OAI: Oklahoma Bill Could Help Enforce Auto Insurance Law

OKLAHOMA CITY, Feb. 8, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Oklahoma lawmakers are hoping to help quell the state's uninsured motorist problem with a bill that would allow police to pull over drivers simply because information in a state-run database indicates that they lack insurance, according to Online Auto Insurance.

Passage of the bill would be just a little more motivation for uninsured drivers to get up and purchase a low down payment car insurance policy in order to be in compliance with state financial responsibility laws. Under the current laws, motorists who are caught driving without a policy can be slapped with a $250 fine, have their cars towed and stored by police, and have their license suspended until they pay the $250 fine and can show proof of coverage.

But despite those relatively steep penalties, it has been estimated that about 1 in 4 drivers in the Sooner State are behind the wheel without proper insurance coverage. That puts Oklahoma among the top five states with the highest uninsured motorist rates.

Rep. Steve Martin's HB 2525 aims to reduce the rate of uninsured motorists by allowing police to pull over drivers of cars if they show up as having no policy in a state-run database.

The database is already operational and is used by state authorities to verify coverage before issuing licenses and registrations. It matches up vehicle data collected by the state with policy data submitted by insurers, and cars that have no matching policy data show up as uninsured.

But police officers currently can give a citation to a motorist for being uninsured only if the driver has committed a separate violation or has gotten into an accident. Police cannot run the license tag of a car on the road and pull the driver over solely because the automobile appears to be uninsured in the state database.

Rep. Martin's bill would change that.

Source: http://www.oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill=hb2525

The bill was introduced to the House on Tuesday and still has a long journey before becoming law.

Martin was the author of a bill signed into law in 2010 that allowed police to tow and store uninsured vehicles.

For more about this and other coverage issues, go to http://www.onlineautoinsurance.com/pay-monthly/ for access to informative resource pages and a helpful rate-comparison generator. 

SOURCE Online Auto Insurance, LLC