Almost 40 years old, the green sticker affixed to car windshields will no longer be mandatory in a few months. Good news or not?
At 37 years old, the little green sticker is experiencing these last moments. Introduced in France since 1986, this little piece of paper stipulating that your vehicle is insured, formerly represented by a badge, will no longer be compulsory from 1er April 2024. At first glance, this is great news for everyone. Firstly for all drivers of vehicles registered in France – two wheels included – who will no longer need to affix this small sticker to their windshield or know where they have stored their insurance certificate.
For insurance companies too, who will be able to make significant savings. Until then, they spent around 60 million euros each year to print just over 50 million documents for their customers. Finally, for environmentalists, no doubt not unhappy to learn that the paper and glue used to make these stickers represent 1,200 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.
Like the driving license, the insurance certificate will become dematerialized in 2024. All information concerning insured motorists will then be available online. Insurance companies will be responsible for updating the Insured Vehicle File (FVA) in real time or at the latest within 72 hours for each new (or renewal) contract. On the side of the roads, law enforcement agencies already use FCA. Thanks to an application, they only have to enter the number of a license plate to know in a few seconds whether the vehicle being checked is insured or not.
If humans – police officers or gendarmes – remain for the moment the only ones to ensure control of insurance contracts, what will happen tomorrow? Increasingly sophisticated, the latest models of radar are able to detect a countless number of offenses. From wearing a seat belt to using a cell phone to the number of passengers in the vehicle…
So, reading a license plate by radars linked to a file – a bit like those installed in cars today to control paid parking – seems to be entirely possible in the future to identify if you have properly insured your vehicle. Until the authorities decide to speed up the hunt and, incidentally, bring a little more money into the state coffers by using this novelty to pass other controls on your conduct, there is no probably only one step…
Today, any driver not being able to present their sticker and/or registration certificate is punishable by a fine of 35 euros. This will no longer be the case next April. No more reason to panic after forgetting to put the little green sticker in its plastic case before getting behind the wheel. On the other hand, the dematerialization of car insurance will obviously not exempt you from taking out a contract when purchasing a new vehicle. Driving without insurance is considered an offense punishable by a fine of 600 euros. In the event of a repeat offense, it can even rise up to 3,750 euros.