Michigan Police Can Run Your Plates to Get Insurance Info

[XLFD]

Did you know that as of September 2014, police in Michigan can run your license plate number and determine whether your vehicle is currently insured?  Twice a month insurance companies have been supplying the Michigan Secretary of State with an up-to-date listing of those they insure, but until September, this information was not readily available to police. 

In the article below, it was noted that Bay County law enforcement officers gained the technology in November and the number of tickets for driving without insurance since then quadrupled when compared to the period of November 2013- March 2014.  One can almost see the constabulary going through parking lots reading off license plate numbers into their new database and waiting around for some easy revenue. 

Not having proof of insurance when you are pulled over is a $143 civil offense, driving without insurance is a misdemeanor with a potential $200-$500 price tag, and a $500 driver responsibility fee that needs to be paid for two years, along with court costs if you fight it and lose.  Falsifying documentation also runs you into a misdemeanor, yet the practice has been significant. 

In a one-day snapshot of vehicle registration renewals in July, Secretary of State Ruth Johnson's office double-checked about 3,500 paper insurance certificates submitted by vehicle owners to Secretary of State branch offices across Michigan. More than 16 percent of them were fake or invalid. That led Johnson in 2013 to launch the Fighting Auto Insurance Rip-offs (FAIR) task force, and likely to last years decision to make insurance data available to police. 

Michigan has the unenviable position of having the most expensive car insurance in the country.  The biggest reason why people do not have insurance is that they cannot afford it, yet if they get caught, the penalties make it a lot more difficult to afford it in the future.   According to insurance executives, 20 percent of drivers in Michigan are uninsured, and the problem is even worse in Detroit, where the rate of uninsured drivers is estimated at 60 percent. Detroit is likely the most expensive city in the nation for auto insurance.

Why does the same insurance policy in Michigan cost 275% of what it would in neighboring Ohio?  Such disparity needs to take into account that many of our people can barely afford the gas to get into work, let alone the $200 a month it takes for insurance.  Our legislators would do well if they could make it easier for our low income residents to roll down the highway in accord with the law, and able to afford the necessities of life as well with some much needed reforms.

Bay County Deputy Josh Rytlewski sits in his patrol vehicle to demonstrate the in-car computer system. As of Wednesday, Nov. 12, police throughout the state can determine if a motor vehicle has insurance simply by running its license plate. (Yfat Yossifor | The Bay City Times)

BAY COUNTY, MI -- Police now have an easier way of telling if you are riding dirty on the streets of Michigan.  As of mid-September, police throughout the state can determine if a motor vehicle is properly insured simply by running its license plate.

"When they run a license plate on an in-car computer, it will tell them if the driver of the vehicle has insurance that's valid or not," said Bay County Undersheriff Troy Cunningham. "It doesn't apply to motorcycles or commercial vehicles at this time."

Michigan State Police 1st Lt. David Simon, commander of the Tri-City Post in Bay County's Williams Township, also said the new technology has led to his troopers issuing more tickets with greater ease.  "It is convenient and it's nice for the officers to verify if someone's got insurance or not. It's one more thing we can do at a traffic stop or at a crash."

The 1^st and 15^th of each month, insurance companies submit reports to the Michigan Secretary of State detailing who is insured, Cunningham said. Bay County District Magistrate Janice Doner said that has been in place for some time, but the information was not immediately available to police through the Law Enforcement Information Network, or LEIN.

"The only issue with it is, the insurance companies are only required to transmit policy information to the Secretary of State twice a month, so it's not real-time information," said Michigan State Police spokeswoman Shanon Banner. "We do have this new ability, but for instance, for the Michigan State Police, our department policy indicates that this electronic insurance verification should not be used as the primary reason for a traffic stop. It's kind of a first step. It helps them in the investigative process. If someone says they have insurance, they could have applied for it in the last 15 days. It's very likely to return a 'no' and in fact they have insurance."

Between Sept. 13, 2013, and March 25, 2014, state troopers issued 8,664 citations to motorists who had no proof of insurance. By contrast, between Sept. 13, 2014, and March 25, 2015, troopers issued 10,009 such citations, Banner said.  "This is an increase of 1,345 citations; however, it should be noted there was also an increase of approximately 100 troopers from 2013 to 2014," Banner said. 

The technology became available to law enforcement in Bay County in November.  "Since it became available in November, we've definitely seen an increase in no-insurance charges," Doner said.

Driving without insurance is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine of $200 to $500, plus court costs, Doner said. Guilty parties are also subject to a driver responsibility fee of $500 per year for two years.  Not having proof of insurance when pulled over by police is a $143 civil infraction, Doner said. However, if a person gets such a citation and comes to the courthouse with documentation proving they were insured on the day in question, the penalty is knocked down to $25.

"We've had less no-proof and more no-insurance charges because of (officers') verification," the magistrate said. "I know officers just run a plate, see there is no insurance, and then they're stopping them. I don't think the public knows about it."

Both Cunningham and Doner agreed that since Nov. 12 -- the day the new system was put into place in Bay County -- the sheer number of charges issued to those driving without insurance has significantly increased.

"We used to arraign no-insurances here and there and now I'm just getting them in groups," the magistrate said. "Six to 10 people at walk-in arraignments are all here for no-insurance. That just never used to happen."

"We've seen a big influx in the tickets," Cunningham added. "There's a lot of motorists that are uninsured driving around Bay County."

From Nov. 12, 2013, through March 27, 2014, police in Bay County issued 106 citations for driving without insurance. Comparatively, from Nov. 12, 2014, through March 27, 2015, police issued 419 such citations, according to numbers provided by Doner.

"That's huge," she said after pulling the figures. "It's quadrupled. We were very surprised. We knew it had gone up, but we hadn't looked at the numbers until (now)."

http://www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/index.ssf/2015/03/driving_withou...

[Willy]

I don't like this at all. It's just another way to raise revenue. I agree that this will affect mostly those who are struggling to pay their bills. I know people who want to buy a new car but cannot afford the added cost of high insurance premiums. When the "driver responsibility" penalty was added, people I knew could not believe that such a penalty could even be considered let alone approved and enforced. I recommend parking in reverse so an officer who may be gathering information in a parking lot cannot see your license plate. Imagine the police scanning the parking lots at malls and the multi-level parking ramps in search of the uninsured. Who would have thought that a gold mine of traffic fines would be located just sitting in a parking lot.

I can see "Obamacare chips" being planted in every citizen which will be updated daily with information as to our compliance with Obamacare regulations.

[XLFD]

As noted by the UN, the Unabomber, and sustainability advocates, privately owned vehicles (POVs) are an abomination and a drain of our resources.  If more people are priced out of getting POVs, the world becomes more sustainable, resilient, greener, etc., and if making insurance and upping enforcement penalties for having none accomplishes this, then it works for the greater good of all.

Such thinking, along with government's and insurance company's wanting more of your pie, is why we don't get any meaningful solutions to the problem of how a poor person can deal with car insurance for his old clunker that may take over 20% of his income, when he may not even drive that much.  I don't drive much myself, but believe POV's play a large part in our individual freedom as our right to travel can be severely hampered otherwise. 

[stump]

Well now that this has come to light , I can see the local police trolling throughout the town streets and parking lots noting make, model, and plate # to increase the cities revenues as they see the vehicles later traveling down the road. Insurance company"s will love it when people get the word out, It's the pay me now or pay a lot more later. Between insurance,and taxes going up were all in the poor house.

[XLFD]

And there's pretty much nothing you can do about it, other than not drive a vehicle.  Note that they reportedly can't run motorcycle plates just yet.

[XLFD]

Granted this is a method to raise revenue, and their reluctance to acknowledge the technology publicly until now in a low key article indicate that they are using it for that purpose, effectively proves its being used for that purpose, the police can still claim that they are positively affecting traffic because there will be less uninsured people driving.

However, the new covert technology amounts to little more than a hidden tax on poor folk or middle class people that live paycheck to paycheck, who sometimes have to make tough choices, which might involve going without insurance for a time. 

A recent CBS Moneywatch article titled "In modern-day debtors' prisons, courts team with private sector", the tale is told of an Illinois teenager who is thrown in jail by a judge for not being able to pay a significant traffic fine off on time.  The underlying cause of incidents like this is a public justice system that has a conflict of interest between revenue generating and fair punishment.