Classic Car Buyer Magazine No196 Classics better than gold? Back Issue

I’ve just got back from a late summer break touring the picturesque countryside around the Boston area and boy, it was an interesting experience. Before any of you ask what I thought of the famous landmark – known locally as the ‘Boston Stump’ – it wasn’t the Lincolnshire Boston that’s located about 35 miles from CCB’s Peterborough office I visited; my base was the Boston in New England, USA, 3600 miles away on the other side of the Atlantic. Driving long distances on North American Freeways was certainly an entertaining experience and one I thoroughly enjoyed. At first it was
a bit alarming to be occasionally overtaken on the inside by massive 18-wheel semi-rigid Mack and
Peterbilt trucks and a constant stream of fast moving traffic. Undertaking on a dual carriageway
or multilane single carriageway is a totally legal manoeuvre in the US and certainly keeps the
traffic moving. This seems a much safer option than the constant lane hopping to overtake slow
moving traffic that causes so many accidents on the UK’s motorway system, but would it work over
here? I doubt it unless the UK’s 70mph speed limit was more strictly enforced on our motorway network and dual carriageways. Over in the States, the speed limit of 65mph on the main Freeway leading north out of Boston was reasonably well adhered to. This was probably due to the large number of marked and unmarked State police Ford Crown Victorias parked up on specially designed ‘launch pads’ built into the central reservation more than the good mannered driving habits of US motorists! It was quite impressive to see so many police cars stationed along the freeways and turnpikes network running through Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine – the
three states we travelled through during our extensive tour.