Anthropologists are supposed to do their research in remote, uncomfortable places — places with monsoons and mud huts and malaria. I prefer to do my fieldwork in cultures where you can get a decent cup of tea. My recent research, for example, has seen me studying the English by bumping into 100 people at a railway station to test how many would apologise. But attitudes to cars and behaviour behind the wheel also give a useful window into the social rules that make up the nature of being English . . .

Class rules

English drivers will admit to aesthetic and even emotional reasons for buying a particular car, and might even go so far as to acknowledge that they choose cars that express their individual personality.

Under no circumstances will they admit to buying or wanting a make of car because it is associated with a social class to which they wish to be seen to belong. But the truth is that car choice, like almost everything else in England, is mostly about class.

In my research, I used what I called the Mondeo Test to gauge my informants’ levels of class anxiety. Mention the Ford Mondeo to a member of the middle-middle or upper-middle classes and they will automatically make some jokey comment about Essex Man or insurance salesmen.

Some upper-middles may be too polite, or too squeamish about appearing snobbish, to sneer out loud, so you have to watch their faces carefully for a brief wince or little moue of distaste triggered by the word Mondeo. The more scathing and contemptuous someone is about Mondeos, the more insecure they are about their position in the hierarchy.

Upper-middles who pass the Mondeo Test by showing only mild amusement may still reveal hidden class anxieties when confronted with the Mercedes Test. After your little chuckle about Mondeos try adding: “Let me guess — you probably drive a big Mercedes.” If your subject looks hurt or annoyed and responds with a scornful comment about “rich trash” or “wealthy businessmen” you have hit the adjacent class insecurity button. Your subject has made it into the upper-middle “intelligentsia”, “professional” or “country” set and is anxious to distinguish himself from the despised middle-middle “business” class with which he almost certainly has family connections.

The mobile castle rule

An Englishman’s home is his castle, and when he takes to the road in his car a part of his castle goes with him. On public transport the English go to great lengths to maintain an illusion of privacy: we pretend that strangers surrounding us don’t exist, and assiduously avoid any contact or interaction with them.

In our mobile castles, this self-delusion becomes much easier: rather than an invisible “bubble” of stand-offishness, we are enclosed in a solid shield of metal and glass. We can pretend not only that we are alone, but that we are at home.

The ostrich rule

This illusion of privacy results in some strange and decidedly un-English behaviour. Like ostriches with their heads in the sand, English people in their cars seem to believe that they are invisible. You will see drivers picking their noses, scratching themselves in intimate places, singing and bopping along to music, having screaming rows with their partners, kissing and fondling — all performed in full view of dozens of other drivers and pedestrians.

The sense of home-like security and invulnerability provided by our mobile castles also encourages some more offensive forms of disinhibition. Even normally polite English people find themselves making rude gestures and mouthing insults at other road users — in many cases saying things they would never dare to say outside this protective shield.