My English friend was driving me home once when, out of the gloom, a sign appeared at the roadside ahead. His hands tightened around the steering wheel, his knuckles turned white, he leaned forward slowly and his eyes narrowed in intense concentration. "That sign," he whispered. "I can't read it. It's in some other language. I think it's telling me to 'Drive carefu-'..."
That's the last thing I remember before we both woke up in hospital beds, two more victims of Welsh road signs. As the evening went on, more people just like us kept being wheeled in, each one a victim of cruel policies designed to force Welsh down our throats.
Fortunately, I made a full recovery and was even able to get a job as a journalist, where I now read reports from court case after court case of drivers hurtling off roads as they try and fail to spot English words in an ocean of word soup nonsense on our signs. It's got to the point now where I refuse to publish these stories because I'm so bored of them. So if you're wondering why you've never heard of someone crashing their car because a Welsh road sign confused them, it's because I'm hiding it from you and not because it has Literally. Never. Happened.
But still I can't escape the carnage and disruption caused by these Welsh signs. I sit for hours in train stations waiting to pick up friends who ring me up long after their train has been and gone, screaming: "I'm still on the train! How the f*** was I supposed to know that Caerdydd is Cardiff??" And every year, when it comes to insuring my car, I have to take tests to prove I know that "Merthyr Tydfil" means "Merthyr Tudful".
Don't feel sorry for me. I know you're all suffering too. We've all lost someone to a Welsh road sign, which are actually all perfectly capable of appearing in English and only change to Welsh when the English drive past.
So do Irish road signs… Mathew Broderick ring any bells?!
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On August 5, 1987, while driving a rented BMW 316 in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, Broderick crossed into the wrong lane and collided head-on with a Volvo. The driver, Anna Gallagher, 28, and her mother, Margaret Doherty, 63, were both killed instantly
