My plan for young people

I have been reading 39 Ways To Save The Planet by the BBC journalist Tom Heap, which includes such ingenious suggestions as capturing refrigerant gases in a large box and then destroying the large box. It is an interesting book. I would like to suggest to Tom a 40th way in which we might help to save the planet, as well as saving the country a lot of money: raise the minimum age at which a person can drive a car from 17 years to 25 years. This would immediately reduce our motor vehicle emissions by a little over 5 per cent — no small contribution. It would also reduce the number of accidents on our roads by 18 per cent, consequently saving the taxpayer an estimated £2.9 billion per year, which we could spend on planting trees or building attractive igloos for polar bears.

That is by no means the end of the benefits, environmental or otherwise, of my policy. The way in which we behave is in no small part a consequence of the way in which we are brought up: habits become ingrained. No generation has been so cossetted and pampered as the current crop of 17- to 25-year-olds. These are the young people who, unlike previous generations, did not walk to school or indeed to anywhere else, but were ferried hither and thither by their parents. No wonder, then, that at the age of 17 they are aching to get behind the wheel. Car ownership among the young has started to rise again after two decades of decline. An eight-year interregnum might inculcate in these young people a habit of taking public transport, or cycling, or walking, and with any luck this habit might remain with them after their 25th birthdays. Furthermore, it would send a salutory message to these young people: you are not yet properly adult and you are not to be taken remotely seriously.