18 MARCH 1966, Page 26

A motorist today needs to be more than a driver,

he needs the observation of an aircraft spotter and the memory of a computer. Looking at the new AA handbook Co-driver : The Motorist's Companion (12s. 64.), I realise that I had never fully appreciated the significance of all those yellow lines painted on kerbs and in gutters. Vaguely one knew that the double line was tougher than the single, and that the broken line could largely be ignored. But no one, as far as I recall, has told me that the double yellow line means that I can be 'done' for parking at any time of day or night, weekdays or weekends. The book tells you all this and the continental roadsigns, too—in colour.

But its great strength lies in its distractions: owls' pellets and thrushes' anvils, Early English and Inigo Jones, Old Wives' Sod and Somerset rabbit. These should keep the back-seat drivers preoccupied.