An innovative scheme has been launched in Cumbria to help drivers from overseas.

Highways England displayed electronic messages in nine foreign languages on roads approaching the M6 near Carlisle to warn of overnight closures.

An automatic number plate reader identified the origin of vehicles so that an appropriate language was used.

This came after several foreign lorry drivers took wrong turns during roadworks near Penrith last year.

It’s easy to criticise foreign drivers for getting things wrong.

In some ways I’m very much in favour of this, as it deflects attention from all the ways we homegrown drivers get things wrong.

I’ve never had the courage to drive abroad. Unless you count Scotland as abroad, which I do.

A visit to Paris many years ago put me off driving overseas.

I stood on top of the Arc de Triomphe and looked down at the traffic driving around it on the Champs-Élysées.

I couldn’t even count the number of lanes, partly because ‘lanes’ suggests a measure of order which was sadly lacking.

Cars were converging from all directions, cutting across each other with no discernible system.

I had no idea who should be giving way to who.

Giving way seemed to be regarded as a sign of weakness in France, like short lunch breaks and not going on strike.

It sounded as if the car with the loudest horn had right of way.

I’ve just looked at that section of road on Google Street View, and thought “Yeah, it’s pretty bad. But maybe I could give it a go.”

Then I realised that I’d have to drive on the right and the British roundabout rules would be reversed. And I felt a bit sick.

On the plus side, the Arc de Triomphe is a pretty impressive thing to have as the centrepiece of a roundabout.

Much better than its British equivalent: the Bench With Empty Lager Cans.

Perhaps Highways England could make more use of its ability to read number plates.

For anyone with a personalised plate I’d love to see the message:

‘You have more money than sense.’

In the past Cumbria has taken the opposite approach to Highways England: road signs which can be understood only by those who live within a few miles.

For example, those handwritten ones seen outside remote farms: ‘Tek care lambs ont road’.

Good luck with that if you’re from Slovakia. Or Slough.