AA: Seizing cars for wrong addresses too extreme

Proposals to allow authorities to seize cars when the owners have forgotten to update their addresses on the motor vehicle register are too extreme, MPs were told today.

The Automobile Association (AA) told the transport select committee that it generally supported changes in the Land Transport Amendment Bill, but some provisions went too far.

One thing the bill proposes is tightening public access to the register and attempting to ensure that it is more accurate and up to date.

Under the proposal it would be possible for authorities to prohibit a car being used if the owner is known to have a wrong address on the register – through, for instance, having a traffic infringement notice returned to sender.

If the authorities believe the car has been used after the prohibition notice is issued, then it could be impounded.

AA general manager of motoring affairs Mike Noon told MPs that the moves went too far.

People often were under pressure when moving house and forgot to do things.

Young people frequently moved addresses, but they risked punishment even if they had a valid registration and warrant of fitness.

"We consider the threat of impoundment is too extreme for someone's unintentional failure to update their address," Mr Noon said.

The AA also had concerns that the move to tighten up the access to register went "from one extreme to the other".

Access to the register was still necessary for insurance purposes, vehicle recall notices and verifying ownership history.

Under the proposals the public would not be able to check ownership history, just get confirmation of who owned the car.

Mr Noon suggested it would be simpler to ban the bulk purchasing of motor vehicle registration details for marketing purposes, while adding more checks about who was asking for details.

The Press Council also told MPs it was concerned with the restrictions as the register was used for legitimate news-gathering reasons.

This included finding people who were hard to contact and checking whether a wealthy bankrupt was still owning and driving expensive cars while leaving creditors.

The council did not regard names and addresses as private fact and pointed to telephone directories as an example of the majority of the population agreeing.