THE high-powered antics of motoring pundits make it harder for road safety organisations to promote careful driving, says a top motoring group's boss.

David Williams, chief executive of the Guild of Experien-ced Motorists, says: "Young drivers are watching presenters they admire, in machinery they desire, push vehicles to the edge of their performance, in hair-raising style.

"TV personalities like Tiff Needell, Jeremy Clarkson and Mike Brewer are using controlled off-road environments such as race tracks and old airfields.

"But they present the virtues of the car as if it were in normal road use and drive vehicles with off-the-shelf specifi- cation that are obviously not dedicated race machinery.

"They go out of their way to demonstrate the power, handling and extreme braking of these cars in a manner that would be totally unacceptable, even illegal, on public roads."

Williams says the standards that apply to advertising cars where speed and high performance cannot be promoted should also be used to guide the editorial content of such programmes.