Last two times I got pulled over the police officer didn’t request my insurance card, just license and registration. Once by Pennsylvania State Police, and the other by a city police officer in Pennsylvania. Do not know whether that means it’s computerized for them or they where just being trusting. (I did have it though)
Because I have to write up the accident report. If no insurance can be found then he will be charged with having no insurance. $1000 fine, 6 month suspension. I am unaware of any case law that covers this and it hasn’t come up with me specifically. Since I am acting in good faith (using that as a specific legal term) there would not be a problem with me going into the car. The worst that would happen to me is that the evidence would be supressed. I don’t think that would happen either but I’m not going to swear to that. This would only cover anything the was in the glove box. Anything that was strewn about the passenger compartment is fair game since it is in plain sight.
I’ve had this happen in both Oregon and Washington. Both times when I went to court, I presented retroactive proof of coverage, and had the ticket simply dismissed. One of them was also with a speeding ticket and the judge nicely reduced the speeding charge as well. Wastes usign a work day in court, but otherwise easy.
I don’t understand what the problem is with insurance cards. When I get my renewal from State Farm it comes with 2 new ID cards. When I open the bill, I take one of the cards, and slip it in my wallet behind my license. (and throw the old one away)
Something relevant here that I believe hasn’t been addressed is the fact that an insurance card expires far later than the actual insurance, at least with the few companies I know of. I pay for my insurance monthly, while my card is good for six months.
I keep my insurance up to date, but I’ve known others who buy insurance two months out of the year and keep the cards on hand to show the police the rest of the time. That seems to me like good reason to automate the whole thing; I can’t think of any other law that is so easy to dodge.
Because, (and I think this is correct but don’t have a cite handy) your insurance card needs to stay with your car. It does little good when it is in your wallet and someone else is driving your car. In other words, it should always be kept in the glove compartment of your car.
Also, some of us have a pile of mail 6 months old that we need to sort through. I think they are going to kick me out of the SDMB Slob Reform Club 
I totally vote for an automated system (and can’t believe that something like this isn’t in place yet… I predict it will be). I believe that many cops will just randomly run liscense plates of the cars around them looking for warants or expired registration and what have you. If they could do that with insurance as well, it would serve as a great incentive for people to get and keep insurance. That would probably make my bill decrease.
Here’s the deal: I have four vehicles at my home. My wife’s car, my car, an old car I never got rid of, and a pickup truck so rarely used that it has two dry Christmas trees still in back.
I needed to drive the truck yesterday, after having not driven it for weeks, and realized that I didn’t have the document.
They only send me one single copy of each document, so putting the paper in my wallet is not an option because my wife could drive any of these vehicles too.
I kind of wish I hadn’t let mine lapse. It’s fun to use in lieu of state drivers license when some beauracrat, buearauc… I hate that word. Anyway, they are handy to have.
I talked to an insurance guy about that once. I said something like “I bet you guys really love the states that have mandatory insurance coverage don’t ya.”
Surprisingly he claimed it’s one big headache and more costs and when they run the numbers, they stay the same - something like 10 per cent or whatever, never carry insurance and they probably never will, regardless of laws that state the contrary. Hm.
Interesting thing is that you get the card before you pay, and if you don’t pay, they drop you. At which point you have an authentic card and no insurance coverage.
Good idea as long as you never leave your home state. Many, but not all, DMVs share license and citation history information.
Some states do try & keep track of which vehicles have a corresponding insurance policy, and they will not renew the registration without evidence of insurance. Ideally the system would issue an impound warrant after a 30 day lapse in coverage, but there is always the possibility that the car has become insured in a different state because the owner moved and hasn’t yet switched the registration to the new state of residence.
A national database, readable only by government agencies, indicating which company insures what car would be simple enough to maintain, but state governments are fiercely protective of their individuality and resist getting on board with standardize programs like this. Simply deciding which vehicles need to be registered or titled is not standard from state to state, how to brand titles of vehicles that have been totalled is also not standard–however with all of the Katrina cars totalled by sea water re-entering the marketplace with clean titles we may see some changes…within a decade if we’re lucky.
So, getting back to the OP: Just because we can keep track of who is insured by whom (hell, all you need is a really big Excel spreadsheet!), the real issue keeping us from this is trying to get 50 different governments on the same bus. If the issue is actually “Making sure drivers have insurance” then those governments need to be directly affected by uninsured drivers (and they’re not) before changes that possibly violate some peoples’ right to privacy will be legislated.
You have to provide the card to the cop because someone wanted to look like they had solved a problem. The system is jacked up, but it’s run by politicians, not cops and insurance companies.
Exactly why this is a nonsensical requirement.
[ul][li]Having an insurance card does not actually prove that you have insurance.[/li][li]Having insurance does not necessarily mean you’ll have the card to show[/li][li]You get fined for not having the card (but, apparently, not for failing to actually have insurance)[/ul][/li]It’s a perfect bureacratic system: You must have your papers in order for the sake of having your papers in order, not because it actually accomplishes anything.
(In reply to my post about my state going online.)
Umm, what makes you think one has anything to do with the other? Massive numbers of people still don’t have insurance, they just don’t get valid car plates. Very simple.
Actually makes the problem worse. Someone with a valid plate and no insurance hits you, you might get their plate number before they drive off. No valid plate number, oh well.
Also, to amplify a key point: Databases will have a lot of errors in them. Too many people trust data just because it was spit out of a computer.
Hm. Once I got a ticket for no proof of insurance (I’d grabbed the old card from the holder, and the cop didn’t say anything until he’d written the ticket). He said that if I went down to the county and presented my proof of insurance, it would be dropped. I did, and it was.
Because enforcement would be much easier. Believe me the amount of on registered vehicles on the road is lower than it ever was. We now have computers in the car. Some people run a couple hundred plates a day. If a car is unregistered we know it. After several years of having computers, unregistered vehicles are now rare. If insurance was tied to the same system it would be very easy to do random checks.
:dubious:
I often forget to replace my card, but it’s never been a problem. The one time I didn’t have the current one, I sheepishly explained it to the cop, and showed him the stack of old cards that showed continuous coverage going back several years! He took my word for it, or checked it (I have USAA and they are easily accessable by phone, day or night).
Only a fool drives without insurance. If they think they are getting over on someone by scamming, whatever… they will grow up someday. Or not.
That cop was a knucklehead.
And EJsGirl, see Loach’s post just before yours for an explaination about how random checks corelate with increased compliance.
I didn’t see Loach’s post on preview ('cause I’m lazy), but it doesn’t quite address the bit I :dubious: about- do cops just sit around and run random plates for the hell of it? Or do they run the plates of everyone they stop for a legitimate reason?
They run plates for the hell of it. When you see a cop drive down the road, chances are he or she is typing in liscense plates of all the cars around it if they don’t have anything better to do.
ETA: With further thought, this may not apply to ALL cops, but at least some of them like to run lots of plates during thier shift.
I can not speak for all jurisdictions or give an answer that covers all the systems that are used. Our system has two functions for running plates. If you are doing a random inquiry you hit a certain key. If there is nothing wrong with the vehicle or owner all that comes back is the basic vehicle description and a message that it is valid. No personal information about the driver comes back. If there is a problem (unregistered, suspended, stolen) then all the information pops up. If I am running the plate because of a motor vehicle stop or an investigation then I can hit another key and the full information comes up. The amount of full lookups compared to random lookups is monitored and audited by the state.
Some do a ton of random inquiries a month, some do very few. It’s a matter of personal preference and technique.