YET more proof of what I have long held to be an obvious truth has just come to light.

And this time it arises from the actions of young children who can usually be relied on to tell it like it is.

The conclusion of new research reveals that men are naturally better drivers than women.

This follows an experiment involving over 70 pre-school boys and girls. They took part in a series of controlled tests which used electric Roary the Racing Car ride-ons at internationally famous motorsport circuit Brands Hatch.

Now don’t laugh, this was a serious study.

Three trials were held and analysts looked at concentration, spatial awareness, dexterity, control and overall speed.

There was a straight race, a reversing test and a manoeuvring challenge around cones.

It was discovered that, although girls were slightly quicker off the mark at the start of the race, boys were 34 per cent better at concentrating and demonstrating visual-spatial skills while driving in a straight line.

The overall speed of girls was a paltry five per cent faster than boys when racing straight, but boys were 20 per cent better than girls at maintaining their line.

Youngsters aged three and four were deemed best for the study to test natural driving ability

An expert involved said the aim was “to ensure, as much as possible, that it was a level playing field to find out which gender is naturally superior.

“The research proved that the boys came up trumps, but that the girls also excelled in different areas such as listening (they will soon grow out of that) and better hand coordination.”

It was interesting to note that the boys pipped the girls on speed by 10 per cent when snaking around cones, and the reverse test revealed that boys were 17 per cent better than girls at doing two things at once such as moving and steering while looking over their shoulder.

I can confirm that the latter is true – I was driving past a school the other day when a female driver pulled out and failed to do a rather important part of the manoeuvre which is looking round to see if anything was coming.

She finally realised what was going on and managed to switch into a different mode – braking – before crashing into me.

I gave a wry smile and muttered “women drivers” as I continued on my way.

Talking about youngsters, something else which crossed by desk reminded me of my childhood and my first foray into making money.

After all these years, I can’t remember exactly how much the Tooth Fairy used to leave me in the dead of night after a new gap appeared in my collection of pearlies.

It is much too late for me to make any claims these days, but I learn that the UK average for a milk tooth has soared for the first time in two years to �1.63, a 33 per cent increase.

My advice to children is to live in London – a full set of milk teeth earns �44 there, but it is a meagre �25 in the West Midlands.