CARS are a lot safer these days. Airbags, anti-lock brakes, lane departure warnings and gadgets like adaptive cruise control all do their bit, as do the fashioning of various high-strength steels into bodies which do their best to protect their occupants, writes William Scholes.
Driving past an original Mini and a Citroen 2CV on the M1 last Sunday morning brought home the fact that car safety has improved by light years - can you imagine being hit by something like a Land Rover Discovery in a 2CV or Mini?
Recently I've been driving a car that bucks the trend.
Sure, it has a full complement of airbags and such-like, but it also wants to harm you. Badly.
Cars which are malevolent are, fortunately, few and far between.
For example, a rear-wheel-drive Jaguar F-Type with the big supercharged engine is positively terrifying on any surface with less traction than sandpaper - the memory of guiding one round the multi-storey car park on Glengall Street in Belfast in freezing temperatures still scares me - and the Vauxhall Mokka has a knack of making its passengers feel nauseous.
Yet they are mere amateurs compared to the car on these pages.
Dubbed the DS 4, this is a car of such wicked intent that it actually wants to stab you every time you open the back door.
The back door is shaped in such a way that the window frame forms an outline as sharp as a stiletto and, it seems to me, is every bit as potentially deadly.
Every time - every single, painful time - I had to open the back door, it whacked me in the ribs, winding and bruising me. If I stood in a certain way, it knifed me as well.
So poorly designed are the back doors that on several occasions they wouldn't open to a sufficient degree to allow my seven-year-old son to get out.
I'm on the taller end of the height spectrum, but the DS 4's homicidal tendencies were even worse for shorter folk, like children.
More than once I had to leap between my son and the viciously swinging door, like Clint Eastwood in In The Line of Fire, to take one for the team.
Heaping insult upon literal injury is the fact that the DS 4 has possibly the worst back seats of any car which has ever had back seats, ever.
The seats themselves are awkwardly shaped, bereft of foot room and head room and bisected by an oddly bulky exhaust tunnel.
The last five-door car I couldn't get into the back of was the Mini five-door, but at least children like it; no-one, apart from a cadaver, could possibly enjoy the rear pew of the DS 4.
It's also dark back there, to the point of claustrophobia, and the back windows don't open.
Yes, you read that correctly: this is a five-door car in which the back windows do not open.
This limits the number of escape routes and is obviously the car's way of telling you that it is futile to even think about getting out. It's Alcatraz on wheels.
That's why the woman in the picture looks so pleased - she's just been released.
It rather makes you wonder why they bothered with back doors at all...
So, I couldn't get in the back and my seven-year-old son hated it, but it's not a lot better up front.
At least he had some headroom when I repositioned him in the front seat. I didn't.
A pincer movement of low roofline and high-mounted seat meant I had to sit hunched up, like Quasimodo without the campanology skills.
The driving position is shocking, and not only because of the seat.
The pedals are canted to the right to an uncomfortable degree and the steering wheel, which has a massive boss just to make things even more awkward, doesn't adjust sufficiently.
This conspiracy of ergonomic disaster means the DS 4 is possibly even worse to drive than the awful Fiat 500 we tested recently.
I could go on, but I won't. OK, I will.
The rear windows and tailgate window are small so reversing and parking is a little like manoeuvring a van. Actually it's worse, as the door mirrors are hopeless.
At least it is brighter up front than in the back, and to a quite outrageous degree thanks to a windscreen which sweeps into the roofline. This may be the car's best feature.
Another strong element is the diesel engine, a traditional area of expertise for French car-makers.
The test car had a 2.0-litre unit with a spritely 148bhp and oodles of torque; sadly it was saddled with an odd gearchange - possibly from a different car altogether - and pedals of such varying weights than when my feet could be coaxed into operating them properly I never knew quite what to expect.
The clutch, in particular, was a remarkably knife-edged device, installed presumably to add an air of jeopardy to proceedings - you could never quite tell if you would leave a junction in a cloud of tyre smoke or stall.
It was really quite exciting, in much the same manner that Russian roulette can be described as exciting.
Adding a further layer of confusion to proceedings is the apparent positioning of DS as a rival to premium brands such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW.
The DS cars - there's also a DS 3 and a DS 5 - were originally offshoots of the regular Citroen range but last year the brand was formally separated, so giving birth to the grandly-named DS Automobiles.
But as a rival to the Audi A3 or BMW 1 Series, let alone the Volkswagen Golf, the latest Vauxhall Astra, the swish Mazda 3 or a bus ticket, the DS 4 is hopelessly undercooked.
Perhaps I just got a bad example, or maybe my exact height and body shape is the only anatomical conglomeration unable to fit properly, but on this showing it's a very hard car to recommend. You may have gathered as much.
I could, however, understand why someone might choose one over a Mercedes-Benz A-Class, another notional rival, as that car is possibly even worse. This, however, is not a ringing endorsement - even Quasimodo could tell you that.
A French car with upmarket aspirations should imbue its owner with a sense of luxury, glamour and poise; it should be like wearing Chanel or Yves Saint Laurent. The original Citroen DS - the 'goddess' - of 1955 did this in spades.
On the evidence of the DS 4, Citroen has plenty of work to do to be able to rub shoulders with the established German premium players. Bonne chance, mes amis.
:: AT A GLANCE
DS 4 Prestige BlueHDi 150
Price: £23,595. As tested £25,365. Options included metallic paint £520, 19-inch alloy wheels £400, parking sensors and blind spot warning £300, Denon hifi £450, chrome door mirror caps £100
Engine and transmission: 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel turbo, six-speed manual gearbox, front-wheel-drive; 148bhp, 273lb/ft
Performance: Top speed 129mph, 0-62mph in 8.8 seconds
Fuel consumption: 72.4mpg (EU combined); 49.7mpg (real world)
CO2, road tax, benefit in kind: 103g/km - not liable in first year, then £20 annually - 20 per cent
Euro Ncap safety rating: Five stars (90/80/43/97)
