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South-east England ground to a halt yesterday. But it wasn’t so much the snow that caused the chaos, it was the drivers.

When you cocoon a driver in a car with ABS, ESP, traction control, and hill-start assist, he or she will never learn to drive properly, never learn to interpret the feedback from tyres, brakes, steering on so on – largely because there isn’t any: it’s all absorbed by the nanny mechatronics.

There are times when traction control and ESP do more harm than good – ask any experienced off-roader. Yet if the average motorist were told to switch off the ESP system and actually take control of the car, they wouldn’t know what to do.

And its not just the amateurs: I went out in my Range Rover yesterday – I live on the North Downs by the way, where the snow was at its worst – and during the course of the morning recovered several cars and two ambulances, and one of those was a Land Rover Red Cross vehicle – with a patient on board.

Various companies and organisations have today issued helpful press releases about driving in the snow. My own tip would be stay indoors, and leave it to people who know what they are doing.

But if you really must attempt a journey, first remove the snow from the roof of the car so that it doesn’t suddenly slide forward over the windscreen, drive with your headlights on, and drive gently: any sudden or aggressive control input will cause the car to skid. And as I teach novice off-road drivers: in conditions where there is little or no grip, brakes merely stop the wheels, not the car.