Thieving statists: New Utah Law Instructs Cops To Seize Uninsured Vehicles

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, 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.

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.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150111/13211929673/new-utah-law-instructs-cops-to-seize-uninsured-vehicles.shtml
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“The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.”-- Max Stirner
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Thieving statists: New Utah Law Instructs Cops To Seize Uninsured Vehicles

Thieving statists: New Utah Law Instructs Cops To Seize Uninsured Vehicles

Anarcho-Capitalist Categorical Imperatives

Via AnCaps: Law & Enforced Unnatural Order