British Government to Use Gas Station Cameras To Catch Uninsured Drivers

In a plan that sounds vaguely like something out the George Orwell novel "1984," the British government has come up with a new idea to catch uninsured drivers: prevent them from refueling their cars.

Britain wants to install closed-circuits television (CCTV) cameras in gas station all over the country in an attempt to identify drivers without insurance. These cameras will prevent drivers from filing up their cars until the vehicle information has been stored in the system.

But here's the problem: the cameras will block every car from filing up until they've collected the vehicle information, including drivers with insurance. And once the information is collected, the drivers can fill up their cars anyway. From what I've seen, there doesn't seem to be any penalties for the uninsured drivers. And the whole notion of the government gathering the information of millions of drivers is just a little too "Big Brother" for me. Can you imagine the fuss we'd kick up if our government tried to pull this stunt in America?

I can already see that this plan will not have any effect on deterring uninsured drivers, and will just be a big inconvenience to all parties involved. Kind of like the red light cameras...