New cars = certain death.

Whilst perusing this 1978 travel guide in the pub last night, I came across the little known fact that "in Italy it is compulsory to have a mud flap attached to each wheel". Prompted to look out the window to ensure all the vehicles in Herne Hill were fit for purpose, imagine my shock and horror to discover that not a single car was blessed with the requisite rubber.

When did car manufacturers stop putting mud flaps on cars? And why?

It's got me very worried for our planned road trip next year, especially as the advice in the book also states "If you do contravene some minor motoring regulation you will probably be approached by a policeman. He may well extend a little sympathetic consideration, but don't expect him to be in the mould of the British 'bobby'. He will generally be more brusque, less amenable to argument and often have powers including the authority to bring a person before a magistrate with very little apparent reason."

Now, given that the mud flap issue is important enough to command its own separate heading in the book, attempting to take my flapless Clio on the mean streets of the Amalfi Coast would surely result in my sleeping with the fishes. If a terrifying foreign lawman will sling me before the judge for a misdemeanour, what awful fate might befall a flagrant disregard of what appears to be the single most important driving law in Italy?

At best, it's sheer cost-cutting irresponsibility by car manufacturers; at worst it hints at a Mafia-controlled conspiracy over-arching the industry at large, priming unsuspecting plucky Brits to be picked off at random on a steep mountain pass like in that James Bond film where the sports car goes into the tunnel and collides with a massive bulldozer being driven the other way by a shadowy henchman.

Thank goodness for my trip for a couple of quiet pints last night - it may just have saved our lives, just through highlighting this potentially deadly defect in modern automobiles. It seemed prudent to pay the 50p to purchase the book from the second hand bookstall in the pub, although given my gratitude I felt it was worthy of the full £2.50 (new money) that the cover price dictated. There are even more handy hints in its pages - for instance, did you know that there is a pill called Sylvasun which can be taken which prevents sunburn in 90.6% of cases? No need for suntan lotion ever again!

Honestly - Moon rockets, Concorde, mud flaps and Sylvasun - all commonplace in the 1970s and yet now seen no more. And they call this progress......