STATE'S VEHICLE INSURANCE LAWS WEEKLY ENFORCED (LAST IN A SERIES)

Missouri motorists often get away with driving without insurance because of weak enforcement by the Missouri Department of Revenue.

But uninsured motorists soon could face stiff penalties in Malden in Dunklin County.

The city council is preparing to adopt an ordinance by July 1 that would require uninsured drivers ticketed in Municipal Court to obtain insurance before the city would release their impounded cars.

"I am not going to let them drive their vehicles without insurance," said Phillip Santie, Malden's municipal judge.

The Missouri Department of Revenue suspended the licenses of 19,344 motorists in the fiscal year that ended June 30.

A majority of those motorists -- 12,228 -- were involved in accidents.

Few of the motorists who couldn't show proof of insurance during routine traffic stops had their licenses suspended.

In fiscal 1995, law enforcement officers issued 66,516 no-proof-of-insurance notices to the Department of Revenue.

But the department mailed notices to only 14,275 of those motorists, demanding that they show proof of insurance.

Of those, 7,116 were found to have been driving without insurance and their licenses were suspended.

The Department of Revenue doesn't have the budget and staffing to follow up on all the notices received from law enforcement officers, said Kay Dinolfo, Department of Revenue spokeswoman.

"We take a sampling of those notices. Right now, it goes as high as 29 percent and as low as 20 percent," she said.

During the administration of governor John Ashcroft, the Department of Revenue quit following up on uninsured-motorist reports for budget reasons, said Sen. Wayne Goode, D-Normandy.

"We found out a couple of years ago and we cracked down on them," he said.

State Rep. Larry Thomason, D-Kennett, has proposed tougher penalties against those who drive without liability insurance.

His bill, among other things, would require the Department of Revenue annually to randomly sample 1 percent of Missouri motor vehicle registrations or renewals for compliance.

Goode, however, doesn't believe Thomason's bill of stiff fines or jail sentences would work.

"Most people who don't have insurance don't have it because they can't afford it," he said.

"Judges and juries just aren't going to put people in jail for something like that," he said.

Insurance agents worry that tougher penalties wouldn't work and would only create more paperwork for their companies.

Leon Wiggs, a Farmers Insurance agent in Cape Girardeau, said uninsured motorists continue to drive even after they lose their licenses.

Don Menard, a State Farm Insurance agent in Cape Girardeau, said many uninsured motorists are high-risk drivers with a history of traffic accidents.

Insurance companies would end up covering a lot of bad drivers if everyone had insurance, he said.

In theory, everybody driving a car should have insurance, Menard said. "But that theory is just sort of hard to carry out sometimes."

Thomason has tried unsuccessfully for six years to get the legislature to adopt tougher laws against uninsured motorists.

His bill passed the House, but never made it out of the Senate in the 1996 legislative session.

Frustrated by inaction at the state level, Thomason is encouraging cities such as Malden to pass tough local ordinances mandating insurance coverage for motorists.

Mike Mowrer, Kennett's municipal judge, said cities could consider ordinances to allow city judges to suspend sentencing for an uninsured motorist on condition that he or she obtain liability insurance and show proof of insurance during a period of probation.

Mowrer said ordinances dealing with uninsured motorists should focus on encouraging more drivers to get insurance, not on raising fines.

He knows all too well the enforcement problems with the current state law.

Mowrer's wife was driving an Oldsmobile that was rear-ended by an uninsured motorist on Interstate 55 near Festus four years ago.

"It took a long Oldsmobile and made it look compact," said Mowrer. The car was totaled, but Mowrer's wife escaped injury.

He paid the deductible and his insurance paid for the rest of the damage.

The uninsured driver reportedly was from Arkansas, but Mowrer's insurance company hasn't been able to locate him. The driver never paid a dime for the damage he caused.

Mowrer doubts that any law ever will solve the whole problem. "I think most of it is an economic issue or a lack of responsibility issue," he said.