But criminals are managing to stay one step ahead of the law - by using foreign number plates instead.

The AA is now calling for better checks on foreign registered vehicles.

Fewer uninsured drivers

Police figures gathered by the AA show that 150,000 uninsured vehicles were seized last year compared to 78,000 in 2006.

AA President Edmund King said the rise was not necessarily because there were more uninsured drivers on UK roads.

"Rather, we think it is because there is now the widespread use of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) systems," he said.

His contention is backed by police figures on the number of claims made for accidents with uninsured drivers. They have fallen: down from 36,340 in 2006 to 34,239 in 2007.

We have anecdotal evidence that many European drivers are failing to register their cars in the UK

AA President Edmund King

The government gave police more powers to use ANPR technology in 2006, as well as changing the rules to allow them to seize uninsured vehicles.

ANPR cameras are now fitted as standard in many police patrol vehicles. Connected to a database of insured vehicles, the device automatically scans the road ahead and alerts officers to uninsured vehicles, or those fitted with false UK plates.

Mr King said: "It used to be that some uninsured motorists driving top-of-the-range cars like Mercedes or BMWs felt they were less likely to be stopped.

"This may have been true a few years ago - but now they are finding that the camera does not discriminate."

Foreign plates

But the AA is warning that uninsured drivers - and those seeking to avoid speeding fines and congestion charges - are turning to a new ruse: foreign number plates.

Because foreign plates are not included in databases accessed by the police, they are not automatically picked up by ANPR cameras.

The AA says that because there is no record of foreign-registered vehicles going in and out of British ports of entry, it is impossible for police to check which cars are genuinely from outside the UK.

The AA is also concerned that many foreign drivers are flouting the rules that state that they must register their vehicles and fit UK number plates within six months of arriving in Britain.

"We have anecdotal evidence that many European drivers are failing to register their cars in the UK. When they are stopped by the police they claim they have just arrived in the country," said Mr King.

Hit and run

He called on the government to install ANPR cameras at ports and at the Channel Tunnel.

"That way the police will know which vehicles have come in, and also which vehicles have left the country

"It will enable them to catch UK drivers using false foreign plates, as well as catching foreign drivers who are trying to leave the country after committing a hit-and-run offence."

A spokesman for the Department of Transport said that while its rules placed an obligation on foreign drivers to register their vehicle after a certain length of time, enforcement of the rule was up to the Home Office and the police.

A Home Office spokesman said that any move to install ANPR technology at ports of entry would be a "police operational matter".

But driver Arno Herwerth says he rejected it because the DMV wouldn't pay his attorney's fees. Lawyer Vincent Amicizia has taken the case pro bono, and Herwerth says he wants to donate the fees to charity.

A DMV spokesman says he can't comment on ongoing litigation.

Herwerth filed a federal complaint after being told to return the plates in November. The DMV cited a rule banning plates that could be considered "obscene, lewd, lascivious, derogatory to a particular ethnic group or patently offensive."

Herwerth says he wants to remind people that Sept. 11 terrorist attack mastermind Osama bin Laden remains at large.

Gavin Simcoe hadn't planned on nearly killing himself. He was just with a couple of buddies that night of September 25. But street racing came up. There was trash talking about whose car was faster.

"I said, 'I think mine can beat yours,' " Simcoe says. His friends agreed, "let's go out and do it then."

They chose a straight two-lane road. It had hills, something Simcoe needed for a running start because first gear in his 1993 Honda Civic EX didn't work.

Simcoe says he hit 110 mph really fast...

Multimedia Watch The Video It happened at the Spring Hill BP station in South Charleston. Detectives say the owner of the gas station contacted them last week because his accounts were not adding up. He found that records were tampered with and noticed a trend of $.001 per gallon sales on Sunday mornings.

Police set up a sting and caught the clerk's friends lined up even before the station opened at 7am with dozens of gas cans in hand.

Officers arrested the clerk, Madeline Jordan, 25 of Nitro; her mother, Mary Jordan, 58 of Charleston; her brother, John Jordan, 27 of Charleston; her cousin, Vonnie Oldham, 38 of Leon; Clifford Parker, 47 of Leon; and Glennis Fields, 39 of Dunbar.

All six are charged with fraudulent schemes and have been taken to the South Central Regional Jail.

The pumps were still set at $.001 when crews arrived on scene.

Detectives say they believe the scam has been going on for months. They believe Madeline Jordan chose to do it early on Sunday mornings to avoid a high traffic time. They say she has been working this same shift for about six months.

Police towed five vehicles from the scene and confiscated all of the gas containers.

The owner told police this scam almost put him into bankruptcy. He said he can account for at least $40,000 lost so far. He added that he's relieved that the mystery of the missing money has been solved.

DALLAS — Law enforcement agencies across the country have been warned to be alert for vehicles that have been made to look like commercial or law enforcement vehicles, but in actuality are "clones" being used for illegal activities.

A 28-page report obtained by News 8 revealed that cloned vehicles are being used to smuggle drugs, guns and illegal immigrants.

Authorities said in one example, authorities discovered that a truck that appeared to be a Federal Express vehicle was actually a fake hauling 1,300 pounds of marijuana inside U-Haul boxes.

When Texas state troopers pulled over a fake SBC truck, the driver wouldn't cooperate and didn't have proper paperwork. After troopers searched the vehicle, authorities said they found 1,800 pounds of marijuana.

Police said they have found more and more cloned vehicles all across the nation. Often times, authorities said the criminals are savvy enough to carry equipment to try and disguise their illegal contraband.

One cloned van was reported to have been carrying hollowed-out spools of wire in the cargo area. Inside, police found more than $1 million.

In another case, a vehicle posing as a border patrol van was found to be holding 31 illegal immigrants inside. Authorities said the people were stacked on top of one another.

A Flower Mound couple was also busted for driving a fake vehicle that police said was designed to look like an emergency vehicle.

Police said the criminals are creative and they fear a fake vehicle could be used by terrorists for surveillance and preplanning of an actual attack.

The report said police should pay close attention to delivery service and government vehicles during routine stops, which is how most of the cloned vehicles have been found.

Utah law now requires that drivers be given the name of who reported them to officials. Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North Ogden, is pursuing legislation that would allow anonymity to those reporting drivers whose impairments could pose imminent threats to their own and others’ safety.

The rule would apply to anyone, regardless of age. However, Christensen said the focus is on older drivers.

Christensen offered a similar version during the 2007 session, but the Senate rejected the bill because of concerns about people anonymously tattling on someone. Others said older people shouldn’t be singled out as the problem.

To prevent harassing people, the bill includes a provision that would make reporting false concerns punishable up to 90 days in jail and/or up to a $750 fine.

The bill – SB34 – can be considered during the regular session that begins Jan. 21.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans born after Dec. 1, 1964, will have to get more secure driver's licenses in the next six years under ambitious post-9/11 security rules to be unveiled Friday by federal officials. The Homeland Security Department has spent years crafting the final regulations for the REAL ID Act, a law designed to make it harder for terrorists, illegal immigrants and con artists to get government-issued identification. The effort once envisioned to take effect in 2008 has been pushed back in the hopes of winning over skeptical state officials.

Even with more time, more federal help and technical advances, REAL ID still faces stiff opposition from civil liberties groups.

To address some of those concerns, the government now plans to phase in a secure ID initiative that Congress passed into law in 2005. Now, DHS plans a key deadline in 2011 -- when federal authorities hope all states will be in compliance -- and then further measures to be enacted three years later, according to congressional staffers who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because an announcement had not yet been made. DHS officials briefed legislative aides on the details late Thursday.

Without discussing details, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff promoted the final rules for REAL ID during a meeting Thursday with an advisory council.

"We worked very closely with the states in terms of developing a plan that I think will be inexpensive, reasonable to implement and produce the results," he said. "This is a win-win. As long as people use driver's licenses to identify themselves for whatever reason there's no reason for those licenses to be easily counterfeited or tampered with."

In order to make the plan more appealing to cost-conscious states, federal authorities drastically reduced the expected cost from $14.6 billion to $3.9 billion, a 73 percent decline, according to Homeland Security officials familiar with the plan.

The American Civil Liberties Union has fiercely objected to the effort, particularly the sharing of personal data among government agencies. The DHS and other officials say the only way to make sure an ID is safe is to check it against secure government data; critics like the ACLU say that creates a system that is more likely to be infiltrated and have its personal data pilfered.

In its written objection to the law, the ACLU claims REAL ID amounts to the "first-ever national identity card system," which "would irreparably damage the fabric of American life."

The September 11 attacks were the main motivation for the changes.

The hijacker-pilot who flew into the Pentagon, Hani Hanjour, had a total of four driver's licenses and ID cards from three states. The DHS, which was created in response to the attacks, has created a slogan for REAL ID: "One driver, one license."

By 2014, anyone seeking to board an airplane or enter a federal building would have to present a REAL ID-compliant driver's license, with the notable exception of those more than 50 years old, Homeland Security officials said.

The over-50 exemption was created to give states more time to get everyone new licenses, and officials say the risk of someone in that age group being a terrorist, illegal immigrant or con artist is much less. By 2017, even those over 50 must have a REAL ID-compliant card to board a plane.

Among other details of the REAL ID plan:

The traditional driver's license photograph would be taken at the beginning of the application instead of the end so that should someone be rejected for failure to prove identity and citizenship, the applicant's photo would be kept on file and checked in the future if that person attempted to con the system again.

The cards will have three layers of security measures but will not contain microchips as some had expected. States will be able to choose from a menu which security measures they will put in their cards.

Over the next year, the government expects all states to begin checking both the Social Security numbers and immigration status of license applicants.

Most states currently check Social Security numbers and about half check immigration status. Some, like New York, Virginia, North Carolina and California, already have implemented many of the security measures envisioned in REAL ID. In California, for example, officials expect the only major change to adopt the first phase would be to take the photograph at the beginning of the application process instead of the end.

After the Social Security and immigration status checks become nationwide practice, officials plan to move on to more expansive security checks, including state DMV offices checking with the State Department to verify those applicants who use passports to get a driver's license, verifying birth certificates and checking with other states to ensure an applicant doesn't have more than one license.

A handful of states have already signed written agreements indicating plans to comply with REAL ID. Seventeen others, though, have passed legislation or resolutions objecting to it, often based on concerns about the billions of dollars such extra security is expected to cost.

MADISON, Wis. - Investigators worked Monday to piece together how two people died in a series of pileups on a fog-shrouded stretch of interstate.

Sgt. Craig Lindgren of the Wisconsin State Patrol's DeForest post said he didn't know when the study of the deaths of Delbert E. Smet and Beatrice C. Winrich would be complete. He said it was too early to consider citations or charges against anyone.

"We're trying to still get all that data together and conduct a proper investigation on each accident. We're working through it as quickly as we can," Lindgren said.

Smet, 79, of Fond du Lac, and Winrich, 54, of Stoughton, died in two separate crashes during a domino-effect series of accidents Sunday afternoon on a portion of Interstate 39-90 just southeast of Madison.

The Wisconsin State Patrol said cars and semitrailers flew into a wall of fog -- many at 70 mph or more -- and smashed into one another as they braked. Officials estimate more than 100 vehicles were involved. Dozens were hurt.

Gov. Jim Doyle told drivers Monday to slow down.

"All of us who see that this happened say, 'My God, that could have been us,"' Doyle said.

Smet was driving a 2007 Chrysler Pacifica when he got tangled up in a crash involving three cars and two semitrailers, the State Patrol said.

His passenger, 51-year-old Daniel Schingen, also of Fond du Lac, suffered non life-threatening injuries, the State Patrol said. A message The Associated Press left at a listing for a Daniel Schingen in Fond du Lac wasn't immediately returned.

The State Patrol released little information on Winrich, except to say she was driving a 2006 Chrysler PT Cruiser and her husband, 64-year-old Ralph Winrich, suffered non life-threatening injuries. No listing for the Winrichs in Stoughton could be found.

The State Patrol's Lindgren said reconstruction teams started looking at Smet and Winrich's accidents Sunday night, marking cars' positions and condition.

On Monday, Lindgren said, the teams began inspecting the vehicles more closely. The teams' tasks may include downloading information from the cars' computers, photographing the cars, diagramming the scenes and performing crush analysis, which can estimate the speed of impact from the damage the car suffered.

The teams may have to return to the crash scenes to gather accurate data, Lindgren added. He wasn't sure how much work the patrol would do on the nonfatal accidents and how much might be performed by other agencies.

Fifty-one people were taken to area hospitals; most were treated and released. Three people remained hospitalized in good condition at Stoughton Hospital as of mid-afternoon Monday. Four people remained at University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, all in fair condition.

The pileups closed a 5-mile portion of interstate in both directions for about eight hours, snarling traffic around Madison's east side. Clean-up crews couldn't get all lanes open again until 1:15 a.m. Monday.

John Kumm, 25, a legislative aide to Rep. Steve Wieckert, R-Appleton, and his girlfriend, Sarah Schlemmer, 21, sat in traffic for about six hours on their way back to Madison from Chicago, battling hunger pains and their bladders and watching ambulances go by. As they finally drove out, they saw a dozen cars in the ditch.

Kumm said people were going too fast, and there was no way to see if anyone up ahead had stopped because the fog was so thick.

"We were damn lucky no semi plowed into us," he said.

A deadly mix of fog and smoke from a brush fire have led to the deaths of at least three people in a series of crashes on Interstate 4 near Polk City.

At least 50 vehicles are involved, including about 20 tractor-trailers and tankers, authorities said. Tankers have overturned, and at least one burned.

Four people were trapped in the wreckage nearly four hours after the first crash in a series of wrecks.

The injured who could walk were being taken to a rest area about one-quarter mile west of the crash site.

Lakeland Regional Medical Center has received nine patients, said hospital spokeswoman Bobbi Zagrocki. Of those, seven appear to have "significant or serious" injuries, Zagrocki said. Two are being evaluated.

Asked whether they expect to receive more patients, she said, "We can't say, but it wouldn't be surprising. I know they're still having difficulties getting emergency vehicles in and out of there."

Paramedics are tending to other people at the scene. The crash is centered about one-half mile west of Polk County Road 557.

Of the 20 tractor-trailers, at least six have been destroyed by fire and at least five of the other vehicles are burning.

Troopers have shut down I-4 in both directions between the Polk Parkway, also known as State Road 570, and U.S. 27 in Haines City, though the wrecks are not affecting traffic through Lakeland.

The interstate was expected to remain closed for hours, said Heather Duckworth a Polk County public safety spokeswoman.

Eastbound I-4 traffic is backed up 10 to 15 miles.

From the air, it looked like the dense mix of fog and smoke was hampering the four medical helicopters trying to land near the accident scene. The closest site appeared to be more than a mile east of the accident scene.

Fire and rescue crews from surrounding counties swarmed to the scene, including four firefighters and a battalion chief from Orange County Fire Rescue.

Osceola County Fire Rescue sent a division chief and battalion chief and a squad of firefighters operating four engines and four rescue vehicles. Lake County Fire Rescue has 20 firefighters and six emergency vehicles on the scene.

Robert Ellison was heading east on I-4 about 6 a.m. when he narrowly avoided a collision.

"Everything came to a halt," he said. "You can't see your hand in front of your face."

Police told Ellison and other motorists to move to an area away from the road. He and others had tried to help some of the accident victims, including one person pinned in a car.

"There was no indication of anything. Then you couldn't see five feet," Ellison said.

Drivers are urged to use alternate routes, including State Road 33 and County Road 17.

Dick White, who lives in Polk City near County Road 557A and I-4, heard the crashes.

"We woke up this morning to the sound of muffled explosions. It sounded like bombs going off in the interstate. You don't hear any tires squealing; you just hear boom, boom, boom," the 64-year-old said. "They don't even see each other or have time to hit the brakes."

He said he saw a school bus on C.R. 557A going about 5 mph. "Visibility is less than a car length," he said. "It's like looking at the inside of a marshmallow."

Calm winds mean the smoke and fog will linger, and it could be 9 a.m. or later before conditions improve, Jillison said.

The combination of smoke and fog caused the visibility to drop to a car length or so. "The two combined are always worse," said weather service meteorologist Ernie Jillison.

Particles in the smoke give condensing water something to cling to and create something thicker than simple fog or smoke.

The smoke will keep the sun from warming the ground to disperse the fog, he said, and the lack of wind will prevent the air from mixing and thinning the mixture.

Warm air above the ground also will keep the fog and smoke trapped.

The fog over I-4 is fairly localized, and visibility near the accident scene is nearly zero.

The brush fire that caused the smoke started Tuesday from a controlled burn, said Chris Kintner, spokeswoman for the Florida Division of Forestry.

The state Department of Agriculture is investigating the blaze, she said.

Overnight, the fire grew to more than 300 acres about five miles east of Polk City but did not endanger any structures. It had yet to be controlled by this morning, and there was potential for the flames to move into an area of dry swamp, which would make it more difficult to extinguish.

The area burning is north of I-4 where State Road 577 becomes Old Grade Road, and it is one of the driest parts of the state.

After finding alcohol in her son's car, she decided to sell the car and share her 19-year-old's misdeed with everyone -- by placing an ad in the local newspaper.

The ad reads: "OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet."

Hambleton has heard from people besides interested buyers since recently placing the ad in The Des Moines Register.

The 48-year-old from Fort Dodge says she has fielded more than 70 telephone calls from emergency room technicians, nurses, school counselors and even a Georgia man who wanted to congratulate her.

"The ad cost a fortune, but you know what? I'm telling people what happened here," Hambleton says. "I'm not just gonna put the car for resale when there's nothing wrong with it, except the driver made a dumb decision.

"It's overwhelming the number of calls I've gotten from people saying 'Thank you, it's nice to see a responsible parent.' So far there are no calls from anyone saying, 'You're really strict. You're real overboard, lady."'

The only critic is her son, who Hambleton says is "very, very unhappy" with the ad and claims the alcohol was left by a passenger.

Hambleton believes her son but has decided mercy isn't the best policy in this case. She says she set two rules when she bought the car at Thanksgiving: No booze, and always keep it locked.

The car has been sold, but Hambleton says she will continue the ad for another week -- just for the feedback.