Obviously the likes of Lewis Hamilton can afford to self insure...

It's unlikely that they do.

In the UK, to provide exemption from the requirement to have Third Party insurance, one has to deposit £500,000 with the Accountant General of the Senior Courts. This sum is per vehicle and it has to be actually lodged (rather than promised). This only provides such exemption in the UK.

A person of considerable wealth (as they would have to be to be able to lodge such a sum) would probably want to drive a number of vehicles and possibly in a number of countries. It is unlikely that Lewis Hamilton's advisors would encourage him to tie up what would probably be quite a few £millions in such a scheme. Further than that, if he managed to knock a budding corporate lawyer off his bike leaving him disabled for life, his £500,000 may not be anywhere near sufficient.

When filling in an application for insurance, how would you answer the "have you had any accidents in the last five years", if you had in fact had accidents on a track?

Knowing how some insurers will try to wriggle out of paying on the grounds of "non-disclosure" this was what set me thinking (you yourself may never have had any accidents on track so a hypothetical question for you)

If they have not had an accident on a public road then they would say they have not had any the same as anyone else.

As somebody else has suggested, I think a lot of the pros take it steady on the public roads. They appreciate that the public roads are different and don't go around every corner sideways. However, if things do go wrong, then their knowledge and experience would probably help them.

I could be wrong but I don't think accidents on a track would count on your normal car insurance.

Nigel Mansell has been the president of the IAM for a number of years. I suspect that he drives quite well/safe.

A number of race and rally drivers in recent years have been done for speeding, so they are not all that careful, are they?

Those ones weren't but other will be - racing drivers are no different from anyone else...some stick to the rules some won't

As somebody else has suggested, I think a lot of the pros take it steady on the public roads. They appreciate that the public roads are different and don't go around every corner sideways. However, if things do go wrong, then their knowledge and experience would probably help them.

I could be wrong but I don't think accidents on a track would count on your normal car insurance.

Nigel Mansell has been the president of the IAM for a number of years. I suspect that he drives quite well/safe.

A number of race and rally drivers in recent years have been done for speeding, so they are not all that careful, are they?

A number of non-racing/rally drivers have also been done for speeding. You will always get people speeding and breaking the law, but I'm just not convinced that racing pros are any worse.

I thought that some Police Forces 'self insured', obviously not at £500k per vehicle. Or do they only take out third party fleet insurance and pay for their own repairs/write-offs?

They do neither. The same section of the RTA (S144) which provides for the £500k deposit also provides exemption from Third Party insurance requirements for, among others, local authorities and police forces. The fulll text can be found here under Section 144(2):

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/144

Thanks for the clarification, much appreciated.

IMO it's beginning to verge on entrapment.

Drive at the limit (which unoficially allows 10% + 2mph) and you won't get caught.

All sensible people appear to undestand that carrying an illegal firearm is likely to get you into court and possibly prison simply because its against the law. But breaking the law in a car appears in many instances appears to be considered as OK by some people.

If you break the law expect there to be consequences.

Depends on your definition of induce. It certainly induces mistakes, and hence creates offences, even if it doesn't induce an intention to offend.

Perhaps it wouldn't meet the legal definition but it certainly results in people committing offences that they would not otherwise have committed.

It doesn't help that very few roads now seem to have sufficient repeaters where they are (or were) legally required.