Magistrates told a 20-year-old that he had a "complete disregard for the law" after he received his sixth conviction for driving without car insurance.
David Irons, from Ware in Hertfordshire, was banned from the road for two years and ordered to pay fines totalling £600 after being brought before the bench last week.
The court heard how the labourer, who works for a building firm in east London, was driving a Ford Escort van when police stopped him in July 2005. He failed to provide officers with his motor insurance documents and so was charged to appear in court. He didn't turn up, however, and an arrest warrant was issued.
When Irons was finally hauled in front of magistrates, it was revealed he had six previous convictions for driving without car insurance, had appeared in court for various other motoring offences and had been disqualified from the road on two occasions.
The bench at Hertford Magistrates' Court had the power to impose fines of £7,000, and it was revealed that Irons' penalty of £600 was significantly less then the £3,000 he would have had to pay if he had bought a valid motor insurance policy in the first place.
A spokesman for the RAC Foundation said, "To fine an uninsured driver less than they would have to pay to be insured is a total disincentive for them.
"We've called for fines to be a real deterrent, otherwise, as with this case, the driver will gamble that any fine will be less than the insurance."
Mike Page from Hoot Car Insurance Services, the young driver car insurance experts, agreed, commenting, "It really doesn't seem like much of a deterrent."