Clarkson on: car sharing

For the last month, I've been back in London and I think I finally understand what everyone's on about. There are too many bloody cars on the road.

I've argued for some time that things can't get any worse. I've pointed out that there are 25 million people with driving licences and 22 million vehicles in this country. But it seems that some of you have now learned how to drive two cars at once and, as a result, the traffic is just unbelievable.

I have a flat three miles flat from the office, and every morning the journey takes more than an hour. At that rate it would be quicker to walk. Hell, it would be quicker on my hands and knees.

Last week, some cable company decided it would be a bonzo idea to dig up the Warwick Road. Well, that's great. Now everyone in Earls Court is able to watch camel racing from Abu Dhabi at three in the morning, bliss-fully unaware that I'm still outside their flat, watching the digital dashboard clock tick my life away.

Have you ever thought about that? I know people complain that they spend a third of their lives asleep and a third of it at work but what about the time wasted on moving around. Oh sure, driving's a laugh when you've got the hood down and 200bhp under the bonnet, but at eight in the morning  when John Kettley is talking about drizzle, frankly, it's worse than ironing.

But things are still not bad enough. Because if they were, I'd be using public transport. And I'm not. And here's why.

Each morning, Andy Wilman, who you may have seen on your televisual Top Gear screen in recent weeks, drives right past my front door on his way to precisely the same office. It wouldn't take much for him to swing over and pick me up, but this only ever happens when I've got very, very drunk the previous night and left my car somewhere in Upper Norwood.

The idea of sharing a car in a morning with anyone other than Terry Wogan fills me with dread. So the idea of sharing my ‘car' with people I don't even know, people who may have germs or smelly bottoms, is truly terrifying.

And not only does public transport not provide a door-to-door service, it stops every few minutes to allow even more people on; people who may be incontinent or mad. Ken Livingstone uses the tube and surely, that's a good enough reason to stay in the car.

The car provides us with peace, space,  entertainment and a guaranteed seat, so who cares if it's a bit slow? We saw in the fuel crisis what happens when cars are removed from the equation. I paid £18.50 for a rail ticket to London and spent the entire journey sitting on my briefcase, reading a used copy of The Guardian.

And then, just outside Reading, a bicycle fell on my head. "If you've got a f****** bike," I said to its owner, "why don't you f****** ride it?"

"Ken Livingstone uses the tube and surely, that’s a good enough reason to stay in the car"

This takes us back to the beginning. There are too many bloody cars on the road and public transport, despite what this heroically stupid government might say, is simply not a viable alternative.

To find a solution, you need to go back in time, to Detroit, circa 1950. Because of the freedom afforded by cars, you no longer had to live within walking distance of your work, so suburbs were built, along with roads connecting them to the city centre.

Very nice, but the suburb was such a good idea that soon, no-one lived down town and the roads became full. The world had a new expression - rush hour.

Of course, in Detroit, the inner city riots of 1967 meant that the factories shut up shop and moved to the suburbs too, so that little problem went away, but here in England, it's just got worse and worse and worse.

People flick through Country Life and are confronted with half a million country cottages in pretty little villages that they can buy for less than their two-bedroomed flat in Earls Court. So they move out and commute.

And when friends say that the endless journeying will drive them mad, they  explain that it's now possible to work from home and communicate electronically. But who wants to do that? Sit in a back room by yourself for eight hours a day, five days a week, and it won't be long before you turn to the Internet for company. Your work will suffer and your life will degenerate into a muddle of masturbation and slime.

You can always spot people who work from home. They have spots and strange stains on their trousers.

If this government really wants to do something about traffic jams, it shouldn't bother taxing fuel. It should tax Country Life and the rosy cottages that are found therein.

I honestly believe that the only way round the problem of gridlock is to discount commuting as an option. Last week, I put my flat on the market and bought another which isn't three miles from the office. It's 300 yards. Sure, it's more expensive up here in Notting Hill Gate but I'll save 12 days a year, and in a working life that's 18 months.

Think about it. And then move back to the city. You know it makes sense.