Trois Citroens (Why I like driving in France)

In mid-2005 the UK was home to 60.2 million people, of which 50.4 million lived in England. The average age was 38.8 years, an increase on 1971 when it was 34.1 years. In mid-2005 approximately one in five people in the UK were aged under 16 and one in six people were aged 65 or over.The UK has a growing population. It grew by 375,100 people in the year to mid-2005 (0.6 per cent). The UK population increased by 7.7 per cent since 1971, from 55.9 million. Growth has been faster in more recent years. Between mid-1991 and mid-2004 the population grew by an annual rate of 0.3 per cent and the average growth per year since mid-2001 has been 0.5 per cent.

Source: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=6

Here are a few useful facts. There are over 24m cars on the road and the UK now has one car for every 2.1 people. While over 71% of households have at least one car, 22% have two or more cars. With UK sales reaching around 2.5m in 2002 it seems that more people than ever are buying cars.
Indeed, it has been calculated that if all the new cars bought last year were parked together, they would reach a distance equivalent to London to Edinburgh and cover 27 lanes of motorway.
Although cars are generally an easy and convenient way of getting around, the roads are becoming more and more congested. Road speeds in central London before the congestion charge was introduced were as low as they were 100 years ago: about 16kmh (10mph).

Source: http://education.guardian.co.uk/primaryresources/story/0,,916132,00.html

UK land area (Km2) = 242,900
(Includes the four constituent countries, excludes the three Crown dependencies (768 km²), the 13 British overseas territories (17,027 km²) and the British Antarctic Territory (1,395,000 km²), (1,655,695 km² if including overseas and disputed territories)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_outlying_territories_by_total_area

With an estimated population of 64 million people, France is the 23rd most populous country in the world. France's largest cities are Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Nice, Toulouse and Nantes.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France#Demographics

France Land Area (Km2) = 551,500
Includes Metropolitan France only; the entire French Republic (excluding Adélie Land) covers 674,843 km².

France Car Ownership: 29 160 000 cars(Ministère de l'Equipement, des Transports, de l'Aménagement duterritoire, du Tourisme et de la Mer,http://www.equipement.gouv.fr/statistiques/chiffres/transpor/transpor.htm#10,as of 31 Dec 2002)

So we can see that the UK population is similar (give or take 4m!) to that of France with almost twice the land mass. This information plus the fact that the French construction industry knows how to build bloody roads is the reason why I like driving in France!