An advert for the Toyota Yaris has been banned after the advertising watchdog said it featured a woman driving with her eyes closed and singing along to the Bruno Mars song Locked Out Of Heaven.

The Advertising Standards Authority has banned the advert from TV, TV on demand and YouTube after concluding that it condoned and encouraged dangerous driving.

It received 73 complaints from viewers.

Toyota argued that the woman had not closed her eyes, however the ASA said most viewers would believe she had briefly closed them.

A Polish version of the same video, now banned in the UK

The advert also depicted drivers and passengers listening and singing along to music, while moving and dancing in their seats, and in a few scenes the driver was shown gesticulating with one arm off the wheel or briefly looking away from the road to interact with a passenger.

On this, the ASA said: "While we did not consider that to show drivers and passengers enjoying and moving around to music in a car was necessarily irresponsible, we had concerns that some of the drivers were not shown paying due attention to the road, and instead appeared to be easily distracted by their passengers and the music."

Toyota countered by arguing there is no UK legal abligation to have two hands on the steering wheel and all cars have equipment that requires one hand to come off the wheel at times.

The ASA said: "Because we considered that some of the featured drivers were not shown paying due attention to the road, we concluded that the ad condoned and encouraged dangerous driving and was therefore irresponsible."