Police To Start Drive Against Owners of Cars From Other States Who Violate Insurance Law

An active drive has again been started against students' cars, especially cars belonging to students from out of Massachusetts by the Cambridge police and state inspectors. Their special grievance this time is the violation of the insurance laws by holders of foreign registrations.

About five foreign cars have been noted each day for the past week that have been in the state for more than the thirty day period allowed for tourist privileges. The students are allowed to keep their tourist status but are required to present evidence of holding insurance of at least $5000 for single indemnity and $10,000 for double indemnity at the Registry of Motor Vehicles. A permit is then issued with no charge.

Police estimate that there are about 800 students who have secured such permits and almost as many who have neglected to do so. A person driving without a permit because of a lack of insurance is subject to minimum fines totaling $150. For operating without insurance there is a penalty of $100 while the contingent charges of not having a permit and consequently driving an unregistered car each carry $25 fines. These fines are compulsory upon the judge and there is no defense against them.

The police are once more getting annoyed at the practice of out-of-state students ignoring tags for illegal parking and now have 45 such cases on hand which have accumulated since the first of the month. Captain Donahue of the Brattle Square station stated yesterday that those cars will be towed off the streets starting tonight thus following the procedure of last year. Second offenders will be summoned to court because of pressure brought upon the police by garage owners who make their own census of overnight parkers every night. Every effort will be made to make the drive as effective as that in September.