In order to drive a Chelsea tank, you need a certain size of income and a certain psyche too.

I heard a woman on the radio justifying her 4-wheel drive Land Rover Discovery S (yours for  a mere £27,000). She needed it for the twice-daily school run.  “You see, I have two children on board and I want to make sure that, if another vehicle hits us, we are as safe as possible.”

Not many vehicles, apart from a large lorry, would compete, weight-for-weight, with such a hefty SUV. She was concerned for the safety of her own children, but what about any children in the other, almost certainly smaller, car involved in the collision?  As long as the passengers in her Chelsea tank are OK, never mind the people in the other car.

Research conducted by the University of Helsinki has gone some way to confirm my impression of the drivers of SUVs and swanky cars made by Audi, BMW and Mercedes.

They tend to be men, although in my experience, they can also be hard-faced women.

The research finds that the drivers of such cars have certain disagreeable traits, including

Narcissism, stubbornness, belligerence. They are the kind of people who consider themselves entitled, with impunity to:

Shoot the lights, hog the road, overtake on the inside and disregard speed limits.

Tax’em off the road, say I.