YOUR nearest and dearest – perfect driver or plagued by bad habits? What about colleagues that you sometimes have to drive with? Are they angels on the road or is your right foot permanently buried in the floor as they tailgate while driving too quickly?

The AA’s president, Edmund King, passed me some new AA Driving School research which has found that over half of drivers said they have a family member who drives too fast. A quarter (26%) said they have a colleague who does this.

But the other really concerning aspect was a third (35%) who said that they have a family member who drives while using a mobile phone, eating, shaving or doing makeup. That really does worry me. In fact, anyone who can’t organise themselves to shave or do their makeup before leaving the house isn’t organised enough to concentrate on driving. Full stop.

And while I’m on the subject, women who do their makeup on the train in the morning. Per-leeze! Do I get my shaving brush and mirror out? No. Get up earlier – the train carriage isn’t your boudoir.

Sorry, I digress – at least on a train someone else is doing the driving. But driving while applying mascara leaves me speechless with the disregard for other drivers and their safety. Ditto munching a burger or sandwich.

Back to the AA survey. It seems that younger drivers in particular were most critical of their friends’ driving. Three quarters (74%) of 18-to-24-year-olds said they had a friend who drives too fast; 70% said they had a friend who ‘tailgates’ and 79% have a friend who drives while using a mobile, shaving, eating or doing their make-up.

I think my wife’s worst habit is driving too fast – or not changing up earlier enough. In fact the latter more than the former.

I used to be guilty of driving too fast – but some driver training with the Energy Saving Trust smarter driving programme taught me to drive more efficiently – not faster – which saved fuel and was actually quicker. This went hand in hand with some driving lessons for my son with the excellent Craig McCall of the then DriveTech organisation, which has now become part of the AA. The course, sadly no longer offered, engaged a parent in the teaching process and I re-learned much of what I had forgotten.

Of course, my driving is now entirely blameless (ahem!). I’m not even going to ask my wife just in case I get a reality check. But I will admit to a former driving bad habit. I sometimes used to drive for too long periods. With the family on board once, and within two miles of getting home, I had a micro sleep and started to swerve towards the central reservation. Cue wake up call from my wife.

Never, ever, again. I always try and stop every two hours. My Audi A6 has a useful readout from the Driver Information System that gives you a snapshot of your journey: average mpg; average speed; and the time on the journey.

I do try and split my drives up into chunks of approximately two hours now. But the readout is a constant reminder too of your time at the wheel. Although, frankly, the Audi feels like it could waft you on forever such is the effortlessness with which it carries out motorway miles.

Anyway, final word to the AA’s Edmund King on the survey: “A worrying number of us think our friends, families and colleagues have illegal and dangerous driving habits and young people are particularly likely to have noticed dangerous driving habits amongst their friends.

“There is no way someone would pass their driving test if they displayed these types of behaviour, so there is no place for it on our roads.”

Agreed.

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