IN THIS FEATURE A moment of clarity An era of automotive confusion Unused off-road ability SUVs have their place Crass irresponsibility

Sitting in a jam, failing again to get my children to school on time, I had a moment of clarity.

Ahead I could see two Mercedes MLs and a Porsche Cayenne while attempting to approach from the other direction was a woman of somewhat senior years in a Nissan Micra being followed by a Range Rover. She got past the Cayenne but somewhere between the MLs her nerve gave way and she could progress no further.

I was just wondering whether, in her position, I'd attempt the gap without folding in the wing-mirrors when the woman in the Range Rover behind leapt out, marched around to the front of the Micra and started braying at the poor old thing. Startled and probably rather frightened, she kangeroo'd forward and, to her great credit, not only judged the gap beautifully but elected not to flatten the stupid cow standing in front of her.

Delighted with her granny-bashing, Range-Rover woman was back behind the wheel of her vast charge before it dawned on her that the gap may have just allowed passage to a Micra, but she wasn't not going anywhere. I watched her blood pressure rise to seizure levels and, as we filed past, felt an irresistible bubble of mischief rising within me. As I drew level I lowered my window and said in a small, calm voice, 'If people like you didn't drive cars like that we wouldn't all have to sit in traffic like this.'

You should have seen her. It was magnificent - she even claimed to have five children, momentarily forgetting that her car can only seat three. And in that instant I knew that the time would come when we'd look back on the SUV obsession of the late 20th and early 21st centuries with the same bewilderment with which we now view kipper ties and flares. It's more than an anomaly; it's an aberration.