BACK in my day, young men of a James Dean persuasion killed themselves on motorbikes.

By the time I was 17 years old, three lads from my school year had fatally fulfilled that Leader Of The Pack lyric.

Times change. These days, youths - and increasingly young women, too - exit the world via the bottom-of-the-range motor car.

It's always down to speed. The grief-stricken will often talk about dangerous' roads, as if there could possibly be such a thing.

Then there will be others who hold forth about ironing out bends, or the need to remove kerbside trees, convinced that had such measures been undertaken earlier, outcomes might have been very different.

But it always comes down to speed. I know that, you know that but until society finds a way of channelling the youthful urge to self-destruct, a deadly form of denial will ensure the casualty lists go on rising.

What can be done? Well, raising the driving age to 18 would be a start. Presenters such as Jeremy Clarkson also don't help matters, either.

The message of aggression that quite plainly comes through on his motoring show must also bear a share of the responsibility for the teenage death toll on our roads.

But there's something else, too. We go out of our way to smother our kids, eliminate all risk, escort them to school, warn about not talking to strangers and generally insulate them from reality.

And then, as soon as they're of age, we buy them a lethal killing machine. Despite lacking any survival skills whatsoever, this is supposed to be a great idea.

It is little wonder that youngsters are so ill-equipped to cope with this increasingly dangerous world of ours.