Arizona Bill To Tow Uninsured Cars Could Cause Headaches For Drivers

The state of Arizona has proposed a new bill which would tow vehicles that do not have auto insurance coverage. Many people have been in favor of this law because it will greatly reduce the number of uninsured drivers that are on the road.
However, some groups have said that the idea has a few kinks that need to be worked out. One being that there is almost five million cars registered in the state. Of these, more than 200,000 have wrong VIN or vehicle identification numbers. If a person has the wrong VIN number on their vehicle then they could be wrongfully accused of not having liability insurance on their vehicle.
Towing a car is very expensive for the state. This means that innocent people would have to pay huge towing fines to retrieve their vehicles from the impound lots. If you do have insurance coverage but have the wrong VIN number on your car then this could be a huge problem and your car would keep getting towed.
Most of the time, the errors with VIN numbers are due to the fact that policy holders do not write them down correctly when they fill out their auto insurance information. Most insurance companies do not check the VIN numbers so they just take the word of the driver. This can lead to massive problems.
The bill will go before a committee in the next few days. It is a good idea to be able to tackle the problem of the uninsured. However, punishing innocent people could happen on a continual basis. One idea to help to rectify this problem might be to make sure that people verify their VIN numbers. Insurance companies could ask their policy holders to re-confirm the VIN numbers that are on file to make sure that they match the numbers that they have in their computer system.
The police officers should also take down the VIN numbers before towing the vehicle and try to match it with either the vehicle’s registration or insurance information. If there are any problems then a warning could be issued to the driver and then the vehicle would be towed on the second offense.
Towing a vehicle can cause a lot of headaches for drivers. Most Arizona residents commute to work by car. If a person cannot use their vehicle because it has been impounded then they might miss days of work and get fired. Many people do not have a lot of extra money lying around to pay towing fines.
A pilot program might be a good idea to try in this situation. You could start with one county in Arizona and then see how well the program works after one year. Then, if there is not a lot of cars being towed when they should not be then the program could expand to other counties. Drivers do want people to be accountable and have auto insurance coverage because they are following the law like they are supposed to. It would take a while for this bill to take effect. Both sides have solid arguments as to why they are in favor or oppose such actions. Hopefully, a new system can be implemented to find uninsured drivers so that policy holders do not have to pay higher auto insurance premiums in the future.