'Top Gear' blamed for yobbish drivers

The television motoring show Top Gear has come under fire for fostering a "yobbish" attitude among drivers.

The British road safety group Transport 2000 has called on the BBC to axe the show, featuring Jeremy Clarkson, saying it "glamorises speed" and "gives comfort to boy-racers, petrol-heads and those from the 'get out of way' school of driving".

The group suggested Clarkson would be better used testing new bicycles or checking out public transport rather than testing high-powered, heavily polluting cars.

The show screens in New Zealand every Sunday on Prime and is one of its most popular programmes, watched by more than 200,000 viewers, especially young males.

New Zealand road safety campaigner Clive Matthew-Wilson, who is editor of the Dog and Lemon Guide, said he did not approve of some of Top Gear's antics, but it would be counter-productive to stop the show.

"When an environmentalist comes along and says, 'Hey, this is really destructive for the planet', it comes across as mummy telling them to put their car away, so they react far out of proportion to the threat.

"You can measure the end result of the petrol-head attitude in young men wrapped round lamp-posts and splattered on State Highway 1. But Top Gear is just a drop in the ocean."