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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.
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 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.
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
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.
And what about vehicles with foreign plates?
What can possibly go wrong?
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The UK is an island to the rest of the world, how are you getting your foreign car there? you know they drive on the opposite side as most of the rest of the world too right?
I have seen Hawaii license plates in Texas. How do you think those cars got here? Freight ships carry more than just toys and bananas. Also, you are forgetting about the Chunnel
Battlemaster--Game with friends in medival realms
Slashdot won't let you post until it verifies you haven't RTFA.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Think of it as a blacklist, any vehicle that has been registered in UK and has not paid tax/insurance will be blacklisted. Foreign vehicles will not be affected.
This is the UK, where we already drive high efficiency vehicles (my own is a minivan that does over 45 mpg [US adjusted figure] and is only middle of the road for efficiency) and pay $8-9 per gallon for fuel. We already think twice about driving short distances for errands.
Adding the insurance to fuel would disproportionately hurt people and industries that drive for a living (truckers, haulage firms, salesmen, on-call service engineers etc).
The UK is not a market where "gas guzzlers" are at all common. More than 50% of vehicles sold are diesels, for that very reason (higher efficiency, cheaper to run).
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.
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.)
It's from England to France, dummy. It just has exits in Texas and Hawaii.
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.
I know if I was heading to England and saw an exit for Hawaii, I'd make some quick travel changes.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
It is not the tech, it is the social customs. Fill then pay has been customary in the UK since filling attendants disappeared, probably forty years ago. People expect to fill then pay, and will probably avoid a station that demanded prepay. And, since most filling stations double as convenience shops, I bet that they will get many more sales from people who have done the primary task of filling up before they pay rather than people who are focussed on filling up rather than buying papers or chocolates.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
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.
Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
Jesus, what happened to the idea of personal responsibility? So, what? The hypothetical guy who can't gas up on the way to work gets to sue the gas station if it's closed that day too?
It's the driver's responsibility to ensure that he has gas, has a roadworthy vehicle and to ensure that it is adequately taxed and insured.
Those "real consequences" like suing someone because you didn't have enough gas to drive to work and an admin issue at the gas station, where you went to fill up your almost totally empty tank at the last minute (ie, on your way to work) certainly are serious.
"Yes, your honour, I didn't have enough gas to get to work, and I thought I'd fill up on the way at the last minute because I believe that unless every single thing involved in my journey is 100% perfect I am entitled to sue".
mmm.