Who decided that all motorists were criminals?

Bryan Forbes sees in the persecution of drivers a terrible metaphor for England’s decline: ministers hide in limousines while the police waste their time on minor road offences

Do others like me wake every day angry that we are unwilling members of a persecuted majority? At the risk of becoming a serial whiner, it seems to me that the unholy trinity of the Treasury, local authorities and the police forces are intent on intimidating and fleecing anybody who has the effrontery to own and drive a car. So vindictive and petty are some of the laws framed specifically against motorists that I am resigned to the fact that any time now the Ministry of Transport will be renamed the Ministry of Fear.

I learned to drive during army service in 1943, passing my test on a Bedford three-ton truck with a beast of a clutch, and have been driving a variety of cars, large and small, ever since with, happily, a totally clean licence.