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I have just failed my driving test for the 5th time. I have not and will not drive illegally, however I cannot help but feel that the increases in the difficulty of the test over the last few years has to be contributing to this problem. Its a simple mathmatical function; the harder it is made to get liscensed the more drivers will drive illegally, since driving is a vital part of life in this day and age. Lucky for me I work from home and live within short distance of all I need. Others are not so fortunate.

One way to resolve this problem would be to introduce a graded pass like they have for scholastic qualifications.
On my last test I made one mistake whilst reversing, and that was enough to fail. Under the system I'm proposing, I would of been given a grade B or grade C pass, which would then allow me to be legal on the road, however would cost a bit more on insurance. Im not a dangerous driver and there is no reason why I shouldnt be allowed to drive my car. I now have to wait another 6 weeks and pay another £200+ (test fees, extra tuition etc).

Bottom line, this one strike and your out system is aggravating to my generation who watch older drives behave like bloody idiots whilst being told we are not good enough. The system is totally unfair, frustrating and, I'm sure, is a major contributing factor to the rapidly rising numbers of illegal drivers.

- Simon Odell, Wales UK

In Denmark it is the car that is insured, not the driver, and it is not possible to get number plates without insurance. In fact, if you fail to pay your road tax, and fail to hand in your number plates, the police come round, and with great ceremony, remove the plates from the car. As in all things, there are some skofflaws who try and hide their cars away, or steal someone elses plates, so it isn't perfect, but the number of uninsured cars on the road is very small.

As a side issue: car insurance also insures any cyclist they may have an accident with, as it is recognised that it is vanishingly rare for a cyclist to be the cause of a collision.

- Threaded, Roskilde, Denmark

What a joke! It is the greens and their ilk that have created this problem by campaigning for an endless stream of restrictions and cost increases on driving. If you try to price people off the road they fight back by avoiding the legislation and thus the cost altogether. If anybody should be prosecuted for the number of unlicensed cars on our roads it is the greens.

- Dave, London

Along with record number of illegal immigrants.

- Brandon Thomas, London UK

Here is nothing to do with uninsured drivers. Let's start to indicate when you are turning and let pedestrians to cross the road when you approaching T-juction.

- Boris, Essex, London

Give em a break they've had a hard time. When you've seen and heard that excuse played out on TV and the reality we have to live with. Nu-Lab politicians after easy votes, it makes you sick! Take 1.4million illegal cars off the road in the south east, there would be no need for Con-Charge Petrol hikes road fund hikes war against 4x4 would seen for what it is, just envy. The reality is the police don't want to charge too many foreign drivers Easter European etc because 70% don't bother to turn up in court and the police get egg on their face.

- Mike, London

@ Rogan - I can answer that. Errant drivers of motor vehicles kill and maim, and errant cyclists "nearly hit", and irritate, some people. The first offence is indictable, and the second, summary (less serious). In both cases, we are dealing with minorities, and all parties should resist the temptation to demonise one class. I would be ashamed to focus on cyclists in circumstances where this paper is regularly reporting death and maiming caused by dangerous drivers, such as the hit and run driver who took a motorcyclist's leg, as report yesterday in the 'Standard. It is an insult to the thousands who die each year with liability established as legally resting with the motorist.

Dr Porter summarised it effectively: infringement by cyclists is suicidal, that by motorists is homicidal. There are public policy reasons why enforcement is usually given to preventing homicide ahead of preventing suicide; something to do with the social contract, libertarianism and the greater common good.

You enforce against the greater harm done; address the mischief behind the law. Of course, if a cyclist injures someone recklessly, they should be prosecuted for common assault and battery. However, not before equivalent offences of VEHICULAR ASSAULT are recognised and example prosecutions made, for the aggressive behaviour of some motorists on the road, and I regret to say from bitter experience as a mere pedestrian, even on the pavement...

- Reg, London

Dr Susan Porter - how does the criminality of the drivers in question make the criminality of some cyclists unimportant. Scale? Who decides - those who want to get away with it? Crimes affect those they immediately touch, not so the statistical crimes (in the minds of individual victims). People will shake their head in disgust at murder most foul elsewhere, but it is the guy riding his bike on the pavement that nearly ran them down that they are going to be complaining about. It works exactly the same the other way around too, obviously.

You are a doctor of one type or another? You should intelligent enough to be well aware of that basic concept. All crime is important at the time and to the people it concerns.

- Rogan, Irving

I used to work with a guy who had been banned three times for speeding and DD. He carried on driving even when banned and gave used his brother's ID when stopped by plod.

Third party Insurance & VED should be added to each litre of fuel. Fully comp insurance can be optional. This will stop in one easy step drivers driving without tax or insurance and will reduce the amount of jobsworths needed to check up on motorists.

- Adam, Harrow, UK

English people are conformists who like things to be just so, ordered and organised. So they sit quietly while the state becomes ever more draconian with fines and rules and signs and lines which supposedly protect "the order of things" from the "disorderly" or the "underclass" (shiver shiver). The silly sheep then wonder why people who are not blinded by this camp choose not to pay £1000 a year to drive on a road - for what?!! People here are not free.

- J Gaerne, London and Overseas

Why on earth were zero illegal drivers stopped in 2004. Any Londoner knows our streets were chocker full of them. On my street alone, there were several cars without tax discs. I tried to report them to my council and dvla, and they weren't interested.

- Londonken, london

The police and the DVLA are trying to catch untaxed and uninsured drivers using automatic number plate recognition cameras. The only problem is that the people in the know simply clone the number plate of a similar, make model and colour, vehicle that they know will be taxed and insured. The camera systems cannot tell the real vehicle from the clone. The more cameras that are introduced the more clonning will increase. The only solution is a total rethink about the vehicle registration system and control over the issue of number plates. The Registration of Number Plate Suppliers Regulations do not work.

- Michael, London

The necessary answer is to jail anyone caught wilfully driving without insurance (i.e. not anyone who forgot to renew his insurance up to, say, a month before). Fines or community service or banning them from driving is pointless. They'll do a runner to avoid the fine or community service, and they were already driving illegally so why will they change? A few weeks in jail would work as a deterrent.

- Nigel, London

Has anyone thought of introducing the Australian system of compulsory third-party property and injury insurance that is paid with registration (tax disc). And a car cannot be sold without registration. Bingo! Problem solved. No untaxed or uninsured cars.

- E.Cowham, Melbourne, Australia

I watched a police checkpoint in Canning Town earlier in the year, pulling over every car on a busy feeder road to the A13. One in three cars were confiscated and loaded onto a haulage truck. They had three trucks waiting at any one time to be loaded.

It would be hilarious if it weren't for the thought that any one of these illigally driven cars could easily be involved in a hit and run with one of your loved ones.

- Rachelle, London

'Rocketing number of illegal people in London' more like.

- Steve, London

What about mobile crushers which COULD crush the car then and there, on the roadside? Embarrassing and agonising for the criminal and a jolly good laugh for the rest of us.

- Claire, London

And whats the odds a large percentage of these people are immigrants, possibably illegal ones too? Our entire country has become a joke under this government.

- Brandon Thomas, London UK

This probably explains why so many drivers career down bus lanes. If they are never going to be fined, they do not care. If the police waited at the end of bus lanes and pulled over those drivers caught driving in them, they would probably arrest a large number of those who are driving illegally.

- Martin Fielding, London, England

My car got damaged recently caused by avoiding a collision with a black people carrier who sped off once he'd realised what he'd done. It transpired after enquiries that he was an Eastern European minicab driver. The cab firm denied all knowledge of knowing him. Was he actually insured, I doubt it. Of course down to me and my insurance to get the damage fixed. Bang goes a few years of my NC Bonus through no fault of my own and I have to pay the excess as well! Yvonne has the right idea. They could have a system whereby when you've got your car insured you get a card you scan at the pumps before you can extract petrol. No insurance card - no petrol! But of course the amount of petrol being symphoned off from cars will then increase by non-insurance holders.

- Sue, Orpington

I wonder what proportion of these uninsured drivers are foreigners with no legal right to be here. I also wonder what recourse or rights law-abiding native citizens have if one of these interlopers knocks down a school child, for example. Silly me: recourse and rights are only for those illegal foreigners, as are £1m+ Victorian villas on the state.

- Mike Collins, London, UK

The DVLA knows who does / doesnt have insurance, as they check when you buy car tax online.

So I cant understand why they arent more proactive with uninsured drivers ie automatic fines, as they are when car tax expires.

Seems simple enough to me.

- Iain R, London

Have a think people.

You can buy an old banger for £200 and drive it into london on a daily basis.
Cheaper than £1500 for a season ticket.

Insurance is going to cost you a least £300.
A tax disc is going to cost you around £200.
Not paying the congestion charge every day £100 per penalty ticket saved.
Why bother with any of the above when the police catch you they just crush the car. Loss to you a £200 old banger. You may get away with it for months with no tax or insurance. Saving to you - massive.
This is going to be happening a lot more once the recession really bites as nobody has the money for a £1500 season ticket (for trains that never turn up) and £8 a day for the priveledge of driving on roads that your road tax (if you ever pay it) have already paid for.
What this government fails to understand is that many people can no longer afford to get to work. They are left with no choice but to break the law.
I don't agree with it but I can see why people do it.

- Jimbob, Kensington

The really good part about that is that even caught nothing happens. My wife was hit by an uninsured and untaxed motorcylist, he recieved a £160 fine and 3 points and then proceded to sue her insurance company via ambulance chasers for £6,000 for a strained neck even though the accident was deemed to be his fault. How does someone who has no legal right to be on the road have any legal rights at all when they cause an accident?

- Bob, Cheam

More drivers or more detection? Does the Standard perceive a difference?

- C Davies, London

The only way to stop this is to make the punishment, if caught, severe enough to make the crime uneconomical.
Fines that do not even equal one years tax and insurance for a car will only serve too increase the practice.,

- Trevor, Southend Uk

With so few policemen about, despite the claims for Gordon's safer neighbourhoods policy which seems merely to add to bureaucracy and not add a single patrolling officer, criminals seem to think its worth taking a chance. So much for the causes of crime which labour have nurtured quite successfully.

- Peter Haldane, London

Situation is easily resolved and the authorities know it, they just don't have the will to put it in place: make all petrol prepay only, then make it compulsory for all drivers to show valid certificate of insurance to cashier. Most garages have CCTV now, so they can check whether valid tax certificate is displayed on the vehicle. No insurance or road tax, no petrol, therefore no illegal drivers on the roads. Simple is it not?

- Yvonne, Doncaster, UK

Meanwhile, as I sais yesterday, the Met and City police are launching a crackdown on the mild anti-social behaviour of pavement cyclists. Meanwhile uninsured drivers cost the rest of us £400million a year and rising. Slanted policing, ignoring the real problem. In Hackney, not far from me, it's thought one in ten cars are uninsured and uninsured drivers, naturally, are far more likely to be involved in hit and runs. They have nothing to lose. This is a sad state of affairs.

- Dr Susan Porter, Bow

I would love to see automatic numbr plate recognition systems installed at key spots like The Dartford river crossing , Blackwell tunnel , Heathrow and other airports so that the illegal drivers can be caught and the cars impounded until they are made legal. If there really are 450,000 illegal drivers in the capital pushing up the premiums for those of us who pay.

- Tokyo Joe, London

Stop and search - filthy Transit vans are disproportionately likely to be uninsured. I know it's vannist, but we have to face facts and not be PC here as people are getting seriously hurt.

If they have no insurance, the vehicle should be crushed, automatic gaol time and the driver and passenger of commercial vehicles (yup - no swapsies) should all have entries onto the DNA database.

Automatic vehicle crushing for people parking on pavements too, please, no questions.

- Reg, London

If they concentrated on using NPR cameras to immediately stop, confiscate and crush these vehicles, the problem would soon diminish. There can be no defence for driving without Tax, Insurance and MOT!

- Gerbil, Essex

£100 fine or £500 insurance premium, its a no brainer.

- Mr.S.Port, London

As the ethnic origin question seems to be included in every thing else these days, can we have it included here please?
Especially in view of the other story concerning the amount of foreign drivers evading road tax.

- Kedge, Marlboro wilts

Lucky we've got all those cameras to catch them, eh?

- Westfold, London, UK

Maybe traffic wardens should be doing more to catch illegal drivers instead of harrising the legal ones!

- Joe, London

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