With regard to Silas, the Vauxhall Cavalier in the late 1980's and early 1990's, and to a lesser extent the Skoda Octavia a decade later, were often derided as "Repmobiles".

May I mention here one of my favourite gripes, the fault of manufacturers rather than drivers? It is the common colour scheme used by some of them to give an impression of up-market chic, namely the narrow variations of greyish-silver or silvery-grey. In rainy weather with lots of spray, this colour scheme allows such cars to proceed in true stealth mode, if they forget or omit to put on side lights.

In a cloud burst on the M60 (the Manchester outer ring road) a few weeks ago, with the roads like glass, I looked in my rear-view mirror, signalled to take the A6144 (the Carrington spur), and moved left into the turn-off lane. The next thing I knew, my mirrors were full of big silver 4x4 (which may have been a Mitusubishi Pajero), which had appeared out of nowhere.

Now, the 4x4 driver had not had his (or her) lights on, had been travelling at a speed (at least 75mph) which verged on reckless in the conditions and may have been attempting to use the Carrington spur lane as an undertaking lane, all of which would have added up to a lot of points on his (or her) license had he (or she) gone to court, but would have been cold comfort to me had I been punted up the rear and sent spinning into the armco or into the path of other traffic.