have exercised Ministers’ minds.
The practice of funding Gatsos from the tickets they create is now banned and so some councils and police forces were quick to switch them off as they attempted to scrape back cash needed elsewhere.
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Fresh from the controversy created by the consultation into Senior Traffic Commissioner’s guidance and directions comes another government consultation, this time on changes to the way hire and reward operators are licensed.
EU rules covering the way in which operators are licensed will change in December and as a result the UK needs to consult the industry on how it intends to implement these changes.
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At the time of writing the Senior Traffic Commissioner’s Statutory Guidance and Directions has yet to be published in its final form.
However, one hopes that the responses from the industry’s two main trade associations to the consultation, launched by the STC in order to give the industry an opportunity to respond to an attempt to “rationalise, simplify and improve” the current guidance and directions, are acted upon.
The Freight Transport Association does not mince its words when describing the 12 documents prepared by the STC and his team and covering the essential areas of operator licensing as “difficult to read and understand”.
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