Chesterfield drivers who borrow a car warned about having correct insurance

Police are stopping and seizing uninsured cars all week, and drivers in Chesterfield who borrow a car are being told to check their own policy actually covers them

Drivers in Chesterfield who borrow a friend's car this week are being warned to check they are insured before they set off, as police across the country carry out Operation Drive Insured, a week-long crackdown on uninsured driving that runs until Sunday.

Courts in the Derbyshire force area, which covers Chesterfield, convicted 1,591 drivers of driving without insurance last year, up 44.1 per cent on 2024, according to Ministry of Justice records analysed by short-term car insurance site Temp Insurance UK. That is 20.6 convictions for every 10,000 vehicles on the area's roads, the 13th highest rate of the 42 force areas in England and Wales.

The Motor Insurers' Bureau, which leads the operation, says an uninsured vehicle is seized every four minutes, more than 134,000 so far this year, and lists assuming a policy covers you to drive other vehicles among the seven most common mistakes that leave drivers unknowingly uninsured.

Chris Richards, founder of Temp Insurance UK, said: "Thousands of the drivers in these figures are not criminals. They are young people who borrowed a car, thought their own insurance covered them, and found out at the roadside that it did not.

"Most comprehensive policies no longer let you drive another car. Hardly anyone knows that until they are standing on the hard shoulder watching their mate's car go onto a recovery truck."

For a driver who passed their test in the last two years, the six penalty points that come with the £300 fixed penalty are enough to have their licence revoked. Getting it back means £34 for a new provisional licence, £23 to resit the theory test and £62 for a weekday practical, a total of £419 before a single lesson.

Across England and Wales, 76,983 drivers were convicted last year, up 7 per cent on 2024, almost one in four of them aged 18 to 24.

Anyone borrowing a car should check the owner's insurance certificate rather than assume. A borrower who is not covered can be added as a named driver or take out a short-term policy in their own name, lasting from an hour to 28 days. The owner can be prosecuted too, and the car seized on the spot.

Temp Insurance UK's full analysis, including figures for all 42 police force areas, is available online.