When I revealed that I was planning to travel around Britain by public transport, everyone I saw said, Gosh, you’ re brave!' but it never occurred to me to go any other way. Driving in Britain is such a dull experience these days. There are far too many cars on the road, nearly double what there were when I first came here,and in those days people didn’t actually drive their cars. They just parked them in the driveway and cleaned them once every week, or so. About twice a year they would ‘ get the car out ’ for a pleasant drive to visit relatives or take a trip.
Now everyone drives everywhere for everything, which I don’t understand because there isn’t a single feature of driving in Britain that has even the tiniest measure of enjoyment in it. Just consider the average multi-storey (多层的)car park. You drive around for ages, and eventually find a space that is exactly two inches wider than the average car. Then, because you are parked next to a
pillar (柱子),you have to climb over the seats and end up squeezing out of the passenger door, in the process transferring all the dirt from the side of your car to the back of your smart new jacket. Then you go hunting for some distant pay-and-display machine, which doesn' t give change.
And that’s just one tiny part of the driving experience. There are all the other annoyances of motoring, like traffic lights on busy roundabouts (环 状交叉路)that never let you advance more than 20 feet at a time,and motorway service areas where food is much more expensive. Motorized vehicles are ugly and dirty. They occupy every pavement, turn ancient market squares into disorderly and untidy groups of metal, and cause petrol stations and other discouraging places to appear in great numbers. They are horrible and awful and I wanted nothing to do with them on this trip.