And lo, it has come to pass that age has finally caught up with my eyesight.

Whether rudimentary or sophisticated, technology of the optical variety has been my ally since birth – as a young boy I wore an eye-patch to cure a lazy eye and graduated to wearing spectacles then contact lenses.

Physically if not cerebrally short-sighted, I have of late been struggling to the point of suffering headaches from what opticians call “close work”, making reading books or cutting my nails (sorry) a source of angst. The result is I have put all my chips on multifocal lenses and varifocal glasses. Technology – it’s the mutt’s nuts.

It’s also my preferred solution to a phenomenon that shows zero signs of abating, one of which I have been sorely reminded during the past fortnight and which was a contributory factor in my taking up motorcycling: the abysmal standard of driving on our roads.

For one reason or another I have been putting in the miles in my Saab while on annual leave. The conditions have been typical of the season – gloomy if not pitch black, wet, windy, cold. Have the bulk of motorists modified their driving style? The hell they have. The concepts of braking distance, indicating, functioning lights and smooth braking and acceleration are as popular in the collective mind as Boris Johnson’s navel lint, making driving anywhere a close encounter with panic and fear.

Being a hippie at heart, I’d like to think that as a society we will one day wake up to the serotonin-releasing effect of driving more collaboratively and courteously, approaching the business of getting in the car as an exercise in mutually beneficial social interaction.

But instead of meandering down a philosophical cul de sac, I suggest instead that we promote and develop technology which is already present in the cars of many younger drivers to the motoring population as a whole.

Roughly speaking, telematics uses GPS and internal data to monitor driver behaviour. Insurers routinely insist on it for younger drivers; indeed you may have a child or grandchild whose jalopy houses a black box for such purposes. If the data shows the driver habitually complying with speed limits and so on then their premium, in theory, will be adjusted accordingly.

In my view, all new cars should have a black box, because the only trigger for altering driver behaviour besides crashing is cost. Put simply, if you’re found routinely to commit such lazy and anti-social indiscretions as neglecting to use your indicators, approaching junctions at such a rate that you have to slam the brakes at the last moment, or speeding in a 30mph zone (my personal bugbear of choice) then you cough up more for insurance than motorists who comply with the Highway Code. To deter wealthy people and Tories from taking advantage, there would be a mandatory resit of the driving test after crossing a set threshold of misbehaviour.

Think of the benefits: a fairer deal on insurance for everyone, pots of cash for the motoring industry (there’s nothing it likes better) and, ultimately, roads that – although busy – might be a more pleasant place to be. Wouldn’t that be a sight for sore eyes?