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News from the land of the free and the home of the brave. Parents can now buy off-the-shelf computer technology which allows them to monitor how their children are driving, and, if necessary, remotely shut down the car.

But before we all burst out laughing, I should explain that this snippet came to my attention on a day when 400 schools in Britain were closed. When asked why by a television news reporter, one headmistress said, "It's a health and safety issue. It's very icy and we don't want children falling over".

Later that day, three boys were suspended from their school because they'd been throwing snowballs. And, as we know from recent health and safety advice on how to play conkers, you can't just go around lobbing snow at one another unless you're wearing goggles, and some kind of helmet.

On the same lines, we now have a water fountain in the Top Gear office, but we are not allowed to fit a new bottle when the old one becomes empty because water bottles are... wait for it... heavy! So we must call for a porter who has been trained on how bottles may be lifted safely.

And then there's the bothersome business of actually filming the programme. If there is the slightest chance, at all, of anyone being injured then we cannot go ahead. It's that simple. We even have to assess the risk of an airliner crashing into our heads, and what precautions should be taken if the earth were to open up suddenly.

Of course, we're old and intelligent enough to ignore the stupid, interfering, safety police but it's a different story for children, who must now stay at home whenever it's too hot or too cold, or if there's a mobile phone mast within 200 miles.