AS anyone who knows me will readily attest, I am a driven person.

There is a very good reason for this; I don't drive, never have, never wanted to, never will. In a world very unlike the one I normally inhabit, I would have a chauffeur. Indeed, my wife says I already have one; that is, her. To a degree this is true but what she fails to see is the subtle but distinct difference between driving and chauffeuring. When in the car together, for example, I am required to sit alongside her, as if riding shotgun on a stagecoach. In this circumstance, my role is that of orienteer even on short trips to acquire life's necessities. On longer ones, I have an A to Z in my lap and thus have little time to admire the view, so pressurised am I to get us to our destination within a specified time. Once, as Mrs Wheelnut enjoys forever recalling, I managed to direct us to a place a mere 200 miles from where we were supposed to be heading. Chastened though I was by the experience, that wouldn't have happened were one being chauffeured rather than driven.

This week marks the 80th anniversary of the driving test, which of course I have not taken. For many folk, however, it is a rite of passage, like buying your first round or having a buttock tattooed. On the radio the other day a man admitted he was so old he had never been required to sit it. Apparently, scarily, he is still driving. I am not surprised. Even from my admittedly untutored perspective it's obvious that our roads are clogged with Jeremy Clarkson wannabes whose idea of overtaking is not dissimilar to that of Panzer tank commanders. When I was in my teens I saw more careful drivers on the Dodgems than I do now on our thrumming motorways. Tailgating is a common curse, whereby someone with a gas-guzzler feels he has the right to invade anyone's space. As the morons speed by I stick my tongue out at them in contempt. Try it; you'll find it deeply satisfying.

Freud, I dare say, may have had some insight about why I found driving so antipathetic. My own diagnosis traces the problem to my childhood and primary school where, one day, we were given instruction by the local constabulary in the Highway Code. I must have been about five at the time and was not paying the fullest intention. Told by Dixon of Danderhall to look left, right, and left again before crossing a super highway, I did the opposite. It may be interpreted, I suppose, as the start of my lifelong conflict with authority in general and persons in uniform in particular. The result, however, was a severe dressing down from my teacher. What she did not know was that I was not for once being mischievous. I simply did not know the difference between left and right, a burden I still bear.

In those far-off days, though we were poor by sheikh standards, we always had a car. The first was a Ford Popular, followed shortly by a Ford Anglia. My father was the family driver, in which macho role he was unchallenged. He took the car to work and at weekends there were forays into the Borders where, like the hills, the roads were by and large empty. When I was 18, I was deemed ready to seize the wheel. This was not, I must emphasize, something which I sought. But it was a useful skill to have, I was told. Imagine, say, you want to be a taxi driver or a salesman - you can't do that if you don't drive. That I did not want be either cut no ice. I had to keep my options open. So it was that I was given my first and only lesson in our neighbourhood park. Not much need be said about it other than to underline that no one was hurt other than mentally. Round the swings father and son went like a moon circling Saturn and just about as fast. Thereafter, my father never saw me in the same light. Clearly, I was a danger not just to myself but to anyone who came within my orbit.

I now learn that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is also a non-driver. That alone would guarantee her my vote. She and I are two of a small but elite tribe, many of whose members are of the writing fraternity. There is a perfect explanation for this; you cannot read and drive. Or so I have always believed. With the coming of cars that can drive themselves, I may have to think again. The end of the driving test appears to be nigh.