I have a family, so therefore I buy family cars. It’s a sad thing for a man to admit to, but there it is. The problem I’ve experienced is that whilst car manufacturers have a very good idea of what a car, is they seem to think a family is just a driver with extra passengers. Sure they add features like child safety locks and in-car entertainment. They fit a plethora of cup holders, storage compartments and even Isofix anchor points, but all of these things do little to improve the experience of being a family in a car.

For example, cup holders – do you really want any child to have a cup of liquid in the back of your car? How do you remove a three year old’s foot from a cupholder without breaking it (the cup holder I mean!)? When reviewing a candidate for your next car, a cup holder can seem much more useful than it does three months later when you are trying to wipe doughnut jam out of it.

Many cars still come with an ashtray, and those that don’t have it as an option. Some cars, especially older ones will have a couple in the back too. Now I don’t smoke, but even if I did I wouldn’t smoke with my kids in the car. It’s part of my belief that trying to raise kids and trying to kill them don’t really fit together. Now my kids don’t smoke either so ashtrays end up as a “useful” place to stick sweet wrappers, crisp packets and used tissues. Now at home, when I’m looking for somewhere to put rubbish I go for a bin. Call me narrow minded but somehow an ashtray doesn’t seem to be a good place to put rubbish.

Anyone with kids will know that they generate large amounts of rubbish, so anyone with kids in their car would really appreciate a bin. So why don’t car manufacturer’s fit them? If I was driving a sports car or a rep-mobile then I could see when an ashtray would be appropriate but in a 7 seater people carrier stuffed with small children I really need a decent sized dustbin.

Seatbelt alarms are another area with massive room for improvement. Now the majority of new cars will sound a tone or give a warning of some sort when the driver is not wearing his or her seatbelt. My current car even detects if my wife’s handbag is particularly heavy and warns her to strap it in. (Okay so it’s meant to detect if a front passenger is present but my wife’s handbag confuses it!). This is a good feature, but of limited benefit as all the driver has to do is turn his or her head to see if the passenger is wearing a seatbelt. However it would be much more useful to know that at the start of a two hour motorway run my four year old son has unfastened the one-year old’s seat belt and his child seat is no longer connected to the car. Surely this can’t be that hard to do?