As youngsters around the world fall out of love with driving, one manufacturer is fighting back.
Only a few years ago environmentalists were worrying about how our addiction to the car was going to destroy the planet. Scroll forward a few years and car companies are wringing their hands at how an entire generation has fallen out of love with the motor vehicle.
This explains why, this week, I was the first person in Britain to test a concept car built by Toyota called the CamAtte, which translates as "Play with me". Or rather, my son, Alexander, aged 10, was the first to drive it. I was in the back seat, with my hand nervously hovering over an emergency parental hand-brake.
The car, which looks as solid as a Playmobil safari Jeep, is designed for a child to drive. It has just one proper seat and a mere handful of controls: an on/off button, a knob that puts the vehicle into reverse or drive, a steering wheel, an accelerator pedal and a brake pedal. All of these are controlled by the child.
But there is also a very tiny back seat, into which the parent can squash. And it is here that you can find the emergency hand-brake and -- if things are looking as if your offspring is about cause a pile-up -- a circuit breaker that will shut down the entire vehicle, which is run on rechargeable lead acid batteries.
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