DEAREST ENGLAND LOVE LETTER # 1

Dearest England Highway Department,

Congratulations on providing drivers with the most puzzling highways in the world as I know it, which isn’t saying much but maybe just enough.

My neighbor said he was traveling to Scotland; I asked him if he’s renting a car.

“No. I wouldn’t try driving there,” or something.

He’s not renting a car.

So there I was in a rented MG SUV, (they still make MGs) rolling west on the M4 in a cold sweat of doubt after missing an exit for a destination that would have been a one minute away.

The next exit was down the road with a puzzle of roundabouts in between getting off the freeway and getting back on.

My lane alarm kept going off for drifting into the lane to the left and hitting curbs.

Who puts curbs on the side of busy roads and not a shoulder? Any answers from the highway department for that?

The drifting shook my confidence in staying in my lane. What the hell?

Now I’m a drifter?

I’ve got GPS telling me one thing on the screen, and a wife with a smart phone telling another.

That’s a lot for a driver who thinks he knows everything to take in.

My kids sent a text with a big LOL, “Good luck with google maps.”

Funny stuff?

I had a car in 2004 with the wife and both boys in the same English road scenario and they remember their calm and collected dad, “I think we’re supposed to get lost out here. Got plenty of gas so we’re not in trouble. Yet.”

I wasn’t screaming in panic either time is how I remember it. Anyone remembering differently is wrong, lying, or full of crap.

I’ll admit to tension at stoplights that sequence from red, to yellow, to green instead of the other way around.

Also anger at exit ramps with their own exit ramps. One is enough.

The directional signs painted on the road in fading white block letter made me want to scream.

Either freshen them up so they don’t look like some kind of Banksy graffiti, or black them out them.

I might be wrong, lying, or full of crap, but you tell me, who doesn’t shriek behind the wheel now and then.

It’s not like I’m on the verge of a panic attack. Yet.

Next: How to. park a car in Bath.