The latest official figures for drivers caught by traffic cameras showed a huge increase in convictions - up by 40% in a year. Not surprisingly, this was greeted by protests from drivers who argued that the soaring number of speeding fines had become a form of undeclared taxation.

But while drivers were complaining that an artificially high number were being caught on camera, it was easy to overlook where motorists will really end up paying the biggest penalty - in their insurance premium.

For the insurance companies, the speed cameras have been a windfall. When drivers collect penalty points, insurance companies collect higher premiums."

While the double-digit car insurance inflation of recent years has tailed off to about 6% - for these hundreds of thousands of motorists insurance costs are still going sharply upwards.

To check what difference a speeding ticket can make to your insurance, get an online quote with and without convictions. A first offence can mean more than a 10% hike and adding another flash of the speed camera can push up premiums by another third.

If you get into the warning-light territory of a third offence, the price will start to go off the dial.

Because convictions mean higher premiums for several years, straying over the limit could have a cumulative price tag of thousands of pounds, rather than the headline £60 for the offence.

The Association of British Insurers says that drivers who break the speed limit are a greater risk and so it is only right that convictions should be included when calculating a premium.

But the latest speeding conviction figures suggest that our driving standards must be deteriorating remarkably rapidly and the roads must be filled with high-octane racers as never before. The number of offences has increased by more than 700,000 in two years and by more than 500 per cent in six years.

In comparison, endorsements for dangerous driving have changed relatively little over the same period.

Of course, if motoring penalties are being seen as a back-door car tax, they are entirely voluntary, because no one has to break the speed limit. And the Home Office says that pilot studies show that cameras are cutting road deaths and injuries.

But looking a little deeper at the statistics does give a fascinating snapshot into our complicated relationship with motoring law.

There are now more than 400 motoring offences (including parking) for every 1,000 licensed cars each year, which means that with the current trends it will soon be a minority activity not to be fined.

Another insurance hot topic is whether differentiating between male and females is unfair discrimination. But men are responsible for the vast majority of dangerous driving, theft, careless driving and insurance dodging. Figures also show more than two-thirds of car thieves are under the age of 21.

Another depressingly persistent figure is on average almost 10 people die each day in accidents involving a drunk driver.

Nobody would want to make any excuses for dangerous, aggressive or drunken drivers. But drivers who have to fork out for what might have been a modest speeding infringement can feel that they're paying heavily, while an infuriatingly large number of illegal drivers get away without paying any insurance or tax.

The RAC Foundation says there are more than 2m cars without any registered keeper, suggesting the extent of unregulated, unlicensed motoring.

While legitimate drivers face an ever-more closely monitored and expensive system of fines, congestion charges, parking costs, toll roads, tax and insurance, it seems there is another parallel world that seems to get away with driving around without paying. T his confirms the alarming claims of the Motor Insurers' Bureau, reported by Jobs & Money last autumn, that in inner-cities up to a third of drivers are uninsured.

These fraudsters will hardly be worried when the average fine for insurance offences is only £152 - considerably less than the cost of insurance. The RAC Foundation argues that depending on the automated work of the speed camera will not put a stop to such high levels of criminality and revenue should be put into policing and not more cameras.

But there are also signs that the rapid increase in speeding fines is spawning its own type of crime. A report this week warned of an increase in number plates being stolen, which are then used to deceive speed and congestion charge cameras.

Insurers have also heard claims that drivers within a family are illegally "sharing" penalty points, by claiming that someone other than the actual driver was at the wheel.

But there can be few complaints from an unnamed driver caught by police in Scotland this week, who was travelling in excess of 150 miles per hour while using a mobile phone. Explain that one to the insurers.