A new scheme by the government will soon be coming in an attempt to crackdown on the numbers of uninsured drivers. This will hopefully reduce the numbers greatly it was announced by the British Insurance Broker’s Association (BIBA).

The insurance group made the comments after transport minister Jim Fitzpatrick announced a new consultation paper on the subject. The document is to venture into new ways on how to deal with uninsured drivers in the UK by harnessing computer technology. The number of uninsured drivers currently stands at 1.5million.

Greater cooperation between different databases containing motorist information is also to be implemented once the consultation is complete. It is planned that this idea will lead to fewer car insurance cheats slipping through the insurance net.

Graeme Trudgill, form BIBA technical and corporate affairs stated: “The Motor Insurance Bureau database is going to be compared with the DVLA registered keeper database. So anyone who has a car, who doesn’t have insurance on the other database, can clearly be identified. So you're going to have probably around one and a half million people fall out into a pool of suspects who don’t have insurance and then after a period of time they will be sent out a letter saying, 'you've got a car but you don’t seem to have insurance , this is an offence, get insurance right now.”

Trudgill furthered: “So they will hopefully get insurance or correct their registration if it was a problem or do a statutory off-road notification saying that the vehicle is off the road and therefore it doesn’t need insurance."

It was revealed that last month British car insurance customers were paying £31 a year extra on their premiums because of uninsured drivers. The high number of uninsured drivers is concerning as the number of people killed by them was also on the rise.

Crash data obtained by the Times newspaper exposed that the overall death toll from accidents caused by motorists who do not have car insurance rose from 160 to 208 per year. However, it also showed that the average fine faced by uninsured motorists had actually decreased by 17%. Previous studies have shown that uninsured drivers cause proportionally higher numbers of car accidents that any other motorist.

Liberal Democrat transport spokesperson Mark Hunter commented: “It beggars belief that penalties for uninsured drivers have become more lenient on this Government's watch. Uninsured drivers are a dangerous and often fatal blight on our roads and responsible motorists are forking out for higher premiums to pay for their misadventures."

Theresa Villiers, shadow transport secretary stated: “Labour has repeatedly sent out the wrong message to irresponsible drivers who flout the law and dodge paying insurance.”