It is advisable not to engage in car crashes when you drive. But if you do, beware of whom you bump into. About one million car drivers do not own a civil auto liability (RCA) policy, even though this is mandatory.
Insurance companies sold a little more than 2.2 million policies during the last RCA campaign, while the number of cars registered by January 1, 2003 was almost double.
"According to our data, a number of 4,216,000 cars were registered by January 1st, 2003, including their trailers, whose number is estimated at 2-300,000," stated Commissary Florin Radulescu with the Police Computerised Records Department. At first sight, one could say that almost one in two vehicles, either cars, buses or tractors, does not have a RCA. But not every car registered with the Police actually circulates.
Barring the 2-300,000 trailers, as well as the 200,000 motorbikes and motorcycles that almost nobody sees in the streets any longer, and the cars that have not been moved from city districts for years, cars not cancelled from records but that are no longer used or cars that are no longer used being parked in garages or yards, whose number can be assessed at 500,000, there are at least 3.2 million cars left, which ought to be insured.
That exceeds by a million the number of policies actually sold by insurance companies. In other words, at best, that is if we take into account the above-mentioned estimations, one in three cars circulating on the public roads does not benefit from a civil auto liability policy.
These were the data referred to on the insurance market, without any precise figures until now. According to an Insurance Supervision Commission report for 2001, 85% of the total cars should be covered by RCA, but this report takes into account the total number of polices sold by companies during the winter, as well as during the mid-year campaign. Subsequently, those who have signed an insurance contract for two distinct periods are counted twice.
"The registration of such a small proportion of total insured cars is alarming. In fact, what do these figures point to? That a law in force is observed by a little more than half of those it refers to. The ignorance of those who do not observe the laws is endangering the other drivers," says Razvan Pavel, director of the auto department within Allianz-tiriac Asigurari.
"This is a terrible situation. This simply means that we should no longer drive our cars," says Ian Harroks, vice-president with Astra Company. sorin.pislaru@zf.ro
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