It’s pretty much the norm now that, in an increasingly irascible attempt to assess honest mechanical engineering rather than sly, over-solicitous electronics, I spend a good fifteen minutes behind the wheel of any new model I pile aboard frantically trying to switch everything but the engine off again.

And in the case of one particular Mercedes E-Class I encountered a couple of years ago, I swear it was more like half an hour…

Speed Limit Assist? No thank you. Lane Keeping Assist? Not right now. Blind Spot Assist? My neck works fine, thanks. Attention Assist sponsored by Starbucks? Lunch wasn’t nearly large enough to merit a snooze. Distronic Plus? I’ll manage, thanks all the same. Adaptive Highbeam Assist? Night View Assist Plus? Not at three in the afternoon, pal.

Victim of a nanny state, the Chinese journalist who’d recently vacated the E-Class in question was clearly more than happy to be the victim of a nanny car to boot. Everything was on. Even the driver’s seat had been over-activated to writhe under its occupant like a bean-bag full of gently miffed python.

Suddenly, we have a Driver Assistance and Safety System epidemic. No; make that pandemic. Today, I can’t even climb aboard a humble Ford in the hope of being spared the ecstasy of the steering wheel-mounted control fumbling necessary to shut the car up and let me do the driving. And the parking, for that matter.

Every manufacturer I challenge over this tells me it’s what you want. However, on the basis that all I really want is a DAB radio that accesses Test Match Special in Snowdonia (fat chance), a heated seat that doesn’t take 20 miles to wake up, Bluetooth enabling the missus to legally shout at me whilst I’m out, air-conditioning and an accurate sat-nav system, I can’t help feeling the whole sorry boiling has significantly more to do with handsome profit margins on optional extras, or even safety.

Because what really grates is that much of this stuff either only works properly under test-bench conditions or actively promotes lazy, and even bad, driving. Worse, a deal of it is just plain annoying.

Invariably overriding the perfectly functional manual intermittent settings, rain-sensing wipers either steadfastly refuse to activate in what the Irish call “soft rain”, long after you can’t see squat through the screen, or flail about like a bulrush in a gale because one solitary drop has bull’s-eyed the sensor.

Lane keeping systems that fondle your buttocks or mess with the steering if you drift over a white line without indicating actually promote bad motorway driving practice by penalising you for not indicating when you pull back in after overtaking.

And I fondly remember one particular Mercedes in which the distance control system could not deactivate, the upshot being that it “detected” every car I overtook and promptly rammed the brakes on, on my behalf, mid-manoeuvre. Nice ‘n’ safe.

Among my Top 10 annoyances must rank the BMW electric wiper stalk action, cars which mute the radio whenever you engage reverse gear (presumably to help me concentrate) and the Toyota Plug-in Prius I’m driving as we speak, which beeps relentlessly in reverse, but only inside the cabin; a trait so grating my missus refuses to go near the poor thing.

I can’t remember who it was who first suggested we’d all be better drivers if every car was fitted with a six-inch nail sticking out of the middle of the steering wheel. But, noticing the number of ambling, middle lane motorway drivers who now let the car do all the work whilst they concentrate on scalding their crotches senseless with the cascading contents of a horse and gristle pastie, or chat away endlessly on their phones, I can’t help feeling he still has a point.