The Little Book of the Automobile. With a million cars a day crowding on to the M25, and millions more standing nose-to-tail on our A-roads, Britain is now officially Europe's largest car park. In Germany it's illegal to drive on a motorway at less than 37mph, in Britain we struggle to reach such a speed during daylight hours. Instead, stressed, over-taxed, with petrol over a pound a litre and the morning and evening rush hours merging into one, motorists have become the slaves of the machine rather than its master. Here the author casts a wry eye over the awfulness of commuting and seeks to put it into some kind of perspective.