Car – December 1962 (Volume 1 No. 4)

An American traffic expert casting a quizzical eye on the British scene commented that our habit of driving across the traffic stream to park on the off-side was 'a scream'.

We don't think it's a scream: we think it is, in common with some of our other habits, stupid and criminal. In our view we have too many out-dated traffic laws which have no good effect and too few common-sense ones written in the age of the motorcar.

We would like the law to say all parking must be on the nearside in the direction of travel: that car lamps must be lit much earlier than is mandatory now; that dipped headlamps should be compulsory everywhere at night. Too many drivers, particularly in the North of England, seem to think they pay so much a unit for their car's electricity.

We would also like a ban on most right turns in cities. We would like motor insurance run by the government at reasonable rates, so that bonus buccaneering and driving an uninsured car would be impossible; you would buy your insurance with your road fund licence for one fee.

We would like lorries illuminated all round as in France, and banned from stopping on the highway; come to that why not make all main roads Clearways?

That will do for a start.