CEDAR PARK, Texas -- Police in Cedar Park say there will no longer be any tolerance for uninsured drivers. The City of Cedar Park will start strengthening its enforcement of uninsured motorist laws.
It's a problem numbers suggest is even bigger than previously thought. Statistics show one out of every five drivers on a Cedar Park street lacks car insurance.
The crackdown comes after citizen complaints and more than 1,900 uninsured citations in Cedar Park for 2010.
Police will no longer hand out warnings. They will issue citations costing close to $400.
City leaders said the initiative is more about safety than ticket profits.
"It's the law -- you got to have insurance, and it costs Texans, law abiding Texans, over $1 billion a year in increased liability insurance," Cedar Park City Council Member Tony Dale said. "It doesn't matter if you're in an accident or not. If you're a resident of Cedar Park and you have insurance, you're being impacted by this problem."
If drivers don't have their insurance cards on them when they are pulled over, that's okay. Police said new technology allows them to search and check a person's information from their computer.
