Slashdot Mirror
UK Plan Would Use CCTV To Stop Uninsured Drivers From Refueling
Mr_Blank writes "Cameras at UK petrol stations will automatically stop uninsured or untaxed vehicles from being filled with fuel, under new government plans. Downing Street officials hope the hi-tech system will crack down on the 1.4 million motorists who drive without insurance. Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras are already fitted in thousands of petrol station forecourts. Drivers can only fill their cars with fuel once the camera has captured and logged the vehicle's number plate. Currently the system is designed to deter motorists from driving off without paying for petrol. But under the new plans, the cameras will automatically cross-refererence with the DVLA's huge database."
what are the laws in the UK on nearband IR ground effects lighting?
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
Its gonna look strange when a man carries his gas can up to the pump everyday wearing a suit and tie.
What's to stop someone from filling a jerry can with gas and then fuelling their car, or can lawnmower and chainsaw operators no longer buy gas?
This is a requirement in the state I live in too--and the only thing I can think about is how much money the insurance companies are making off of this. Why not, politics and bureaucracy aside, make the "mandatory" insurance something you pay with your vehicle registration?
Also an obligatory snicker at more cameras at use in the UK.
This would work just fine if the database was correct, which it simply isn't. Delays in getting information updated would mean you having a fully licenses, taxes, MOTed, and insured car that you couldn't fill up with petrol. So there'd need to be a way of overriding it, which puts a whole lot of pressure on the vendor.
Nice in theory, but I don't see it working. That doesn't mean I don't see it happening.
jh
if your going to be a police state then by all means do it right.
I guess they will need a black market for gasoline as well. Do they have seat belt laws? Baby seat laws? Why stop at not letting gas up because of lack of insurance. There are all so many wonderfully invasive things they can do.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
soon to be the new standard vehicle.
Or is this a precursor to require installing a camera in everyone's home?
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Will the clerks in bulletproof glass / cages as I can see some taking it out on them or forcing them to hit the over ride button.
The UK already uses CCTV cameras on a massive scale to catch uninsured cars. Our motorways have cameras over every lane which track the numberplate and this information can both be used to calculate average speed over a section of road (to enforce speed limits) and also to check for insured, banned drivers, or stolen vehicles.
/. summary implies and more just an expansion of an existing project.
This is less a new idea as the
Wonderful, when the inevitable errors in the database occur you'll be stranded at some random gas station. Nothing in that article about how you could prove their database was incorrect or out of date.
At least if an officer ran your plate and stopped you you could provide proof of insurance, showing their database entry was wrong.
Why not, politics and bureaucracy aside, make the "mandatory" insurance something you pay with your vehicle registration?
Because large companies and trade associations in the private sector who have successfully captured the regulators find it unprofitable to put "politics and bureaucracy aside". For another, there'd still be tons of "politics and bureaucracy" in figuring out the premium that applies to each driver-vehicle pair.
National driving insurance, paid for by your normal taxes, that covers everyone and everything.
Or putting uninsured drivers in jail.
Both are expensive, but I have no idea why the UK doesn't do the latter anywhere near as often as it should (also, see: driving bans that you can go to court for driving in, and then be punished by being banned from driving - even if your under the minimum age needed to have a driving license!).
In Brazil we have the same problem, a lot of people don't like to pay the taxes involving in having a car and the major is trying to reduce the traffic by imposing restrictions.
But if we remove this cars that don't pay taxes we're going to have better streets without traffic jams.
http://www.michel.eti.br
If this becomes operational, I wouldn't be surprised if unpaid fines were added to the list soon.
P.S. You think London doesn't have drivers from all over the world on our roads either?
Hint: The UK is 30 miles from France joined by a lovely underground train tunnel that is DESIGNED to carry personal cars between the two.
Two points.
You don't get watched everywhere you go.
Ireland isn't in the UK.
...you moron. In the freakin' SUMMARY it says that the pump won't allow gas to be dispensed until after it reads and logs the license plate.
Another revolution, and a new Magna Carta? This time, make sure that your founding documents say very clearly that the people are not the property of the state, and that the state exists to secure the rights of the people, not to compel them to obedience to the desires of the political class.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
how about jacking up the price of gas to buy insurance as you go? this would have the added side effect of making people think twice about driving 4 blocks to run an errand and buying giant gas guzzler vehicles. yeah, yeah, some issues about lawn mowers and such, but we could work out a system for that I'd think.
Years ago, it wasn't that uncommon for thieves to siphon fuel out of someone else's petrol tank in the middle of the night. This led to central-locking fuel caps in cars which were harder to break into. I wonder if this will just incentivise people enough (who, let's face it, are already criminals by definition if they are driving uninsured) to overcome the resistance this created...
You mean alongside the one that already exists?
The black market for fuel (especially diesel) is an enormous and profitable industry.
So what is the cost to payoff ratio in UK before and after? 2:1? 3:1? 4:1? In the US insurance companies pushed mandatory insurance laws to gouge people.
o Get thrown in jail in Ireland for saying "goddamnit"
What does that have to do with UK?
o 2012, still guilty until proven innocent
Not true at all.
The real reason is that the way around the cameras is to have a dirty license plate.
Now you will have to clean your plate to get fuel, so now all the other cameras will be able to track you.
Otherwise, as has been said, the uninsured will drive diesel cars and use cooking oil for fuel, and save both ways!
blog.sam.liddicott.com
The first solution seems to be more government intervention.
And, apparently, it's the insurance companies. In the USA the insurance companies have to share power with the bankers and the Wall Street traders. The UK clearly has a more efficient system.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
RFIDs harder to forge? Only if they're active RFIDs and are tamper-proofed. If they're passive, it would be like a very affordable and convincing organic-display license plate.
As for RFIDs in passports, they'd have to outlaw RFID-blocking wallets and folders.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Its been proposed numerous times in the States to add an "insurance-at-the-pump tax" per gallon. In my situation that would work out $1.70 a gallon last year (16K miles $800 insurance). In the UK where petro is $8-$9 per US gallon already, such a tax would be hardly noticeable. This would have the added incentive of punishing heavy carbon users (big cars or many miles). Then you need a government bureaucracy to administer such insurance.
They don't try to give the lawbreakers a fighting chance.
It seems like most of the complaints here are because people think this will work. It feels wrong that you actually cannot get away with breaking the law.
Think about it: Do you think it's a bad law to prohibit uninsured motorists? Do you think the police are likely to abuse this? (It uses existing cameras. If the police wanted to abuse it they can abuse the existing cameras already.) No? Then exactly what is your objection, other than that it doesn't seem fair that there's no way to get around it?
They at least tow your car away, right? I mean if they let you drive away you would still be on the road illegally so they can just pull you over again as soon as you step back into your car. It just continues ad infinitum.
Because no one can fill up his car, and then just SIPHON it off to a friend
in a nearby parking lot?
I smell a black market opportunity!
<sarcasm>We're from the government, and we're here to HELP<sarcasm>
...comes dystopian reality. Only makes sense.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
That is what driving instructors are for. Mind you, what are the mandatory practice hours for? If you can pass the test, you can pass the test. Seems the US is doing things the akward way again.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The flaws in your argument.
We have free health advice 'phone lines provided by our NHS and manned by qualified nurses.
Most people live in walking distance of their surgery. And pavements so, unlike many US cities, you can get there by walking.
We have free emergency ambulances, provided by the NHS.
We have people who drive people to where they want to go, we call them taxis.
We have bus services that will likely get you to a free clinic or an A&E if you don't think you should call an ambulance.
You really didn't think through your silly strawman at all did you?
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Ireland isn't in the UK.
True, the Republic of Ireland broke off from the UK in the 1920s. But the northeast tip of the island of Ireland is occupied by Northern Ireland, one of the four countries of the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".
This will do nothing more than create a black market for fuel.
Proverbs 21:19
In the UK if you are caught without car tax the Police have the right to seize your car and have it crushed.
They really should make a reality tv show based on this, would be much more interesting (fun!) than all those thinly disguised Police PR shows (like Police Stop!).
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
What is wrong with the United Kingdom ? When did they go so far off the rails ?
(Yes, I know that you could ask the same question about the US, but this is not an article about the US and, if anything, things seem to be deteriorating faster there.)
The number plate recognition systems are limited to the big company's. Most/all independent garages don't have them and could expect a corresponding spike in business.
In the UK vehicles are generally insured for specifc people to drive that specific vehicle.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
We do that already UK (and you can't a certificate of roadworthiness, MOT, without insurance).
Guess what that means...
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
... YET.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Guilty until proven innocent? No, it's the other way around; indeed, the US 'innocent until proven guilty' *comes* from UK common law. You stupid fucktard.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
of paying at the pumps, they'll just steal others' gas...
What part of Europe do you live in? A majority of the gas stations in both Northern and Southern Europe are pre-pay.
You can't escape fines in Western European countries, the government can and will forcibly take your money in some way or manner.
If you don't pay your [government issued] fines they will simply either require your employer to deduct it from your salary, depending on the amount owed possibly over several months/years, or take [legal] posession of your property eventually selling said vehicle or house. The same applies to court orders (damages) and due taxes.
So what happens when a pedestrian walks up to a filling station with a gas can in hand and has no car to fill either because it ran out of gas down the road, or he's just walked from his house down the street to get some gas for his lawnmower?
I'm not sure if you're just joking or not. The system works even if you paint over your license plate, dirt is not a problem for the IR component of the cameras. Unless you remove the license plate or cover it with a solid object it's going to find your license number.
The UK police force has the same type of camera installed in every police vehicle. The computer connected to said camera does automatic database lookups on all vehicles it passes, alerting the officers driving with an audio recording and displaying the record on the screen. It also looks for prior records for the vehicle in question and its legal owner, if it has been used to sell drugs previously etc.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
So if the camera fails to see your license plate you get no gas? Clever. I'm sure that another car or truck will never obstruct the camera's view, that snow will never obscure the plate, that fog will never blur the plate letters, that the plate will always be adequately illuminated, that the cameras will never break down, that the license database will always be up-to-date and on-line. No flies in THAT ointment, no sir.
All this fal-de-ral just to make sure that a few people pay their vehicle tax? Why not simply require everyone to pay their tax annually when they register their vehicle? Put a sticker on the windshield showing that the tax was paid, LIKE THEY DO EVERYWHERE ELSE.
Or if you must monitor everyone's tax status minute-by-minute, have everyone carry a tax-paid UPC fob that is scannable by a credit card swiper (or an attendant) when you pay for your gas? Would that cost, oh perhaps, a BILLION pounds less than buying and wiring up multiple spy cameras for every service station in the UK?
Who comes up with ideas this overcomplex, ineffective, and brain damaged? Newt Gingrich's british cousin?
The question posed was if this was a big problem "in the EU". :)
The person who asked (cayenne8) obviously doesn't understand how diverse the European continent is and how little our countries have in common with eachother.
Most European countries cooperate and exchange information freely. If you receive a speeding fine somewhere in Scandinavia, and you're a Polish citizen, the Polish government will make sure you pay.
There are plenty of Polish and Baltic cars in the UK, they provide "cheap labor" all over Europe.
Drive up to Scotland and get your plates there?
no taxation without representation!
1) Stealing license plates
2) Glitches in the system (data corruption, software bugs, hacking, erroneous data entry, downtime) that occasionally prevent legitimately registered and insured drivers from refueling
3) People carrying around jugs of gasoline in their trunk so they can refuel if (2) happens
4) People with uninsured/unregistered cars also doing (3), after collecting gas via (5)
5) Stealing gas by siphoning from parked cars
6) Legitimate motorists who get robbed or assaulted as a result of being stranded due to (2) or (5)
7) Fires and explosions as a result of (3) and (4)
Plus more that I can't think of right now.
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There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
Yeah, I've read that mud apparently is not that effective either. The software uses both the opaque and IR information to work around it. I don't know for sure or how much work they need to do.
At least the speed cameras in my European country only sends the photo and information to a central computer and if needed human post-processing. If you obscure the license plate they will follow it up. They also collect the information for multiple violations on similar vehicles, they create composites and coordinate as the police force is a national unitary organization.
Heaven forfend that I should try to *walk* to a petrol station with my fit for purpose container to refuel my car that just ran out a mile down the road. Can I still buy a gallon of fuel? Should I take the licence plates off the vehicle and take them with me as well?
The end result of this, will be that people with uninsured and untaxed vehicles (who are by definition already breaking the law) will simply continue breaking the law, by stealing fuel from other vehicles...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
The first person who loses his job because of a database or connectivity problem keeping him from gassing up on the way to work should be able to sue those who came up with this INDIVIDUALLY.
Not sue the government so the taxpayers make up for up for their mistakes. But these people who think they can tweak our lives any way they want need to learn there can be real consequences.
I still wish some government bureaucrat in the US could be in jail for manslaughter for the first kid who died from a mandated airbag before multi-stage, safer airbags were developed.
That's difficult. The US was set up to be a driving country, so a lot of people have to drive, whether they want to or not. Yeah, you can take a bus, but some routes would require multiple transfers. A stop at the grocery store for many would require a separate trip, kids/daycare, etc. EU is not set up like that at all. Most people in EU, by contrast, could easily bike to work. Yes, their gas is 8-9$ a gallon, but many don't own cars because they have a real choices, like good public transportation (that's been denied in the US) and just by virtue of a more compact geography, most of them live in cities, not far flung, sprawling suburbs. What I'm saying is that screwing with the cost of vehicle ownership in the US is a lot more like messing with food prices and other necessities. My suggestion would be to socialize auto insurance and require everyone to have it, much like medical care will be. Another solution that should be implemented in tandem is a real public transportation system to get people around these sprawling suburbs and into the cities where they work. Trains or such like. Sorry, but there's something immoral about private corporations making a huge profit from necessities. Cars are a necessity for many in the US. They're not a necessity for most in the EU.
Because catching speeders is easier than checking tax discs.
But that would be illegal
Just like driving without insurance...
Don't UK number plates stay with a vehicle, for the life of the vehicle (as opposed to the US where the plate is tied to the owner, not the vehicle)? If that's still true, Big Brothers' database is guaranteed to be out of date - so much so, you might not be filling up that used car you just bought...
"If you're against this expansion of government power, you must be guilty of something. Shut up or we'll come after you!"
Yeah, no honest person would ever be against this ridiculous expansion of government power. The government is always good and would never abuse such power.
The existence of CCTV does not mean that this kind of potentially very abusive power is "the same thing". This is not just surveillance, this is a major step in the direction of abusive government control. They don't want you to see the difference.
Creeping control like this will ensure a permanent underclass that will never be able to 'pull themselves up by their own bootstraps'.
I submit having to give a miss to an insurance payment is akin to pirating Photoshop. Yes, it's wrong, but less so if you're trying to better yourself by learning a marketable skill or getting to a job no where close to the tube.
If you, nor anyone of your friends or family have never EVER missed one payment due to money being tight not because of lack of priorites or sloth, but because of unforseen disasters (medical bills come to mind here), then don't look now, but YOU are the One Percent.
Configue an entire society around mobility and then brutally punish all those without enough money to be 100% compliant, 24-7. Brilliant.
Prepayment seems like the obvious solution here, but besides that, I'm curious as to why the government got involved in this in the first place. Is there a law against private cameras?
We have gas station cameras here in Canada but they are run by the stations themselves, as it is in their best interests to have a record in case of gas-n-dash types.
If the Brits were using private cameras, then this mission creep would not be an issue. I would worry that all sorts of government agencies would want to pile on, and before long, you won't be able to buy gas if you have an overdue library book. (Maybe that's already been done.)
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I'm a pool hall ace.
The best part about this is that it's perfect for fuel rationing and insurance tracking. This seems like a glimpse of the terrifying things that lie in the future.
by simply using false numberplates that match an insured vehicle...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I'm just worried about how you tell the system that you work in the motor trade and have an "any vehicle" policy. Or that you are risking the "third party" cover you usually get when driving other cars. Or that you have just brought insurance and there must be a problem with the link between the insurance company and the government's system because it hasn't updated. I can think of lots of circumstances where people will get stuck without being able to fill up.
firstly law is always based off assumptions, they assume you believe that the law is the law and they will act on it accordingly, when infact in most parts of the British common wealth (and the US), it is not that clear. The law is similar to when you go to work, your boss gets to say you can't drink on the job or limit you to 1 beer at lunch. When you are in the privacy of your own home, you can have as many beers as you want. Most laws assume you work for the govt. therefore the govt. gets to act like your boss, when they should actually be your civil servants.
for example this is from the Canadian charter of rights which is deemed to be the supreme law of Canada yet this is clearly what it says inside at the very back. 32.(1) This Charter applies (a) to the Parliament and government of Canada in respect of all matters within the authority of Parliament...
They don't like it when you learn about this sort of stuff because it starts to limit their power over you. All your govt. IDs are proof of this contract you have with them, and in Canada you can't get plates and insurance with out having govt. ID, So really this just amounts to them requiring you to have your Costco membership card to get gas.
You may disagree with me about the law but this is the way it is. If this is not the way it is then you live in a dictatorship not a true democracy or republic.
And how long before that list gets expanded? "Uninsured cars", fine. "Unpaid parking tickets", well OK. "Terrorists", well sure! "Suspected terrorists", gee, of course. "Rabble-rousing protesters", "Suspicious people", sure, why not? Is there anything in place to stop the list from being expanded until the government can stop anyone from buying fuel?
Just yesterday I was quoted between £4,000 and £12,000 for car insurance for a 7 year old Honda S2000, despite having over 5 years NCB, never having had a speeding ticket, never having had any motoring convictions AND agreeing to have a tracker box fitted to the car.
I'm paying ~$700/yr for full coverage on a 2001 WRX (includes uninsured motorist, comprehensive, etc, the works, ~$150 deductible, i have one speeding violation, no accidents) -- roughly 1/20 what you're being quoted. Makes me think i'm missing some context - do you buy once for the life of the car or what? I was paying about $950/yr when the car was new.
And, btw, my insurance company was successfully sued for charging too much recently - i wound up getting a one-time $90 payment.
Located in Carson City, NV, FWIW, thinking "they really are trying to get rid of cars in Ingerland now, aren't they"
While obviously the slashdot crown will cry "Orwell!" and "1984!" before you can even think, there is merit in this idea.
As someone who got clipped by an uninsured driver, with all the aggravation and hassle it caused (and that was just for a minor accident - I hate to think what would happen if it were major or involved injury or death) getting these dickheads off the road should be given some effort.
It is the law that you must be insured when driving a car. Far too many people think that for some reason having insurance is something that doesn't apply to them; it's just a pointless unnecessary expense. Using technology to enforce that long-standing law is a reasonable use of it if you ask me - it's not using technology to create a criminal activity out of something innocuous.
Whoosh!
Why do we rush to punish everyone in the interest of being "Fair"? What should really be done is make those responsible bear the weight for their bad choices.
Simple solution is make the people without insurance find a way to pay for any damage done. If you can't get the money from selling their assets then you could check what human organs are selling for on the black market.
That would only have to happen once before the message gets out to even the densest person. Then you won't have to make everyone else suffer for the bad behavior of a minority of people.
It may sound cruel to do this to a handful of people, but no more so than punishing millions who are innocent.
1) who do the cameras belong to? So the state wants to use privately owned cameras eh? I suppose they could ban sale of fuel until the business can verify a legal vehicle, but then...
2) Checking plates against a centralized database is also going to create a record of peoples movements - i.e. tracking of every vehicle. Gotta ask if you want that.
I have not investigated UK driver licensure. But a requirement of 100 to 120 supervised hours is common in some states in Australia, I've read. As for the United States, Indiana's page about driver's licenses states: "To apply for a driver’s license, you must visit a license branch and present documents of identification and provide a signed Log of Supervised Driving." And on this page, "Indiana requires persons with a learner’s permit to complete at least 50 hours of supervised driving practice with a licensed instructor or with a licensed driver who is at least 25 years old". There is nothing to imply that adult learners are exempt from this requirement. Furthermore, this "log must be signed by a parent or legal guardian." There is nothing to imply that adult learners are exempt from this requirement either, allowing a parent to deny the privilege of driving to his or her adult children.
I just looked for more details in the Indiana driver's manual, and it appears that a driver at least 18 years old may sign his own log. However, a driver at least 18 years old is still not exempt from the practice requirement. How are learners whose parents don't drive supposed to afford to take the behind-the-wheel portion of a driver's ed course five times to earn the 50 hours?
Why not just include the tax and insurance as part of the fuel cost?
Good luck taxing drivers of Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, and other plug-in electric vehicles that way, especially after the government has already enacted fuel efficiency regulations such as CAFE that require automakers to produce these vehicles. See the United States and the Netherlands try to work around the EV loophole in fuel taxation.
When you register your car you pay a compulsory third party greenslip insurance. How much depends on what type of car or bike you are registering.
As a general rule, we all throw in ~$60 to ~$100 which is bundled on the rego renewal notice along with a couple of other things.. and everyone is happy.
It used to be that only one insurer would provide this insurance (generally NRMA). They recently introduced a scheme so that you can (potentially) choose from a variety of insurers. Just pick from the list on your rego renewal form. Easy.
tl;dr version: TFA is about trying to implement a technical solution (scan numberplates at the bowser and reject if not insured) for a social problem (people not buying insurance)
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
My TVR Chimera, beautful looking and sounding car, had all the usual handbuilt flaws, including a fuel gauge that could never be persuaded to show the tank as less than a quarter full.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
In to your house. Stil feeling good? Think it through.
I can prove otherwise. Just did my MOT last week. Seriously learn some critical thinking.
UK Plan Would ... in the next few weeks to discuss the idea.
Cameras at petrol stations will
Downing Street officials hope
Drivers can only fill
under the new plans, the cameras will
The proposals will have
Downing Street officials are due
the proposals were a "step too far" - claiming they put cashiers at risk.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
This should be a huge red flag for North America. Forget the issue of unlawful conduct, that's a red herring and it's not the point. The larger issue of intrusive Government is the real story here. I have had a sense of the pervasive surveillance that the UK performs on it's Citizens, but this confirms that impression and strengthens it dramatically. People in the UK have for decades abrogated their rights to freedom with little or no thought to the effects of their poor choices. When I first saw V for Vengeance, I thought that it was a bit of a stretch to imagine that Dystopian vision taking place in the UK, but now if anything the similarities are becoming all too real. In no way do I support Occupy, but maybe they can find a real issue if they decide to rally for Freedom.
"If the only tool that you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Donny Rumsfeld
That's exactly what I'm talking about, although few wish to apply the concept to bureaucrats and politicians.
Their actions have unintended consequences. They need to take personal responsibility for those consequences. Otherwise, they will keep hatching new schemes to further harrass and oppress the people.
On another note, I am surprised so many Slashdotters don't have a problem with this scheme. You know it isn't much time between this thing's implementation and the country's police adding yet another tool to track you with. It will be abused, as your cameras already have been, and of course those abusing it will not suffer serious consequences.
Liability insurance should be included with fuel tax. Duh!
Social Credit would solve everything...
Many petrol (gas) stations in the UK already have these CCTV cameras to catch people driving off without paying.
The interesting part about this story is the mission creep and data unification - once the CCTVs are in place for company reasons, the government creates another application of the data for its own reasons. Not a new story - once the data exists somewhere, the drive to get access to it is much stronger.
This all helps to turn the UK into probably the most surveilled country in the world... see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8159141.stm for stats from 2009.
This petrol station initiative is probably tying into the nationwide UK network of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras in town centrese and virtually all major roads (not just motorways/freeways, but every "A road" too). Usually painted blue and on high poles, these capture and OCR the license plate of every vehicle that goes past. This feeds into a centralised data centre for queries, data mining, and real time alerts, for both criminal and terrorist investigations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police-enforced_ANPR_in_the_UK
Because in the UK you don't change the number plate every year, it stays with the car from the day it's registered (well, unless you register a personalised number plate).
When you pay the road fund licence you get a little paper disc to stick inside the windscreen, showing that the car is taxed for that year.
So, when I'm driving my friends car or riding someone else's motorbike *which I am legally insured with" but the owner has no insurance, I can't get petrol??? The DVLA's huge *and incorrect* database? Is there actually someone *so F0cking stupid* as to believe our insurance premiums will reduce? Really?!?!
If your insurance covers third party cover as authorised driver on another person's vehicle, you will find that that's just as a DRIVER. It doesn't cover the need for that vehicle to be separately insured.. If the insurance is good for the vehicle, the vehicle registration will not show up on the hotlist of uninsured VEHICLES. If you are in the motor trade, you'll have trade plates, won't you?