AS RESPECTABLE readers of the The Times, you almost certainly pay your road tax on time, buy insurance for your car and register your vehicle correctly with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). Sadly, a growing number of drivers flout the rules, and it is the rest of us who are picking up the tab.

According to comparethemarket.com, the price comparison website, British motorists are collectively paying more than Pounds 500 million a year extra on their car insurance - an average of Pounds 31 per policy - to cover uninsured drivers. Yet the average fine for driving without insurance is a derisory Pounds 250, barely twice the level of a fine for parking on a single yellow line. What incentive is there to buy insurance if the fine for not being covered is about half the cost of the average policy?

At a time when motorists are suffering record fuel prices - most of which is tax - the least the Government could do is get tough on uninsured drivers. At a minimum, that should mean more active enforcement of the law and an increase in the fines for those convicted of driving without cover.

But I won't hold my breath. The authorities seem to prefer to penalise drivers who are easy to catch. The latest statistics on speeding fines are a case in point.

It emerged this week that a million more speeding tickets were issued in 2006 than a decade ealier. David Ruffley , the Shadow Minister for Police Reform, discovered that 1,773,412 fixed-penalty notices were issued in 2006 compared with just 712,753 in 1997.

Most of these tickets, which raised Pounds 100 million for the public purse, were generated by speed cameras. Sadly, while the technology in speed cameras is clever, it is not clever enough to detect drivers who fail to register their cars with the DVLA.

It is not a great leap of the imagination to assume that drivers who don't bother with insurance also don't bother registering their cars, providing immunity from speeding fines as well as insurance costs - not to mention parking fines.

The DVLA has previously admitted that almost a million cars on the road are not properly registered, but very little seems to be being done about it. A quick trawl of online police forums reveals great frustration among the rank and file at the failure to address the issue. If anything, the problem is getting worse because of the increase in the number of foreign cars on UK roads.

The figures for road-tax evasion also make depressing reading for honest taxpayers. Despite a high-profile advertising campaign by the DVLA, which suggests that new technology means it is impossible to evade vehicle excise duty, it was revealed this year that more than a million drivers are exploiting a loophole that allows them to avoid a month's duty when they renew.

Some estimates also suggest that up to four out of every ten motorcyclists are evading the tax, at a cost of millions of pounds to the Treasury. The Government, the DVLA, the police and the courts must realise that honest drivers' patience with the leniency shown to - and apparent inability to deal with- the uninsured, unregistered and untaxed is running thin.