Sometimes, particularly in the case of young drivers, it can now cost three or four times more to insure a car each year than the vehicle is actually worth.

Meanwhile, as a growing number are priced off the roads, the fat cat insurance salesmen are hiking their sector’s earnings by a staggering £225 million a year, and lining their pockets.

It is little wonder that, in the face of such an attack, more people are reportedly driving without insurance.

Some of these would doubtless cut corners and take risks whatever the price, but others are people with a conscience who want to abide by the rules, but simply cannot afford to pay the bill.

Use the bus or the train instead, we are told. That is easier said than done in a rural county such as Shropshire, where shunning the car in favour of public transport is not always a viable option. So people who need to drive to work have to put up, and shut up.

As ever, just like the banking crisis which has crippled our economy, it is the law abiding majority who suffer.

The Office of Fair Trading has referred insurers to the Competition Commission.

Let us hope it imposes penalties severe enough to make them think twice about continuing with their ruthless profiteering.

Until then, not-at-fault drivers involved in accidents will continue to live in fear that their opposite number has no insurance cover – and be too scared to claim on their own policies, for fear of triggering an inflation-busting rise in their premium the following year.