Reducing uninsured drivers no simple task

THE Oklahoma County District Attorneys Council wants to use license plate-scanning cameras to catch uninsured motorists and get them off the road. It’s a worthy goal, but logistical problems and legal challenges could derail the effort.

Under a contract signed with Gatso USA, allowed under a state law passed in 2016, the camera system will be set across Oklahoma and use a statewide insurance database to determine if cars are covered by an insurance policy. Such drivers are a big problem in Oklahoma, where it’s believed as many as one in four vehicles on the road lacks insurance.

Uninsured drivers caught by the camera system will receive a letter notifying them that they are required to have insurance, and charging them a $184 fee. Of that total, $80 will go to the vendor (Gatso USA) for the first two years of the contract, with the District Attorneys Council receiving $84 and the remainder going to a state pension fund for law enforcement officials.

We’ve long supported efforts to drive down the number of uninsured drivers in Oklahoma, including the use of license-scanning technology. But past attempts to implement such systems provide reason to worry that this effort won’t generate the results promised.

In 2010, lawmakers voted to install a similar traffic camera system in Oklahoma, predicting it would generate at least $50 million from uninsured drivers. The effort quickly ran into problems.

An attorney with the American Insurance Association noted that fleet and company-owned vehicles were special problems because blanket insurance policies don’t electronically link the policies to each vehicle identification number in the fleet. That meant those vehicles were more likely to be mistakenly fined.

It wasn’t long before state officials announced the effort was being abandoned, citing as a major factor the fact that no one company had all the vehicle insurance verification data of all 50 states.

This new effort could face similar issues, along with legal challenges. In other states, lawsuits have been filed claiming the camera system violates drivers’ due process and equal protection rights under the law. Such lawsuits are routine when technology is used to aid traffic enforcement. How those lawsuits will end is anyone’s guess, although few citizens will have much sympathy for people who choose to break the law by driving without insurance and get caught.

Another issue is that the DA’s council appears to be relying on word games to sidestep one potential legal challenge. Some lawsuits have argued camera systems effectively grant police powers to private vendors by allowing them to issue tickets.

Trent Baggett, the council’s executive coordinator, argues that isn’t the case because the document sent to drivers by the camera-system vendor is “not a ticket or a citation. It’s a letter stating ‘our records show you do not have insurance.’”

But since those who receive the letter are expected to pay $184, it’s not clear how that’s a difference with any distinction.

An effective license plate-scanning camera system could drive down Oklahoma’s uninsured driver rate significantly, and would be welcome news. However, policymakers face many challenges turning that abstract idea into reality.