When Shakespeare wrote Hamlet these first world problems didn’t exist. Horse drawn carts had a rudimentary form of parking or handbrake to stop them rolling away, whilst you fed and watered the horse or left it parked overnight in your thatched and oak-beamed cart port.

For those of you that follow Formula 1 avidly (I do!) the big news of the week so far was the signing of 18-year-old Lando Norris to race for McLaren in 2019.

It’s a time of substantial change for our cars and how they work. The push towards automation has been making a difference, with small steps towards full automation giving instructions to keep cars far enough apart in queues, to keep them in lane, to assist emergency braking on one way or another and so on.

As IAM RoadSmart’s Head of Retraining, I’m in the thick of it when it comes to the commercial side of the business. However, learning about the charity side of the organisation is something I’ve been keen on knowing more about. So when I was invited to my local group’s recent event, I used this opportunity to mingle with members and find out more about what they do.

Last week, two teenage would-be car thieves in Nashville, Tennessee, were thwarted by a manual gearbox. Having stolen a shopper’s keys, they were confronted with a mysterious third pedal and a stick in the floor. With no idea how to make the car move, they ran away in confusion and were later arrested.