We have just returned home after our annual trip from Ottawa to West River, Maryland, for the FSGW Getaway. The full journey of about 950 km can be done in one day but really shouldn't. Almost all of it is multi-lane, controlled-access highway, so one has the illusion of efficiency, but the hours of constant close attention in a visually bleak environment are very tiring.

England has the most hazardous routine driving conditions I have ever encountered in some 40 years on the road in Canada, Europe and the United States. The cramped, cluttered verges of the roads make it unnecessarily difficult to see joining traffic, pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable beings. The higgledy-piggledy layout, planned by the rolling English drunkard and frequently punctuated by roundabouts, made my Canadian head ache. And the aggressive behaviour of the average British driver sometimes terrified me. I felt safest on the M4, where the traffic moved at close to 80 mph but at least in a fairly predictable way.

My dear old sergeant and his assistant, the ancient master corporal, taught me to drive as if everyone else on the road was a homicidal maniac out to get me. I guess they had driven on English roads at some point.

BTW -- Why does every lay-by have a Ford Transit van parked in it?