The number of motorists convicted of driving without insurance has hit a 10-year high — as the cost of a fine drops below the price of a policy.
Courts gave 99 per cent of offenders an average £362 fine on top of a ban last year — but the average cost of car insurance is now £485.
Experts want sentencing guidelines reviewed to cut the record number of 149,299 drivers convicted — up four per cent on the year before and 63 per cent higher than 2012.
Currently their car can be seized, they face a £300 fixed fine and get six penalty points, or go to court and face an unlimited fine and ban.
David Spencer, Centre for Crime Prevention research director, said: “It’s ludicrous for the fine to be lower than the cost of insuring a car.
“How can anyone expect people to respect the law if it rewards them for breaking it? Where’s the deterrent?
“Fines must rise and serious or repeat offenders must face mandatory jail sentences.”
The RAC’s Simon Williams said: “It goes against common sense.”
He said the Motor Insurers’ Bureau ultimately paid out for collisions with uninsured drivers but “every incident they’re involved with adds to the average cost of insurance for law-abiding drivers.”
Their call comes amid public anger at “soft” sentences for uninsured motorists.
Each year over 130 are killed by an uninsured or hit-and-run driver.
Joseph Berry, 39, got just three and a half years’ jail last month despite fleeing from a crash as his own partner, mother-of-five Teresa Maguire, 37, lay dying.
Uninsured Berry’s Mercedes hit a Range Rover head-on in Elton, Cheshire. He went on the run for 141 days before handing himself in – and the judge complained that he could not pass a long enough sentence.
And Jonathan Nudds, 28, of Bradford, West Yorks, got 16 months for dangerous driving and four for no insurance after a high-speed chase.
Judge Robert Bartfield said he ought to have got four years and urged longer maximum sentences.
