Driving home for Christmas? If you live in London you might well be a menace, according to research published by insurer NFU Mutual. Its survey of 2,000 motorists found that 38 per cent of those from the capital had been in a crash on a country road, compared with 23 per cent of the general population. Cocky Londoners are, according to the survey, the most likely to consider themselves ready to drive on country roads as soon as they gingerly reverse out of the DVLA test centre with their new licence – with some 75 per cent declaring that they were raring to go for a spin down some country lanes. 

Since moving from London to the country, the most dangerous drivers I know are those that live here

Really, they should know better. The numbers have long backed up that country roads are far more dangerous than their city counterparts. An analysis of Department for Transport figures shows that 9,887 people were killed on rural roads in the past ten years, two thirds more than the number on urban roads. It will come as a surprise to nobody but crawling down the Wandsworth Bridge Road at........

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