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You can't have someone decide your fate if he thinks he's a Cylon from Battlestar Gallactica. Fine. Good. But can you have your fate decided by someone who's proud of her chain-smoking, pregnant, 11-year-old daughter? Or someone who is confused by lavatory paper?

I spoke the other day with someone who said didn't like fish. What, all fish? Fish in batter? Fish with chips? Prawns, cod, sea bass, trout, smoked salmon? What he means is, I have never tried fish. Because my parents were too stupid to buy it.

And get this. On a Radio 2 quiz the other day, contestant was asked what happens to water at 32 on the Fahrenheit scale. After much umming and aahing, she said confidently, "It melts".

Now here's a woman who's allowed to do jury service, to have a say in who runs the country. And she thinks water melts when it gets a bit nippy.

We've all encountered gormlessness on an industrial scale, people who fill up with fuel while smoking, people who drop litter, people who breathe through their mouths and drag their knuckles on the ground. People who could out-Forrest Forrest Gump. And here's what I've been thinking. Are they as intelligent as the average dog?

You can teach a dog where and how to go to the lavatory. You can teach a dog not to drop litter and not to play with fire when refuelling a car. What's more, I've never met a dog that doesn't like fish.

So would you let a dog drive a car?

Of course you wouldn't. While they're bright enough to sniff out foxes, and sit still for long periods of time, and not to smoke when pregnant, you wouldn't ask a spaniel to pop into town for your groceries.

So why do we let stupid people have driving licences? Seriously, if you cannot be trusted to get your faeces into a bowl that is at least 50 times bigger than your anus, then why should you be allowed to try to steer a six-foot-wide car at 60 or 70mph, just inches from other people.

I want you to think about this. The latest figures suggest that 18 per cent of fatalities on the roads 2004 were caused by drink driving. And that 34 per cent were caused as a result of excessive speed. This means that 48 per cent were caused by people who were stone-cold sober, and travelling well within both their limits and those of the car.

The only conclusion we can draw from this is that the drivers in question were as stupid as a field full of bees, as daft as a brush. Perhaps they couldn't remember in the heat of the moment which pedal did what, or which way the wheel should be turned, or even that killing people is wrong.

I think, then, that if daft people are removed from the road it will cut the number of accidents dramatically. Furthermore, because they will have to take their working-class rust-buckets with them, there will be fewer fumes, and what's more, we will cut congestion at a stroke as well.

How much we cut congestion will be determined by how stupid people are identified. I favour an IQ test that must be passed before anyone's allowed a provisional licence. But where do we set the limit? Technically, anyone with an IQ of less than 50 is an idiot, but I think 100 sounds like a nice number.

I reckon this would probably get somewhere between 90 and 95 per cent of all cars off the road. In some ways, that's rather depressing. In others, it's not depressing at all.