Blood Sweat and Tyres: The Little Book of Motoring
David Long

With a quarter of million cars a day crowding onto 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, but in south-east England it can be a struggle even to reach such a speed during daylight hours.

You know how it is. Over-stressed, over-taxed, with petrol at how-much-a-litre and still rising, and the morning and evening rush hours rapidly merging into one, UK motorists have now become slaves to the machine rather than its master. People, even so, are still keen to go places – according to the Times the A-Z to of London is the most shoplifted book in Britain – and tragically there is still no better way of doing it than by car.

Written with the mad, suffering millions in mind, Blood, Sweat & Tyres is the antidote you've been waiting for. Casting a wry eye over the world of modern motoring, and highlighting some of its strangest and more bizarre aspects, it seeks to put the sheer awfulness of driving anywhere into some kind of sensible perspective. Failing that it might at least give the victims - motorists, their passengers, friends and families - something funny to read and to reflect upon whilst they wait for the road ahead to clear.