Number of uninsured private vehicles on Irish roads up for third year in a row

One in 12 cars on Irish roads is now uninsured, says new research carried out by the Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland (MIBI), with the numbers rising for the third year in a row.

The total number of private vehicles driving without insurance reached 187,803 in 2022. This was an increase of 13,626 over the 2021 figure. The data shows that uninsured vehicles accounted for 8.3 per cent of the entire fleet of private vehicles on Irish roads.

MIBI calculates its figures by contrasting the number of private motor vehicle owners paying motor tax with the number of vehicles that have active insurance policies. The figures will obviously not include the far smaller number of vehicles which are neither taxed nor insured.

The number of uninsured vehicles on Irish roads has jumped by more than 32,000 – or 17 per cent – since 2020, says the bureau, a non-profit group which is responsible for compensating victims of collision caused by drivers of uninsured or unidentified vehicles.

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“Clearly not enough is being done to discourage uninsured driving in this country,” said MIBI chief executive David Fitzgerald. “Every single time a person drives a vehicle without insurance they are breaking the law. Yet the number of uninsured vehicles continues to rise.

“Within the last two years, the number of private vehicles being driven illegally without insurance has grown by more than 32,000. That is a really, really significant increase and should be a cause of concern to anyone who is interested the safety of Irish roads.

“Law abiding motorists won’t be happy to see these figures and to look at the growing trend of uninsured driving. If the current trend were to continue then we are likely to pass 200,000 uninsured vehicles in the next 12-18 months unless significant action is taken.”

He said that the “most obvious solution” is for the new Irish Motor Insurance Database system to be “fully adopted”. “This will allow uninsured drivers to be simply and quickly identified without having to even be stopped and pulled over,” he said.

“It enables gardaí to check vehicles on the road without even leaving their cars. They can also use their mobility devices to quickly check the insurance status of vehicles and drivers, thus speeding up the validation process in front line operations.”