Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder.

It's Friday the 10th of January, and I'm not enduring the coldest day of the winter so far in the UK.

I happen to be driving through Anna Maria Island in Florida in the company of the noted cinematographer and director Douglas Bolton.

Douglas has spent really quite a lot of time driving and working on various projects in the US.

And so I thought it would be a very good opportunity since he is at the

wheel of his Ford Mustang to talk to him about driving in America because even though I've

been coming to the US for decades I'm still very confused about a number of things so Doug first Doug, first of all, is America a country in your experience where you have to have a car?

I would say it really depends on what city you are.

I'm lucky enough to have driven in quite a few cities around.

And a city, say, like New York or Las Vegas or something like that, you definitely don't need a car

because the transport system there is fantastic and you can get around.

Then they're fairly small cities but easily commutable.

But a city like L.A. or in my case where I do a lot of work in Colorado, you absolutely need a car

because everywhere you need to go is a long distance and cars are much more convenient.

So here we are driving down Gulf Drive. Lots and lots of stop signs around. Can we start with that?

Because the concept of a four-way street is a little bit alien to many European, particularly British drivers.

That's where you've got four streets all meeting at a crossroads and they've all got stop signs.

How do they work?

These four-way stop signs actually got me when I first started driving here and it basically is on a first-come, first-served basis.

So whoever arrives at the junction first then has right away

and and you then let the next person go um they are very very hot in it depending on what state you're in

but the basic rule is you have to stop now i have actually been pulled over um at nine o'clock on a Monday morning once and I literally just came I slowed down

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