The media enjoy talking about age – everybody’s age matters, except our own of course. We’re always hearing things like “younger drivers are dangerous,” or “older drivers should be taken off the road.”

It’s often easy to forget as advanced drivers that our journey started, as did everyone else’s, as a learner driver.

You may have read in the past week that Nigel Mansell, IAM RoadSmart President and 1992 Formula 1 World Champion, joined us with his IAM RoadSmart hat on to take part in a feature with The Times and The Sun to offer his advice on driving on the roads over the winter months.

My last blog entry described my journey since passing my IAM test in 1971. In 2015 I’d had a wake-up call, realising my driving skills had slipped badly, and the subsequent few months had been devoted to recovering and improving – all leading to one thing.

It was something I’d said I would never allow to happen. I’d passed my IAM test in 1971, full of enthusiasm and grand intentions never to let my standards slip. Then someone pushed the fast-forward button while I slept and, like a latter-day Rip Van Winkle, I woke in 2015 in a very different world where driving was not fun but a stressful chore.