There are two ways of looking at the December figures.

If you are a glass-half-full type you can point to the fact that fleet registrations fell by only 3.6% compared to December 2008.

If you are a glass-half-empty type you can point to two salutary facts.

Firstly, the fleet proportion fell from 58.1% to 40.3% over the same period.

Secondly, December 2008 was no-one’s idea of a strong month – at the time the country did not know if it was facing a recession or a 1930s-style depression.

In fact, the pessimists probably have a stronger case.

The rate of decline has flattened out (it was -20.5% for 2009 as a whole), but that is because we are now comparing the current month with a period when we were already in recession.

Thus we should be seeing rises in sales if things are starting to get better.

With companies continuing to fret about cash flow and credit continuing to be hard to obtain, it is hard to justify positive attitudes to the fleet market.

At manufacturer level, Ford had a good December and a relatively good 2009.

The new Fiesta helped enormously, as did a long-term policy of trying to avoid distress marketing.

However, Ford prices are now generally above those of Volkswagen.

Vauxhall appeared to have a disastrous December, with registrations falling by 41.4%, but that had more to do with last year than this one.

Vauxhall was shifting stock at any cost in late 2008 and now says it is responding to the market rather than treating the market as a Strasbourg goose, to be force fed whenever possible.

One of the best-performing manufacturers in 2009 was Nissan, which fell by “only” 8.2% for the full year.

It has certainly been a long time since Nissan was in the winners' category, but its brave decision to replace the Almera with the radical Qashqai turned out to be the perfect move.

Among the German prestige manufacturers, Audi fared best, with Mercedes-Benz in second place and BMW in third – a fair reflection of the global picture.

Audi is forging ahead worldwide with a combination of top-quality image and Volkswagen parts prices, Mercedes-Benz is resurgent now it has divested itself of its Chrysler and Mitsubishi shackles, while BMW is suffering from increased competition.

Overall, 2009 ended with a whimper for the fleet market.

The year was not the meltdown that was justifiably feared at the start of the year but, in terms of a conventional recession, it was still pretty grim.

Things will improve in 2010, but from an appallingly low base. Compared to 2007 and early 2008, next year will be very poor.

The brutal fact is that recessions take a long time to work through.

The 1989 recession only ended in 1992 – a time lag of three years.

We may still have some way to go.