It must be time consuming and quite tedious to commute into and out of London by car every day. But at least the traffic is civilized. I've been to St. Petersburg a few times. I will never, ever enter that city by car. It's fucking terrible. You see banged up cars of every description everywhere. There are a lot of Parking spaces from which cars back up straight into main streets where cars do 60-70 km/h. People driving like madmen in narrow streets with sharp turns and cars parked on both sides.

In the summer of 2003, the European Go Congress (a major two-week event where the European Championship tournament is held among many others) was held in St. Petersburg, Russia. It was the 300th anniversary of the city and it was packed with tourists and must have been busier than usual. One evening, a few friends of mine and I were returning from the city center to the tournament venue on the outskirts of the city where our accommodation was. Normally, we would've taken the underground followed by the train. But it was too late and the underground was closed for the day. We had to take one of the popular minibuses. In the southwest of the city, there was a very busy intersection of five major roads. There were no traffic lights. Our lunatic driver drove into the intersection at a speed of about 80 km/h (I was sitting close enough to the driver to see the odometer). None of the twelve passengers or the driver had seat belts on. There were cars impatiently waiting for their turn to drive through the intersection everywhere. A single mistake would've caused 10-15 people to be killed or severely injured instantly. In order to survive that traffic, you need nerves of steel and eyes in the back of your head.