Have you been involved in a car accident with an uninsured motorist lately and had to pick up your $200 deductible yourself? Maybe you saw your insurance rates go up because the bum driver wasn't insured.
Before you take any solace in the fact that the state tracks down uninsured motorists with a new, high-tech computer system, you should know this: While the new state tracking system works, the state isn't aggressively going after lawbreakers.So, the number of uninsured motorists remains level - about 12 percent of drivers.
And because the private company handling the tracking for the state didn't keep 1995 data, no one can prove there are fewer uninsured motorists on the roads than there were two years ago, the legislative auditor general says.
Why, if the state knows today who drives without insurance, don't state officials pursue these people and force them to purchase insurance or get off the road?
Because public opinion-worrying legislators only authorized state Tax Commission and Public Safety officials to send warning letters to uninsured vehicle owners.
Lawmakers may well consider putting teeth into the law. State Sen. David Steele, R-West Point, is drafting a bill - to be heard by a legislative committee next month - that would impose a penalty on an uninsured driver, possibly suspension of his driver's license.
In addition, the new computer system's contractor, Insure-Rite, didn't keep any 1995 uninsured motorist data, so legislative auditors can't statistically prove the number of uninsured motorists has diminished through the letter-writing campaign. (Insure-Rite bosses say their previous figures were and are accurate).
As Legislative Auditor General Wayne Welsh's report, released Tuesday, points out, the uninsured motorists who receive the warning letter "either choose to contact Insure-Rite with proof of insurance (has gone out and bought new insurance) or offer some explanation as to why their vehicles do not need insurance coverage, or they choose to ignore the letter . . . and fail to obtain insurance coverage."
In March, Insure-Rite sent out 16,224 letters to uninsured motorists. But Welsh found only 15 percent of those motorists called the state to check on their non-insurance status - and only 4 percent actually bought insurance.
Other states with uninsured motorist-identification programs contacted by Welsh and his auditors have "punitive enforcement" procedures, such as suspending a vehicle registration, tracking down the car and confiscating license plates and/or issuing fines to uninsured motorists.
Utah lawmakers specifically decided not to impose such sanctions, saying they first wanted to install the computer-tracking program to make certain there were few "false negatives."
That is, lawmakers didn't want their law-abiding constituents who carry insurance to receive letters from a state bureaucracy threatening dire consequences if they didn't buy car insurance when they were buying car insurance.
Welsh said 6,000 to 8,000 times each day law enforcement officers in Utah radio Insure-Rite's database to check on insurance coverage for the car they just pulled over. And legislators didn't want the officer walking back to the driver saying the car wasn't insured when it was and the state's computer cross-checking system had just fouled up.
Lawmakers' fears are apparently unfounded: Welsh found that Insure-Rite doesn't make many errors. Ninety-six percent of the time, Insure-Rite matches insurance/vehicle registration correctly.
Some false notices go out, but it is a small percentage, Welsh said after his auditors ran two different kinds of tests on Insure-Rite's work.
The firm is being paid about $1 million a year to cross-match vehicle registrations with monthly client reports from all insurance companies writing vehicle insurance in the state. To fund the program, a $1 special charge is placed on every vehicle registration.
Insure-Rite's database is now being switched around by the Tax Commission in an effort to find Utahns who buy insurance for their cars but either don't register their vehicles at all or register their cars out of state in an effort to avoid Utah's vehicle property taxes.
Welsh and state tax officials admit that the total dead-head driver escapes detection: If you don't register your car in Utah and you don't buy insurance for that car, Insure-Rite has no way to catch you.
However, you could really be dinged for those practices if you were involved in a traffic accident and police at the scene demanded to see your registration and insurance card.
Welsh found another problem with the state's uninsured motorist program, however.
Insure-Rite failed to keep any data from its 1995 matchups. To determine the magnitude of the uninsured-motorist problem in Utah, lawmakers authorized an initial matchup trial. After that trial, Insure-Rite said 23 percent of Utah drivers were uninsured.
Disturbed by that statistic, the Legislature authorized the $1 registration fee and hired Insure-Rite to begin a complete program and send out letters to the insurance cheaters.
1996 match-ups show only 12 percent of Utahns with registered vehicles are uninsured. But Welsh said he can neither prove the letter-writing campaign cut in half the number of uninsured motorists nor disprove that claim. Because Insure-Rite didn't keep any of the 1995 data, Welsh's auditors couldn't check to see if the 23 percent number was accurate in the first place.
Insure-Rite has promised to keep all the 1996 data - the 12 percent uninsured figures - as a benchmark.
It's possible that the letter-writing campaign has cut the number of uninsured motorists in half. If so, the remaining 12 percent may be hard-core insurance dodgers, unaffected by letters in the mail.
Welsh said it makes little sense to have an extensive uninsured motorist program that doesn't take concrete measures to force the offenders to obey the law. Without more enforcement, he doubts the number of uninsured motorists will be drastically reduced by sending warning letters.