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MP calls for brakes to be put on reckless drivers in rental supercars

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Time 10:04 am, February 25, 2021

An MP has called for changes to the way rental supercars are hired out to reduce reckless driving on public roads. 

Labour MP for Halifax Holly Lynch wants vehicles with more than 300hp to be fitted with a black box device to record how a car is driven.

Lynch warned that the number of traffic offences being committed in high-powered vehicles is increasing.


She also noted that she had seen many cases where the person who had hired the vehicle was then passing the keys on to someone else.

Lynch added: ‘Now more often than not in the examples that I have seen and have had reported to me, when road traffic offences are committed in high powered vehicles – supercars, prestigious cars, whatever you want to call them – the driver is not the owner of the vehicle, rather they have hired it.

‘In recent years we have seen a rise in cars like Lamborghinis and Ferraris being hired out to someone who goes on to pass the keys to someone else, if not several other people.

‘Vehicles are then driven at dangerously high speeds, putting other road users, pedestrians and the driver themselves as risk.


‘Often the driver will not have the appropriate insurance, arguing that they believe they were somehow covered by the rental agreement or by their own insurance as a driver or simply that the person who had hired the car had given them the consent to take it around the block and they hadn’t intended to crash so didn’t need it.

‘In a majority of cases they will not have the experience of handling a 300-plus horsepower vehicle which we know can be deadly in the wrong hands.’

Lynch is now suggesting that all of these vehicles are fitted with a black box and that the information it gathers must be made available to the police on request.

She has also proposed that the person hiring the car should become the named driver on the insurance for the duration of the rental.

She said: ‘I am proposing that all rental vehicles for use on public highways over 300hp will need to be fitted with a black box.

‘The black box is typically the size of a matchbox and records information about how and when a car is driven.

‘The information contained within that black box must be made available to the police on request.

‘The second related change is that a person hiring a car must be insured as the named driver for that specific vehicle for the entire duration of the rental agreement.

‘They must satisfy the hire car company of this prior to being allowed to drive the vehicle away.’


A date for the bill to be read a second time has not been set and would require government support in order to progress.

Rebecca Chaplin's avatar

Rebecca has been a motoring and business journalist since 2014, previously writing and presenting for titles such as the Press Association, Auto Express and Car Buyer. She has worked in many roles for Car Dealer Magazine’s publisher Blackball Media including head of editorial.



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