Another day, another transport secretary. Geoff Hoon is the latest to land in a cabinet post no politician actually appears to want. He replaces Ruth Kelly, who, you’ll recall, had such a bad time there she’s abandoning politics altogether. Alistair Darling, a former incumbent, even admitted to me during an interview that the “average shelf life for a transport secretary was 13 months, which is ridiculous”. He moved on shortly afterwards.

Anyway, say hello to Geoff Hoon, MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, former defence secretary and chief whip, and the man nicknamed “Geoff Who?” in Tony Blair’s inaugural government.

So what can we expect from him? Well, it’s not all bad. Apparently he likes the gnarly American blues singer Seasick Steve, displaying a truly discerning musical taste that trumps David Cameron’s love of the Smiths and Gordon Brown’s admiration for Arctic Monkeys. He wrote a pretty good piece for The Spectator about falling in love with Pink Floyd at a concert in Leicester in 1972, which should in theory put him in the same Old Rocker camp as Jeremy Clarkson.

He’s the son (and indeed grandson) of a railwayman, which he claims underlines his genuine passion for transport, in all its forms. And he was recently described in this newspaper as “car mad”, though quite how owning a Ford Galaxy, a purple Mini (Mrs Hoon’s car) and a ministerial Toyota Prius justifies that description is beyond me.

Beyond this, however, it’s business as usual. He admits that fixed speed cameras are “arbitrary” and “unfair” — to which he could also add “craven and cynical revenue generators”. Which they are, though their arbitrarily unfair cravenness is nothing compared with the average-speed cameras he’s planning to blanket the country with.

You’ll have experienced them on the M25, between junctions 2 and 4, and the M1, between junctions 6 and 10, placed there primarily to ensure the safety of contractors. The more conspiratorial among you might also wonder if these higher-tech cameras, like ID cards and a proposed national database, aren’t just another Orwellian control mechanism. Boy, doesn’t this government love those.

The latest proposal is that motorists could lose their licence after only two speeding offences, even though speed in itself is not dangerous and does not cause accidents. No politician, no matter how well briefed or quick-thinking, can argue with absolute credibility that there is anything wrong with travelling at, say, 85mph on a dry, clear motorway in a modern, well-equipped car. Even most police officers, who are too busy with paperwork to do any patrolling, agree with that. The German autobahns work just fine, after all.

Ah, but the faster you drive, the more carbon dioxide you emit, says Hoon. Would this be the same man who gave the go-ahead for an extra 23,000 flights — that’s 10m passengers — per year out of Stansted? The same man who is a supporter of a third runway at Heathrow?

In the absence of any fresh thinking, here are some of my proposals. First, forget the speeding driver; let’s target the berks who travel everywhere at precisely 47mph — on clear, open roads and past primary schools. Perhaps their cars could be rigged to blow up — as in the movie Speed — if the driver fails to keep pace with the rest of the traffic.

Second, under my proposals, all personalised numberplates will automatically attract a three-point penalty. “Baby on board” signs will be permissible (just), but “Little princess on board” or “Future prime minister in here” signs will, I’m afraid, earn six penalty points. As will pink cars, pimped Porsche Cayennes and bad music played at volume in built-up areas. Adults with cuddly toys on the parcel shelf will have their licences revoked. And anyone who hogs the outside lane on a motorway will be deported. That should do the trick.

Jason Barlow is editor-at-large of Top Gear magazine