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NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Utah Instructs Cops To Seize Uninsured Vehicles




GOP Utah Steals Your Car

  • The Conservative "small government" Republican Party controlled legislature of Utah has instructed their police to impound your car for being uninsured.
  • Corporatism  -  If you do not want your body insured (Obamacare) or your car insured (your own damn business) the state should not force you to buy an insurance policy.  But the political hack liars take mountains of cold hard cash in campaign contributions from health and car insurance companies and then force you to buy insurance under penalty of law.


(Tech Dirt)  -  Does the government really even need excuses to seize the assets of its citizens, especially for relatively minor crimes? Apparently it does, at least according to the state of Utah.
A new law that went into effect on Jan. 1 changes the wording and adds provisions to a law that has been in effect since 2008 allowing officers to impound a vehicle that isn’t insured. The crucial verb that was changed, raising sides between those in favor and those opposed to the revised law, is the shift from the law previously stating that an officer “may” seize a vehicle without warrant if it’s being operated without insurance to the fact that now an officer “shall” seize said vehicle.
The wording change makes it mandatory. What was always an option is now expressly a command. The senator behind the new law feels this is necessary despite uninsured drivers really not being much of a problem in his home state.
Even though the sponsor of SB 72, GOP Sen. Lyle Hillyard, estimates Utah’s current rate of uninsured drivers at 3 percent, much less than the national average of 12.6 percent, he says it's still enough of a problem to address.
Big Government by & for the Corporations
Government forces you to buy car or health insurance. All in the name of "Law & Order" . . . . and padding the quarterly profit reports of insurance companies.

No problem is too small. That's your government at work, Utah citizens. Will this new law lead to the sort of abuse witnessed in other areas of the country? Well, maybe. The low uninsured driver rate is one of the few things preventing this from becoming the full-blown, corrupt mess it is in other jurisdictions. The other factor is the restrictive language in the law, which provides for a surprising amount of protections for the public. 

Officers are supposed to make a "reasonable, independent effort" to verify the vehicle is uninsured before seizing it. This means they can't simply seize it because the driver isn't carrying an insurance card. The claimed insurance company will need to be contacted before the vehicle can be seized, along with the owner of the vehicle (if said owner isn't the one driving). 


The amendment also authorizes an account for funds to be set aside to repay towing and storage charges incurred for vehicles wrongly impounded. (Of course, this requires the affected person to prove that the vehicle was wrongly impounded, but hey, at least there's some sort of due process, even if it occurs after the vehicle has already been seized.) 

That's the good news. The bad news is that it gives law enforcement yet another way to take property away from citizens. It encourages trolling for seizures by turning the Uninsured Motorist database into a shopping list


Read More . . . .

Police: "Give Us Cash or Lose Your Kids"




2 comments:

Armand Vaquer said...

If this is Uninsured Motorists Property Damage coverage, yes, this isn't the state's business. It would be covered under collision anyway (and usually the deductible is waived).

If this is Uninsured Motorists Coverage Bodily Injury, then it would be smart to have it if you are injured by someone with no insurance. But, it really isn't the state's business unless they are called for to pay for your medical care.

Can you clarify?

Gary said...

Armand, just got back from Peter Lebeck's Widders Ball in Bakersfield. Good time had by all.

I take the extreme libertarian position on this. Government should not use the police power of the state to force you to buy the private insurance products being sold by companies. Companies who bribed the politicians with campaign cash to pass these laws.

If a person is struck by an insured or an uninsured driver the solution is the same: go to court for damages.

A traffic accident between two private parties is no business of the government.

As for medical bills the government rings up. Bill the party treated who in turn goes to court against the driver.