“Plague.” “Epidemic.” “Albatross.”
Some loaded descriptions, but when officials attach them to something, you can be sure that they’re serious.
Oklahoma’s serious something: uninsured drivers.
It’s been a problem state officials have grappled with for years with a combination of legislative and law enforcement efforts. That combo took new shape this month, when legislators, law enforcement officers, and traffic safety officials gathered to form the Coalition Against Uninsured Drivers (CAUD) and announce a new slate of solutions they hope will solve the long-running problem.
The Sooner State has the nation’s third-highest rate of uninsured drivers, with almost 1 out of every 4 motorists lacking the coverage they need to be on the road, according to 2009 data from the Insurance Research Council (IRC).
The stubborn rate was just as high in 2007. John Doak, the state’s insurance commissioner behind many current enforcement efforts, says it remains the same today, with about 560,000 uninsured vehicles in Oklahoma.
Today’s Problem
“I can’t walk into a room anywhere in the state of the Oklahoma in the past two years and not have at least one person raise their hand and say, ‘I was involved in an accident and what are you doing about it?’” Doak said as he introduced CAUD. “’I’ve been paying my premiums and these folks are driving on the roads.’”
But uninsured motorists aren’t just a problem when you are involved in a crash with them; they inflate insurance costs for everyone.
In a report, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) said those costs are “passed along to the law-abiding public … thus, in addition to pay for their own actions, each insured motorist also pays for a portion of the costs for others that choose to disobey the law.”
Chuck Mai, vice president for AAA in Oklahoma, said his organization was joining CAUD to help remove “an albatross around the motorists’ necks of Oklahoma.”
Uninsured motorists are “costing us millions of dollars in insurance premiums above and beyond what we should be paying,” he said.
And it’s not just the inflated premiums in the state that are hurting wallets. The state itself loses tax revenue to the tune of $8.8 million a year, according to a report released last month from the Oklahoma Insurance Department.
Doak noted that the annual losses that pile up to $80 million over a decade “could be going to fund other good services.”
Attempts at a Solution
Over recent years, lawmakers have tried to toughen laws against those lacking coverage.
Oklahoma joined a handful of “no pay, no play” states in Nov. 2011, when laws went into effect for the Sooner State limiting types of compensation an uninsured driver can receive after a crash, even if they aren’t at-fault for it.
An IRC study on the impact of “no pay, no play” was released last December, showing that uninsured motorist rates and coverage costs fall after such laws go into effect.
A year before “no pay, no play” came to Oklahoma, officials expanded the power that police had against uninsured drivers. In November 2010, police began checking the coverage status of a car during every traffic stop and crash investigation via a database. They were also allowed to tow the cars of drivers they found to be lacking insurance.
But the “current laws have not had any impact on this epidemic,” according to Rep. Mike Christian (R-Oklahoma City), who said his experience as a former state trooper gave him insight into practical problems with today’s enforcement measures.
For one, according to Christian, impounding a vehicle can tie up already-thin police resources.
“We know a lot of law enforcement agencies are short-handed these days, especially the highway patrol,” he said. “In some instances, it may take a wrecker 45 minutes to an hour to even get to the scene if they want to impound a vehicle, which can problematic if you’ve got a trooper that’s in one county and he’s having to cover two.”
The towing law can lead to unintended problems in practice when the vehicle is actually towed, he said.
“If you have a mother and two children who have been stopped for a moving violation or whatever reason and you’re going to impound the car, what are you going to do?” said Christian. “You’re going to leave them on the side of the road, possibly in the cold in the dark of night?”
There were a few legislative attempts to beef up enforcement that fell short, too.
Last year, lawmakers tried to widen police discretion so that officers could use the policy database to check vehicles beyond crash-related incidents and traffic stops.
But the bill widening those powers, HB 2525, died when negotiations stalled between the state Senate and House over what constituted “probable cause” for a database check.
State officials even proposed a camera-based enforcement plan in 2010 that ultimately fell through.
Part of the problem is that Oklahoma’s uninsured drivers face a low fine for their crime, according to Christian.
For those lawbreakers, the current maximum $250 fines makes it worth it to “gamble and pay a fine” rather than follow the law, he said.
Another part of the problem is that uninsured drivers commonly buy coverage before grabbing the vehicle tags that can make their car look like it’s being driven by a law-abiding motorist and then immediately canceling it, according to Christian.
Today’s Plan
Flanked by other CAUD officials, Doak presented the state’s most current plan to fight its uninsured rate earlier this month, which is embodied in HB 1792.
The current version of the bill would:
–Raise the fine for uninsured citations to a maximum $750
–Allow police to seize the offending uninsured driver’s license plate and tags
–Give the offender 10 business days after a citation is issued to purchase and prove coverage; the citation will serve as a license plate/temporary tag as the violator seeks that coverage
To reclaim their license plate and tags, violators will have to pay an additional $125 in storage and administrative fees.
That $125-per-offender fee will go toward funding the Oklahoma Temporary Motorist Liability Plan (OTMLP), which the bill would create to provide minimum protection to the violator in the days they are seeking other insurance coverage. OTMLP would charge a daily rate paid to the county sheriff’s office; the rate is currently undetermined in the bill but is set to be announced on the first Monday in December.
The bill’s proposal for ramped-up penalties sound good to law enforcement and the fact that the fee structure “pays for the entire process” sounds good to everyone, according to Christian, who added that his plan would cure a “plague on Oklahoma motorists for decades.”
Traffic safety officials agreed.
“This law will go a long way with minimal impact on the offender, huge impact on the state, at low expense of the state—taking the tag makes sense to us,” Mai said. “Giving them a temporary tag, letting them then get insurance, come back, prove they have the insurance, they get their tag back.”
If approved, the law is set to go into effect this November.
With the wide cross-section of support backing HB 1792, those who have gotten away so far with their “buy, tag, then cancel” habit will likely face harsher enforcement, penalties, and an all-new tag and license confiscation system that will be harder to duck. So get some quotes for coverage and bring yourself in line with the law before it’s too late.
