Alabama Will Enact New Car Insurance Law In 2013

Many states have a hard time dealing with the fact that so many of their drivers are driving while uninsured. A majority of the states have already mandated that drivers have minimum liability insurance coverage but these laws are hard to enforce because most drivers who do not have insurance coverage are not caught until it is too late. Many uninsured drivers have been involved in car accidents so it is important to be proactive.
The state of Alabama mandated twelve years ago that each driver has minimum liability insurance coverage on their vehicle at all times. The issue that they ran into was punishing the offenders. In order for drivers in the state to be able to purchase their vehicle tags, they have to produce valid proof of car insurance coverage. Drivers found a loophole at registration time and they decided to buy an insurance policy and then stop paying for coverage once they had received their tags.
This is something that many drivers have done in the state. They pay one month of car insurance premiums just to get an insurance identification card. It is hard for the state to find these uninsured drivers because their information looks up to date as long as the card has not expired. It is costing car insurance companies a lot of money to have to deal with people who break the law in this way.
Now, state politicians are taking action and on January 1, 2013 a new law will take effect to help to deal with this issue. There will be an online insurance verification system that police officers can utilize to see if a driver has up to date coverage in place. This is a great tool for officers so that they can ticket the offenders.
On a first offense, people can expect to be issued a fine that will not exceed $500. After this offense, every other offense can get drivers a fine of up to $1,000. It does not pay to be uninsured in the state and politicians are hoping that these expensive fines will act as a great deterrent.
Approximately 22 percent of all of the cars that are on the road today in the state do not have any car insurance coverage on them. This means that these drivers pose a risk to others because more than 1 in 5 drivers on the road are breaking the law. If a driver knows that they are uninsured and cause a car accident to occur then they are more likely to flee the scene so that they do not get into legal or financial trouble. Innocent insured drivers could suffer as a result. One form of protection for these drivers is to by uninsured motorist coverage.