No licence, no insurance, no registration, no road tax... No lights, no crash helmet, no protective clothing... No training, no highway code...

No awareness of other traffic, no concern for pedestrians... And no parental control or responsibility.

These noisy new powered bikes that keep appearing on our roads (and also footpaths) in ever-increasing numbers are just accidents waiting to happen.

But the ever-indulgent parents who buy them, as in the case of touch pads and new phones, because their children’s friends have them, are not in fact proving how much they care for their kids.

Rather, in truth, it’s just the opposite. The bikes may, in the main, have been bought as Christmas presents. But they are not toys. They are potentially lethal machines in untrained and unskilled hands.

Oh, but there’s an election in the offing and to do anything about it now (even to exhibit concern about child safety) might cost votes.

So does it really matter, in the broader – political – scheme of things? After all, if the parents don’t care, why should the politicians?

That’s the problem. There’s always an election of one sort or another being held, which could explain why very little that matters ever gets done.