Mark Andrews on Saturday: Yo ay 'arf a funny wench, Caroline

IT looks like new EU legislation – yes, I know – means it may soon be compulsory for all new cars to be fitted with a speed-limiting device ensuring we will never break the speed limits again.

The new devices will read the road signs and ensure we drive at an appropriate speed. I don’t know whether that’s a good idea or not. Aside from what drivers should do in an emergency, where moving out the way quickly could prevent an accident, the other big concern surrounds the reliability of the technology. And I would say anything involving computers has huge scope for malfunction.

Regardless, it would have been no help to me in a near-miss on the motorway last week. Driving through the roadworks on the M5 near Oldbury in the early hours of the morning, I stuck diligently to the 40mph limit, but soon became aware of a white BMW rapidly approaching in the rear-view mirror. The road had been reduced to a single lane, so there was no opportunity to pull over. And, aside from the fact that I would never dream of breaking a speed limit, there was also a huge lorry in front, meaning all I could do was watch and hope the BMW slowed down in time. It did.

So why wouldn’t a speed limiter have helped? Well, mainly because I suspect, whatever the EU legislation says, that the car thundering towards my tailgate wouldn’t have been restricted by such a device. I know this because, the very moment the roadworks were cleared, before I had even reached for the indicator stalk, the BMW turned on his concealed blue lights and sounded the horn. Yes, it was an unmarked police car.

BESIDES, the moment the speed limiters are installed, how long will it be before some spotty boy racer starts selling devices to over-ride them?

IN A league table of the most unlikely yam-yams, I would have thought the uber right-on MP for Brighton, and on-off leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas would be pretty near the top.

Apparently, though, I am doing her a dis-service. Her mother was born in Dudley and Miss Lucas considers her Black Country heritage an important part of her identity. Who’d have thought it?

Anyway, to better understand why Britain voted for Brexit, she has returned to her Black Country roots to make a short film, interviewing some familiar faces around the town, including councillors past and present.

And you have to say the result is quite

hilarious. It doesn’t tell us much we didn’t know, that people are proud of the Black Country, and feel disconnected from the liberal London bubble, although it is disappointing the old 'left behind' trope had to find its way in. But it is her reaction which makes the film, it is like watching a BBC foreign correspondent who has discovered an ancient tribe in some flung-corner of the world.

She appears genuinely bewildered by the whole idea of national and local pride, like it is some quaint throwback from Victorian Britain. She persists on talking about English nationalism, despite being told people in the Black Country consider themselves British rather than English, and concludes that we need to ‘redefine English nationalism as something that will make us proud’.

I'm sure she meant well, and at least she is trying. But I think we can safely conclude Miss Lucas didn’t follow it up with a pint of mild, pork scratchings, and a plate of faggots and peas.