As with many people passionate about cars, I got thinking after Richard Hammond’s accident — on a number of levels. I hear there is talk about Top Gear getting toned down. That would be a shame.

Top Gear is the best motoring programme in the world. It’s classic British spirit with a healthy dose of civil disobedience, and that makes for a healthy atmosphere. The viewer numbers are a testament to the show, as is the fact that last week it won best factual programme at the National Television Awards. Most people just see cars as transport and the fact Top Gear makes them interesting is terrific.

Car shows in America are dull. I don’t know if a show like Top Gear would work in prime time because Americans only seem to like car crashes or celebrity cars. I once had some cars on my show from a museum and one had belonged to Clark Gable. Somebody said: “Oh, is this the one where Carole Lombard got laid?” I said: “I don’t really know.” And they said: “Can we look at the seat?” And I said: “Yeah, that would be the seat where they probably did it.” And I’m thinking: “Why don’t I just shoot myself right now?”

Top Gear works. Jeremy Clarkson is as funny and as entertaining as any comic. His persona is classically English, at least to Americans. I find him charming and entertaining, and like the fact that the focus of the show is on the design and performance and speed and comfort of the car.

I am sure Richard would be the first to admit life is a risk. But he was doing what he loved most. Soccer doesn’t get banned because someone gets hurt.

It’s much the same with Steve Irwin. Steve was a good friend of mine; he did my show many times, and was exactly the same on-stage as off-stage. He was genuinely an excitable guy who loved animals the way the Top Gear guys love cars.

I think that if Steve had to go, then that’s probably the way he would have chosen. People are stunned but I don’t know why; he was in an extremely dangerous profession. The fact is, though, he got an awful lot of young people interested in animals and their conservation. The whole thing about being an adult is doing things to stir young people to get them interested.

How many kids watch Top Gear and decide they’d like to be an engineer or a racing driver or anything of that nature? It stimulates the imagination and in the course of that sometimes people get hurt.

Not deliberately; I mean Top Gear isn’t demolition derby. They’re taking machinery to its limit, and car manufacturers are making better machines because of it.

It’s thanks to the testing and journalism of shows such as Top Gear that cars are being made stronger and stronger. We had an incident in America recently, where a guy in a Ferrari Enzo, trying to hit 200mph on a public road, crashed.

One report said he hit a pole at 162mph, another said he hit the pole at closer to 190mph. He walked away. In fact, when the police arrived he was standing there, on his mobile phone, denying he had been driving the car. It’s a tribute to modern car design and engineering.

One positive side of Richard’s experience is that anyone with a high-performance car probably went out and checked things like their tyre pressure. We’re lulled into complacency with modern cars to think nothing can go wrong. It can.

The most important thing, though, is that Richard is making progress. I wish him a fast and full recovery.