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CAN it really be true that today’s over- 60s rely increasingly on their children to drive them around? I suspect I’m not the only parent of offspring in their 20s and 30s who raised a sceptical eyebrow over this week’s finding by the AA.

I write with some feeling, since our resident 24-year- old passed his driving test last week, becoming the third of our four sons to gain a full licence.

With my experience of his older brothers in mind, all I will say is that I’ll be astonished if this means his mother and I can depend on a free taxi service to ferry us to and from parties, the shops or the pub.

Indeed, so far, his success in the test has had only three consequences for his father, none of them desirable.

First, it has sent my already sky-high insurance premiums into the stratosphere, since it now costs even more to cover him than when he was a learner. Second, it has left me stranded at home when he’s needed to borrow the car for such essential purposes as ‘going for a spin’.

Freedom

And third, which I’ve found most painful of all, I’ve come under intense pressure from my wife to hand over my car keys to the boy during the working week.

I fully understand her reasoning. She needs her keys more than I need mine, since I spend most of my life at work, commuting there and back by public transport.

As for the boy, he is — ahem — ‘between jobs’, which means he has all the time in the world to tootle around in our Ford Focus, while I’m busy earning money to pay for its servicing, road tax, MoT, petrol and insurance.

But even though I may need my keys only on my days off, I still I find it hard to bear the thought of parting with them.

After all, I’ve carried a set on my keyring ever since I bought my first runaround, a Hillman Imp, in the mid-Seventies.

Perhaps this is a man thing, but then, as now, I regarded the keys as a tangible reminder that I had a life beyond the drudgery of work and that freedom was only an open road away. To give them up would feel like a blow to my independence and even my masculinity.

As for the idea of having to ask my son for the keys every time I want to use my car, doesn’t this turn the natural order of things on its head? It’s enough to make the blood run cold.

Why, then, you may ask, don’t I get a third set of keys cut for the boy, so that I can keep my own? I’ll tell you why not: have you seen the price of car keys these days, even for a basic model like mine?

When I rang my local Ford dealer yesterday, I was told that a new remotecontrol key for a five-year- old Focus would set me back a mind-blowing £152.13. That was just for the ‘hardware’, as the salesman called it.

On top of this, there would be a ‘cutting charge’ of £12.50 and a ‘programming charge’ of £96, making a total of £260.63. Add VAT at 20 per cent, and we’re talking £312.75!

Even a manual key would cost me £37.98, plus the cutting and programming charges and VAT. By my admittedly unreliable maths, that comes to a grand total of £175.77. For a measly little key? They must be joking!

Yes, I know that if you search the web, you’ll find plenty of locksmiths willing to supply the necessary for substantially less. But I’m not sure I should trust them. And much as I love my son, I’m damned if I’m prepared to offer myself up as a victim of Ford’s rip-off of the century.

Bitter

For the sake of domestic harmony, therefore, it looks as if I’ll just have to swallow my pride, give in to my wife yet again and meekly hand over my precious keys to our son — and with it, perhaps, my last hope of calling the family car my own.

To be absolutely fair to the boy, no sooner had he passed his test than he volunteered to drive down to Sainsbury’s to do the weekly shop, with a list provided by his mum.

But if bitter experience of his older brothers is any guide, the novelty of holding a full licence will soon wear off and he’ll be taking the wheel when it suits him, not us.

Almost certainly, he’ll insist on doing the driving, with me sitting nervously beside him, when we’re off to Oxfordshire to see his granny — a journey I much enjoy when I’m at the controls. Even 40 years after I passed my test, I still get pleasure from driving on country lanes.

But if I want a lift back from the boozer, when I need one, I’ll be on my own.

Which brings me back to this week’s finding by the AA that over-60s are now two-and-a-half times more likely than they were five years ago to get their children to drive them to hospital appointments, the shops and elsewhere.

As reported in the papers, this was presented as payback for all the time we parents spent running a taxi service for our children, taking them to school, sports events and parties.

Oh, how well I remember those days, when I seemed to spend every minute of my free time chauffeuring one or more of our sons to classmates’ birthday parties.

Then I’d have to pick them up at chucking-out time, sticky with jelly and jam and laden with party-bags, balloons and slices of cake that would end up smeared all over the car seats.

Dependable

If this is payback time, it will be a great many years before the debt is finally settled. But is it true that parents who have reached 60 are now reaping their reward for those endless hours they spent running an unpaid cab service?

Read the AA’s analysis more closely, and you will see that a very different picture emerges.

It turns out that the study is based on a Department for Transport survey of people’s reasons for never having learned to drive.

It found that 30 per cent of the over-60s — up from 12 per cent five years ago — said they saw no need to get a licence because they could rely on friends and family for lifts.

In other words, the older folk now being ferried around by the young never put in the hours the rest of us spent on the school-and-party run.

It’s not a question of payback time, since they always relied on others.

As for those of us who do have licences, and who did put in those hours, I see no comfort at all in this survey. Our young will carry on expecting us to drive ourselves around, except on the fun journeys, when it suits them to take the wheel.

Indeed, as I beg for permission to use my own car — and cough up insurance premiums set for boy racers (though at 63, touch wood, I’ve never caused a crash in my life) — I see only one glimmer of hope on the horizon: bring on the driverless car!

For those times when I need a lift back from the pub, I fancy it will be a great deal more understanding and dependable than any son of mine.