The creation of a new law to make it an offence to keep an uninsured vehicle rather than just for driving when uninsured is very welcome.

Uninsured drivers are a plague on law-abiding motorists. And they are a plague that particularly affects Bradford, with several parts of the city singled out as national hotspots.

Anyone who insures their car is currently seeing on average £30 of that premium go to fund the cost of drivers who flout the law.

But people living in postcodes which have a particularly high level of uninsured motorists are likely to see their premiums inflated much higher through no fault of their own.

In theory, the new law should reduce the problem. The DVLA will work with the Motor Insurers’ Bureau to identify any uninsured vehicles, and the owners will be contacted with a warning letter. Failure to comply leads initially to a £100 fine, and ultimately the scrapping of their car.

But it remains to be seen how effectively this will actually work in practice. For one thing, the DVLA needs to have the correct registered keeper for the system to work effectively, and the question has to be asked as to how many uninsured drivers bother with vehicle registration in the first place.

And the other big question is enforcement. The authorities must act quickly and decisively to show they mean business with this new legislation.

Uninsured cars need to be taken off the road quickly and scrapped swiftly to show those who continue to think the law is something that does not apply to them that they are wrong.

Hit them in their pockets – where these law-breakers have been hitting every honest motorist for far too long.