Spree I spraddle on the back seat

We are now a step closer to living the American dream and now own a car. And what a palaver it was.  Finding the car was easy - just go around a whole load of car dealers until you find one that you want. We ended up with a red four door 2006 Toyota RAV4 with just over 38,000 miles on the clock (for all you trivia fans) for a very reasonable price. Getting it was a bit more problematic.

Since we have been here we have had a variety of hire cars (they only let you have them for a month at a time so the first one had to go back, the second one overheated on the freeway so we ended up with a third on which the oil light warning kept going on and off). They all came from the Alamo car hire office at Boston's Logan airport so had to be taken back there. So on Friday morning last week we drove down to Boston and took it back. The plan was to get the bus back to Nashua and have the car dealer come and pick us up.

We were tootling down the freeway in to Boston when I had a terrible thought - I didn't have my passport with me. Now this may not sound like a bad thing but if you don't have a US driving license the its the only form of ID that this is acceptable. But why would you need ID anyway? I hear you ask. Well, if you want to buy a ticket on a bus or a train then you have prove who you are. Don't ask me why this is case but it is and its immutable (as someone many of us know found on a family holiday to California a couple of years ago...).

Now I didn't fancy a wait in Boston whilst Giselle (who sensibly had hers) went back, picked the car up, sorted out the insurance and drove back to get me. So when the bus arrived (for which we were the only passengers from the airport) we had a word with the driver, who understood my plight and said that he would vouch for me with the ticket agent at the South Station (where the bus also goes and where they sell the tickets from - a strange way of doing things but par for the course for America). Which is what he did.

So an hour later we were picked up from the bus terminal just off Route 3 by the dealer, handed an not inconsiderable cheque over and the car was ours - sort of. Firstly there was the matter of insurance. To get our insurance we had to go to the brokers office. But didn't you have to drive there without any insurance? Yes but do you know what? Insurance isn't a mandatory requirement in the state of New Hampshire. Yes thats right, you can drive around without any insurance at all and its not a problem (obviously it is when you have a n accident but I suppose thats the chance that you take.). You would have thought that in such a litigious country it would be the complete opposite but no, you are perfectly at will to have no insurance whatsoever when you drive. Don't know what the rules are in other states but I suppose its all part of the Live Free or Die ethos. All sorted then, no not quite.

In the UK when we buy a car (or a bike or well anything thats needs one) it comes with its registration plate attached to it. Not here though (apparently for insurance purposes all vehicles are identified by their VIN numbers). When we got it from the dealer it had a temporary (cardboard) license plate attached to the rear which was valid for 20 days. This morning we had to go to City Hall to get our real license plates. Which could have been interesting as we apparently are supposed to have a New Hampshire driving license to do this but remarkably a UK license works just as well (although we now apparently have to go to Concord, the State capital and get New Hampshire licenses).

The interesting thing about this is that the whole process (temporary and permanent plates) costs in the region of $500. And the permanent plates have to renewed every year for another approximately $150. So there may be no road tax here in the way that we understand but this doesn't mean that motorists aren't exempt from paying their dues.

Rather boringly we went for the standard number plate with the next number and not a vanity plate as we couldn't thing of anything suitable to put on it. Answers on a post card please........