Plainly, as he crested the blind brow, the young man was driving too quickly. So when he found the road ahead blocked by a stationary lorry, he didn't have anything like enough space to pull up.

Planks and scaffolding poles overhanging the rear of the truck smashed through the windscreen of his car, breaking most of his ribs. And, meanwhile, the whole dashboard was pushed back into his legs, popping both his knee caps. The young man was in a bad way.

Shortly after the ambulance had taken him off to hospital, his girlfriend arrived at the scene and was told by a farmer leaning on a nearby gate, "reckon he's a goner". This, she found upsetting because they were due to get married in just two weeks' time.

What had caused this young man to drive so quickly and so recklessly, when he had so much to live for?

Well, if you believe some of the reports in some of Britain's left-leaning media since Richard Hammond's accident, you'd imagine that he'd watched Top Gear the previous evening, and had been influenced in some way by the show.

Hmmm. Unlikely, since the young man I'm talking about was my dad. And the crash in question happened nearly 50 years ago, long before the lurid power slide was part of your televisual backdrop on a Sunday night.

So, if he hadn't seen Top Gear, what could possibly have inspired him, and countless others just like him, to drive so fast?

Well, recent official research into car accidents has revealed that a third of all those injured and killed on the roads are young men, aged in a startlingly narrow band from 17 and 19.

Drowning in testosterone, and filled with a youthful sense of immortality, they career about in their Saxos and their Novas, crashing into just about everything that doesn't move.

This was my dad's problem. And it was mine too. A mere 35 hours after passing my driving test, aged 17 and a bit, and not under the influence of Top Gear in any way, I plunged off the edge of a bleak road in the Yorkshire Dales and into some unimpressed sheep.

So far this year, six people have rolled noisily into my paddock. One was a middle-aged chap in a van. One was a school teacher. And four were young men who had two other young men in the car at the time.

Being 17 is dangerous. It always has been. I dare say that in the days of old, 17-year-olds were reckless on their horses. The fact is, you simply can't make a 17-year-old see sense.