The sunshine, the stunning scenery, the winding mountain pass, the classic open-top car with perhaps a beautiful girl in the passenger seat: European road trips are truly one of life's joys and a far cry from the stresses of modern air travel.

In whichever country you may find yourself, a quiet country road linking one idyllic village to the next is seemingly around the next corner.

But, if this method of travel really is so appealing, why do so few Brits attach a GB stickers to the back of their cars and head to the ports as soon as the weather starts brightening?

One inescapable answer is that these lovely foreign roads also happen to be used by foreign drivers, long the blight of the civilised British motorist and the topic of many a dinner-party anecdote.

While forthcoming legislation is set to replace the British driving licence with an EU-wide one, the belief that driving habits alter, and indeed worsen, drastically after Calais persists.

Not only do British drivers have to cope with driving on the other side of the road once they reach the continent, in addition to negotiating unfamiliar routes using foreign-language signs, but they have to go on the defensive to protect themselves and their vehicles from Europeans showing scant regards for the rules of the road.

Aside from the speeding and an all-round reluctance to indicate, the majority of male drivers within the Western European countries, including France, Italy and Spain can generally be relied upon to be paying more attention to passing females or to their mobile phone conversations than to the road and its other users.

However, for a Brit to express his annoyance at such habits is to encourage the Europeans to express themselves in the only way they know how; loudly and with both hands waving wildly in the air rather than in control of the steering wheel

Though such stereotypes may be, for the most part, mildly amusing, driving on foreign roads amidst drivers with unfamiliar habits can also be an unfortunately serious affair.

According to the latest figures released by the US State Department, one in three of every American deaths on foreign soil is the result of a road accident of some description, though few travellers give the issue much thought before setting off.

"Travelers indeed worry about malaria - all the diseases they can contract.

"They worry about terrorism, they worry about hooliganism, they worry about people taking their things," said Rochelle Sobel, president off the Association for Safe International Road Travel.

"And they don't worry about the single greatest cause of death."

These comments come as the World Health Organization recently reported that car crashes are the leading cause of death for people aged between 18 and 24, promoting governments across the globe to look into improving safety standards.

While travelers should indeed enjoy motoring in a foreign land and the numerous joys it brings, travel safety experts have recommended that they take certain precautions, such as to avoid driving at night and, above all, to research the roads and driving habits of the places they are visiting before setting off from home.