The inevitable finally happened.

As someone who drove in Italy and France for over a decade, I can state with some authority that drivers in England must be the worst in the known world. The list of things new drivers are not required to learn far outweighs the list of things they should, like occasionally signalling to let the other maniacs know what they're about to do, or even the ability to parallel park.

    We live on a small island, criss-crossed with motorways, and yet the driving test doesn't even acknowledge their existence. So that when someone passes their test they're immediately able to drive on roads with a theoretical top speed of 70mph, but in actuality is about 90 or whatever people's cars will do without blowing up.

    Yet because, or perhaps in spite of my teaching her, my daughter has become a good driver and it was still inevitable that one day despite my wish that I would have passed away first, we would have to go on a motorway trip.

   Of all the days to do it, we chose the busiest day of the year, on the busiest motorway in the whole country. Yes, the M25. 

  Going south from London to Brighton took less than two hours; probably because it was downhill all the way. Yet the trip back - I can still feel my hands shaking. There must have been fifty thousand drivers on the road with a collective IQ of about six points.

   "Dad, is it legal for someone to eat an apple, send a text and smoke a cigarette in the outside lane at a 100 miles an hour?"

    I couldn't answer, mainly because my fist was rammed so far down my throat that I could barely breathe.

   "What's that woman doing to that man?"

    "Keep your eyes on the road!"

    And when one particular driver had changed lanes 14 times in the crawling traffic - every time in front of us and every time without signalling - and at the last second, I was on the point of opening the door and hurling myself onto the baking tarmac.

     "That was fun. Can we do it again?"  she demanded after the five hour journey back was finally finished and I dribbled from the car, easily half a stone lighter than when we'd set out.

      There isn't enough money in the world.