It’s Not Me, It’s You!: Impossible perfectionist, 27, seeks very very very tidy woman. Jon Richardson

– you only make that mistake once) and a pot noodle – my own emergency kit should I one day have the courage to drive myself somewhere new, where nobody knows where I am, and start hiding from the world. This is hardly the same as burning all my savings and hitchhiking my way into the Canadian wilderness, but I like to think of myself in some small way as a part of what I call the Boot Generation. All we need is the air in our lungs, the wind in our hair, and the dried noodle snack we can have when we eventually find a kettle and a plug socket. The man can’t keep us down!

      I glance down at the dashboard to check whether I have enough petrol to get me where I need to go, as I do roughly every five minutes or so, but I still have over two-thirds of a tank. I have seen so many films in which drivers glance down and see the needle edging into the red that I live in constant fear of that moment, because as we all know, that is when the murderer appears behind you.

      I remind myself that I am not a Hollywood film star, nor am I a dippy student, driving across the Australian outback in a beaten up old car I bought from a gaptoothed simpleton having completed my final exams. I am driving a silver Ford Fiesta across England and I filled my car up at a local supermarket, gaining reward points in the process. I think this might make the world’s dullest Hollywood movie, but that’s fine with me. At this thought, a car whose driver wants to exit at the upcoming junction, but not enough to pay attention to how close it is, meanders across the motorway without indicating and pulls into the space I had left in front of me. Other people brake and swerve to avoid him but go no further, but I waste no time in slamming on my horn and when I can see his eyes meet mine in his rear-view mirror I proudly extend my middle finger towards him. Only once this has been done do I stop to think about how big he might be, or how many other people might be with him. A mist descends when I am in my car, something to do with being encased in metal I suspect, which makes me feel less like a small, scrawny man and more like Robocop. I doubt Robocop would have had the commercial success he did had his voice been as camp as my car horn, but it is the only gesture I have to make.

      There has been a slow and steady shift away from the traditional Highway Code over recent years, so gradual that most people haven’t even realised it has happened. While the key points remain the same in that we drive on the left and go clockwise around roundabouts, most of the smaller ‘rules’ as they were known back then have changed and been replaced by guidelines. For the uninitiated, here are a few of the main alterations to the things you may have been taught when learning to drive which make up the brand new Mighway Code:

      1. Roundabouts: When approaching a roundabout, be advised that whichever direction you intend to travel in, the correct lane is always the one in which there are the fewest other cars. Once at the front of the queue, note that if you wait every time you see a car coming, you will never get anywhere. The thirty-second rule states that if you have been waiting for thirty seconds or more, you must move out immediately and other road users are legally obliged to make space for you. If, through no fault of your own, you miss your turning on a roundabout, be aware that simply going round once more, though it may only take a few seconds, will pump unwanted noxious gasses into an already suffocated atmosphere. You must do whatever you can to get across the traffic as soon as possible and back on course, reversing if needed.

      2. Signalling: Indicating is a dangerous procedure since it involves removing your hands from the wheel and draws your attention away from driving safely. It should be avoided at all times (for exceptions see rule 3) as not only does it reduce the control that you have over your own car, there may be epileptics in front of or behind you who might be triggered into having a seizure by a sudden burst of flashing orange lights. As we know that speed is a killer, and light travels faster than sound, it is therefore advisable to use your horn instead of your indicators to alert other drivers to your presence.

      3. Parking: Using what used to be known as ‘hazard lights’ makes it legal to park anywhere. Double yellow lines do not apply to anyone whose operation can be preceded by the word ‘just’. For example, it is illegal to stop on double yellow lines to go to the bank, but it is not illegal to ‘just pop into the bank’. Double yellow lines also do not apply to big men with shaved heads driving transit vans. The ‘I-know-you-are-you-said-you-are-but-what-am-I’ rule states that calling a traffic warden a ‘fucking parasite’ renders his ticket useless with no comebacks times infinity. Traffic wardens are absolutely NOT trying to make it easier to park legally by deterring people from parking illegally; they are generating millions of pounds a second which is used to buy weapons for Middle Eastern despots. Fact.

      4. Motorway driving: The only reason that driving into the back of someone causes damage is because of the gap between the cars which allowed sufficient speed to be built up – ergo gaps cause crashes. The safest thing to do on the motorway is to drive with your front bumper touching the rear bumper of the car in front, so that when they brake, your car will respond instantly. The middle lane of the motorway is known as ‘the driving lane’ and all cars should gravitate towards this lane. The inside lane is a spare hard shoulder, for use by truck drivers and pussies. The outside lane or ‘stud lane’ is for businessmen who have important meetings to go to, or back home from. If you see any car other than an Audi, BMW or Mercedes in the stud lane then you must pull over and use the emergency phone to contact the emergency services.

      5. The speed limit: It is a common misconception that the number shown in circular signs with a red border is the speed limit. The real speed limit is whatever is in the red circle plus ten percent, plus five mph, plus your age. Anyone driving below that should be encroached and, if necessary, pushed along at the appropriate speed. The slower you drive, the longer you will be on the road and the more likely it is that you might have an accident or ‘be accidented on’ by someone else. Cut your journey times – put your foot down.

      6. The most important rule of the Mighway Code is this: Accidents only ever happen to, or because of, other people. You are a great driver; it’s all these other pricks that ruin things for everyone else. That Jeremy Clarkson drives fast and he’s still cool, right? Damn right. Vroom vrooms. Neeeeooowwwm. Maybe I could get a turret fitted to the front of my car then I could shoot baddies? (Make gun noise for an hour.)

      Calming myself down and enjoying the sense of relief as the car in front veers off the motorway and onto the slip road without further incident or retaliation, I glance in my rear-view mirror, just to double-check that there isn’t an ominous looking figure in a jet-black HGV ‘riding my tail’.