SUV off! Get out!

You have to admire the French. Uncompromising, haughty, unafraid to put the foot down or the boot in when it's required.

My admiration for the French grew even more when I learned of Paris city council's plan to ban SUVs from the capital within 18 months. "They're polluters, they're space-occupiers, they're dangerous for pedestrians and other road users," explained Paris's mayor, Denis Baupin.

Detractors will be aware this could well be motivated by more protectionist motives than Baupin is letting on. None of France's Big Three - Renault, Citroen and Peugeot - currently have an SUV model in their repertoire, despite the fact these vehicular behemoths currently account for 5 per cent of all car sales in France.

Whatever the motivation, it's the end result that I agree with. I have nothing but contempt for city-dwelling SUV drivers who buy them for no other reason than to satisfy their egos. They are selfishness personified.

It's not that I hate SUVs. If I lived in the countryside, I'd like nothing better than an old Land Rover Discovery or Range Rover to ferry myself, my surfboards and my Basset Hounds around in. And if I was a plumber or a landscape gardener in the city, I'd be first in the queue to buy myself one.

But I don't live in the country. And I'm neither a plumber nor a landscaper. I'm your average Joe living in a city, just like the vast majority of SUV drivers.

There are so many reasons I despise the urban SUV, most of which echo Baupin's. But the main one is that they are the ultimate arriviste symbol of the nouveau riche, bought by ostentatious, vulgar people desperate to convey the image that just because they have a few quid, they are better than the rest of us proles.

Well, I have news for you - you're not. And having money doesn't absolve you from your civic duty to have consideration for others. It doesn't give you the right to take up more space, pollute more air, terrorise more cyclists and pedestrians or muscle your way through more junctions.

It gives you none of these. All it gives you is the right to sit in an urban tank in the same traffic jams as the rest of us while your deluded sense of superiority eats you up.

"But I need one," the SUV-driving mother says. "How else am I supposed to get my kids to school?" The same way people did before these idiotic monstrosities were invented. Put them on a bus, where they may learn some humility and social skills. Or on a bike or on their own two feet. Who knows, they might avoid turning into fat spoilt little brats who've never walked any further than the fridge.

As for the excuse that SUVs are safer is a complete fallacy - there's no proof that they offer any more protection in a crash than a normal car. If anything, they're worse - think of all that extra weight behind you as you plummet into a wall.

And then there's the visibility argument, the one that goes along the lines of: "I can see over other cars, so it's safer in my SUV." Maybe. But where does it end?

I buy a car that sits me six feet off the ground. The next chap gets one that's 10 feet, so he can see over me, forcing someone else to get one that's 15 feet high. If this nonsense is allowed continue unchecked, soon we'll all be driving cars 80 feet tall, straining our necks to see over the cretin in front.

It's reminiscent of the Cold War arms race - one side built a nuclear warhead, so the other built two. One side built 1,000 warheads, the other built 2,000. And you know what happened then? We were almost all obliterated.