A driver along an English lane—such as, typically, Gore Lane, steep, twisty, narrow, and high-banked—has to have quick reaction-time so as to brake in an instant, as another vehicle looms ahead around a corner.

Yet on an untypically long-straight piece, the part of Springhead Lane on the upland, I met a blockage, consisting of a red lorry so wide that I could hardly get my bike past it, face to face with a car, whose front had been completely stove in. The young driver, who was not hurt but was disconsolately waiting for the police, said "Yes, I didn't see it." It was a day of fog, but the visibility was at least fifty yards.