LEADING ARTICLE: How to stop the rot in a bash-and-go society

You struggle across the wet hypermarket car-park, pushing a heavy trolley with one hand and guiding two small children with the other. As you come abreast of your car you notice, with fury, the smashed wing-mirror and dented door. There is no apol ogeticnote or offer of redress. If you knew who'd done it you'd be tempted to go and give him or her a bit of rude advice.

Most of us have been victims of dent-and-run drivers. And yet a quarter of the 1,500 drivers questioned for the Lex Report on Motoring, published this week, admit that they, too, would bash and go. This figure is almost certainly an underestimate. As last election's opinion polls showed, people are unwilling to confess - even to pollsters - to anti-social behaviour (such as voting Conservative). They know it is wrong, they wouldn't like it to be done to them, and yet they'd do it to others.

It is just one of the ways that we as neighbours and citizens let ourselves down. We shuffle down the station platform to avoid having to help the blind passenger, we sneak out at night and pile our rubbish on to next-door's skip, we tell Oxfam that we contribute regularly to Greenpeace - and then forget to. We are weak vessels and admire those who are stronger. But surely we don't really cause any harm?

Unfortunately, we do. Social psychologists agree that one of the early signs of the descent of a neighbourhood is a loss of civility. What begins with children swearing without being reprimanded, old three-piece suites appearing on pavements and Jim Reeves music at three in the morning, ends with crack dealers, vandalism and civic helplessness. Small courtesies and minor acts of consideration are an important part of the glue of everyday society, and we miss them when they vanish.

But all is not lost. Apparently it doesn't take much for many of us to return to goodness. The appearance of well-marked dog dirt containers in London parks has goaded many a dog owner into pooper-scooping. This suggests that a virtuous circle may be as easily created as a vicious one. Perhaps each of us should make a start.

So, next time, put a note on that windscreen.