THERE comes a time in the life of any columnist worth her salt when she must address the subject she most dreads. For me, that moment has arrived.

It used to be said that for a dinner party to run smoothly, you should never raise the subjects of politics and religion. However, if you want a dinner party to break up before the starter is served, start discussing the merits of 4x4s over the first drink.

Let me firmly nail my colours to the mast and risk putting lifelong friendships in jeopardy in the process, but needs must. There is no middle ground with 4x4s; you are either passionately in favour or vehemently against.

I am among the latter, although I have no problem with those who have a justifiable reason for running a practical four-wheel-drive as it was intended to be – even more so if they have converted from diesel to recycled cooking oil.

What I object to is the fashion for owning impractical gas-guzzling road monsters the size of the average house conservatory that are as unsuitable for Island roads as they are in city centres.

There was a time when 4x4s were the preserve of farmers and others who had practical reasons for owning a hard-working, tough and dependable vehicle. Today the modern beasts, more fashion statements than workhorses, never leave the tarmac to ride off-road, ford streams, rock-crawl or dune-bash – not that I would want to encourage such activities. At the faintest splash of mud on their gleaming bodywork or blacked-out windows, they head with a homing instinct for the nearest car wash.

Jersey has the highest car ownership per head of population in the world; an average of 166,000 vehicle journeys are made each day. I contribute to that alarming statistic as the owner of a Renault Clio which is ideally suited to Island roads. I also enjoy motoring, here and in the UK, where my little car is equally suited to all road conditions.

Driving is, unfortunately, a necessary evil. However, as it is also potentially life-threatening and environmentally damaging, it is a far more responsible activity than many of us realise.

It is obvious from spending just an hour on Jersey’s roads that there is a high volume of ownership of 4x4s. I travel a great deal to the West Country of the UK, a predominantly rural area where one would expect 4x4s to be commonplace. Apart from the odd jeep or practical Land Rover, I can honestly say that I see more fashion-statement gas-guzzlers in one hour in Jersey than I do in a week in Cornwall.
A typical four-wheel drive vehicle does around ten miles to the gallon (or 3.5 km to the litre) compared to about 40 miles to the gallon (14 km to the litre) for an average car like mine.

I am no expert on fuel consumption, and no doubt the petrol-heads will now bombard me with boring motoring facts while also pointing out what’s wrong with my chosen model, but in driving conditions such as Jersey’s, with constant gear changes, stopping and starting, crawling in traffic jams or behind tractors, and dodging the ever-present roadworks, the owners of 4x4s must have to fill up at least twice a week.

Wherever these beasts take to the road, opinion is strongly divided: they are loved or hated in equal measure. In the UK they are known as Chelsea tractors, or mum trucks; Australians call them Toorak tractors after an up-market suburb of Melbourne, and if they hail from the USA they are yank trucks. In this particular usage, the word tractor is derived from the original use of vehicles such as the Land Rover, as a means of transportation for farmers in rough rural terrains.

The term Chelsea tractor was coined by environmentalists to reflect the popularity of four-wheel-drive vehicles with middle-class families living in wealthy areas such as the fashionable districts of London. In the absence of rounding up sheep or transporting cow nuts to hungry herds through blizzards, the modern 4×4 is very much a city or social status vehicle, used for short trips like the school run or a shopping spree.

Mum truckers argue that they are the safest family car, but for whom? Motoring organisations as reputable as the RAC and the Institute of Advanced Drivers have advised that 4x4s are not the best vehicles for getting around towns, that their weight and size raise road safety issues and they need careful handling in close proximity to pedestrians.

Anyone who drives, walks, rides a horse or cycles the highways and byways of this Island has a ‘near miss’ tale or two to tell of frighteningly close encounters with a big metal box on wheels. Seated in the Gods high above ground level, the driver is often blissfully unaware of the danger he or she poses to those without side-impact bars.

No doubt the obscenely high cost of purchasing these metal monsters is the reason why the average 4×4 driver refuses to pull in sufficiently to allow other road users to pass in case they scratch their precious bodywork.

Moreover, for mere mortals who pay good money to use public car parks, it is galling to see 4x4s, which are far too big for some multi-storeys, parked so close to other cars that it is impossible to open doors sufficiently or whose over-inflated bumpers poke out and impede the flow of traffic.

While I am in full vitriolic flow, there would be no need for extra-wide parent and baby parking spaces at supermarkets if mum trucks had never been invented!

The days of the 4x4s are numbered. The recession and associated belt-tightening will result in downsizing to more cost-efficient vehicles which can just as easily tow boats or horse boxes, carry more than 2.4 children and their assorted musical instruments and large dogs while also being able to park in a variety of car park spaces.

As with other man-made nuisances of the modern age, it is the environmental considerations that will change the climate of opinion.

As Boris Johnson recently warned Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, before long his programme will be renamed Top Plug.