Uninsured motorists on Ireland’s roads continues to climb during recession

Irish roads have seen a dramatic increase in the number of uninsured motorists since the global recession hit hard up families.



The Motor Insurers Bureau of Ireland (MIBI) has released figures showing there were 1,245 road accidents involving a driver without any insurance in 2007, but this number had risen to 1,573 in 2008, a rise of 26 per cent.



The MIBI has warned drivers that being involved in an accident without proper car insurance cover will result in them facing hefty penalties and prosecution. It is believed that around 6 per cent of all the drivers on Ireland's roads are either uninsured, or are people driving on a provisional licence without being accompanied by a registered driver.



Chief executive of MIBI, John Casey said that the problem of people driving without cover has developed into "a serious situation and people should take a hard long look before thinking of driving uninsured."



The Motor Insurers Bureau of Ireland believe that people are willing to take more risks by not renewing their insurance policies in a bid to save money, but despite the recession being blamed for this, insurance premiums have actually fallen by 50 per cent since 2000.



The MIBI also revealed that the average compensation payout for 2008 was €24,000, which totalled a massive €72.7 million, the second largest overall payout during the last decade. Almost 14 per cent of this payout was recovered after the accident from the responsible party.



The figures for those caught for speeding last year reached over 75,000, with many receiving penalty points on their licence. This comes despite the recent nationwide warnings from the Road Safety Authority (RSA).



Speeding has accounted for 542,191 of all the penalty points that have been served since penalty point measures were introduced, with cases of mobile phone offences the second most common problem.



The penalty points served by the gardai have also been revealed and show that despite a concentrated effort on motorists driving without NCT (National Car Test) certification, just one driver received penalty points on their licence in three months. This single prosecution was blamed on a backlog at NCT centres across Ireland and the fact that the gardai have still been accepting letters from the NCT confirming upcoming tests.





Rochelle Martinez, Freelance Web Content Article Writer for three years. Some of her articles are about http://www.quinn-direct.com.