I'M not sure who gets further up my nose - the young nerds who break into our cars and drive them off, the police who don't seem to catch many of 'em, or the magistrates who slap 'em with a kid glove when they are finally caught. If ever they are.

On balance, I think the magistrates just get the vote. They are supposed to be responsible citizens and they have an easy job - just smack the yobs on the nose, figuratively speaking.

At least that's the theory pushed out by your friendly and caring Tory Government, you know, the one that prides itself on carrying the banner for Law and Order.

The nerds have soaked up the clear message that if they are unlucky enough to get caught they aren't likely to have important pieces of their anatomy cut off. The police are being strangled with red tape while becoming dispirited with the Crown Prosecution Service, sharp lawyers and weak judiciary.

A few days ago I read of a young car thief who admitted stealing a dozen cars - wrecking a few, damaging others - and of course he had no insurance. Having had one car damaged and two stolen from outside my home in the past couple of years I eagerly glanced through the report to see how the full weight of the law had dealt with him.

The sentence? Hanging, drawing and quartering? Five years in jail? A steamroller over his vital parts? No. Conditional discharge and a 12 months driving ban.

Now, he admitted to ten offences so he had probably chalked up at least twice as many. The misery, inconvenience, financial loss and soaring blood pressure he inflicted on law-abiding families counted for nothing. And as for the driving ban - who bothers about that these days?

When I was a young reporter it was an automatic jail sentence if you were caught driving while disqualified. Not nowadays.

I often wonder why magistrates are so lenient with young car thieves and vandals. Surely some of them must have suffered the same fate as you and I. Perhaps not. If they had they would not be so accommodating. "Bring back the birch" is a clichM-N these days. It's also a damn good idea. SO they are tightening up the driving test. Tough questions to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Along the lines of: "What is the hard shoulder for?" Is it: a) For the kids to practise skateboarding? b) An ideal spot for a picnic? c) For overtaking if you are dashing to the pub? or d) Emergencies?

Improving driving standards is easy. Don't let anybody under 20 get near a wheel; no male driver under 23 should be allowed to carry a passenger, and any driver wearing a baseball cap back to front gets an immediate five-year ban. Have you noticed how many cars fly around packed with young lads? Teenage drivers just can't resist showing off - I was young myself once.

The answer is (d). I thought we'd plumbed the depths of daft National Days last week with National Take Your Dog To Work Day. Monday was National Kissing Day. Just imagine. "Excuse me, love. It's National Kissing Day today. Cop for this." I'd have been banged up inside five minutes and staring at a life sentence. National No Smoking Day is ok: I quite enjoy buying two packs on the way into work and making sure I get through them before midnight. How about a National Get Lost And Leave Us Alone Day? ARE you watching the Dancing in the Street pop music series on BBC 2 on Saturdays? It's brilliant. Catch it quick before it gets up to the bang-bang-thump-thump stuff of recent years.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.