The Highway code tells you how to navigate roundabouts. In many cases they work better than traffic lights. Even at night, one should not drive faster than enables you to stop within the range of what you can see. And a driver ought to be able to decide how fast or slowly he can get round a roundabout. The accidents described above are due to execrable driving, or somnolescence.

And in general I find the cultural assumptions of Americans are far more offensive than others. The assumptions that guns solve everything, that US law prevails across the globe, that "shock and awe" delivers rectitude, that pistols will defend against an oppressive central government, that socialism is evil, that crisps are called chips and chips are called freedom fries are just the tip of the iceberg. The reason the "Sheriff GW Pepper" stereotype played so well across the globe is because those of us outside the USA have met him many times, in calf length checked trousers being strangled by camera straps and occupying two seats.

The US version of "freedom of speech" - behind which bullies are protected in schools so long as they avoid the N-word. Disaster.

The second amendment. Disaster.

The absence of rules restricting the filibuster. Disaster.

Citizens United. Disaster.

The absence of a "long title" rule restricting the ambit of bill amendments - disaster.

The absence of something like the Salisbury convention. Disaster.

US toleration of slavery (never legal in England itself under common law, declared as common law in 1722 so retrospective) - disaster that continues to the present.

Genocide of native Americans (sorry to sound like MLC) - disaster.

McCarthyism - disaster.

I could go on.