Reply With QuoteIt's a shame your first experience was on the 303. It's a hateful road.
I did the Dover- Plymouth route yesterday. 300 miles. In short: interesting. As some of you predicted: the A303 is hell. What a dangerous road! No traffic jam apart from 2 mins. near Stonehenge. That was perhaps the most relaxed part of the trip... the allowed speed through villages is mindboggling.
But we survived without problems. 100% of the motorists I shared the road with were very friendly. Giving me ample space and time to overtake lorries on the Motorway.
Road conditions... mmmm. The guy where we’re staying put it like this: we were used to drive on the left side of the road. Nowadays we’re driving on what’s left of the road.
IRL it isn’t that bad off course.
On a different subject: yesterday evening we walked the path to the beach. A 5 min walk through a valley with a little stream heading to the sea. On top of the hill, Wembury’s church, obviously from early Midieval times. English flag on top and bells were ringing. (It sounder like a scène from Four Weddings and a Funeral). I can’t think of a better way to start a holiday in England!
It's a shame your first experience was on the 303. It's a hateful road.
Excellent! Coming in via Dover can be a nightmare of roadworks, potholes and traffic, especially after the (generally) wide open spaces of Europe. Fortunately not all of our road network is like that.
One benefit from being treated civilly when we are driving abroad is that I've noticed we tend to be more patient with drivers of cars with foreign plates in return. Glad you are finding most people are being polite on the roads. To be honest a strict enforcement regime with cameras everywhere has generally slowed and calmed everyone down. You don't get the 10% of people in a massive rush at all costs anymore, which makes driving so much nicer.
There's many lovely parts of the UK and Devon is certainly one of them.
it's certainly not fit for the volume of traffic it gets, but there's always the M4/M5 if it really bothers you.Originally Posted by Dave O'Sullivan
It's actually a lovely road when not overloaded with traffic, through some glorious scenery.
It's also far from the most dangerous - If the OP found the A303 scary, he really doesn't want to go anywhere near the A34 or the A339 north of Basingstoke!
M
The road out of Dover is horrible. It's a shame about the A303; I have happy childhood memories of going to the South West for holidays. Not sure if anyone warned you, but the school holidays start next week, so expect a huge increase in traffic starting on Saturday.
BTW, have you seen a hill before, and are you experiencing any altitude sickness, what with being above sea level and all? ;-)
Travelling through large parts of Europe with a boattrailer behind the Honda gives me an idea how ‘foreign’ (for us) motorists react. I’ve not encountered so much positive interaction as here: signaling from a lorry ‘okay, you’ve passed me, come to the left hand of the road again’. Good communication when you’re on a small road with oppositie traffic.
Coming from a country where the ‘hilliest’ part of the motorway are the exits... the step hills here in the South worry me from time to time. The only spots known to me on the Continent where I had to shift down two gears are in the Ardennes (South of Liege) and heading for Tuscany - but that wa without a trailer. Since yesterday, I’ve added a few spots...
Welcome back!
Although we're doing our best to ruin the place, I hope you enjoy the break.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
I think the 303 is lovely, as long as you don't have to use it when everybody else choose to. The scenery is lovely and at the times I use it it is very free flowing. One of the reasons I like it is it is ever changing so you don't get bored.
As for the speeds through villages, as ever it is a compromises between convenience for the road users and villagers. However my default position is that they chose to move to a house on one of the country's major trunk routes. Many of those settlements have built up around businesses serving the road. The only anomaly I can think of is Chicklade where I'm surprised it only drops to 50 not 40. The vast majority of villages are now bypassed and bypassing the rest would be a much better use of several 100 million than a tunnel to allow the heritage industry to steal Stonehenge from the public.
Our roads are in such poor condition now though that it is scandalous. A decade of little maintenance means endless potholes, broken surfaces, and faded or now nonexistent road markings.
Heaven knows how much it would now cost to remedy it all, but with the nation becoming poorer in the years to come I can only see the problem getting worse unfortunately.
So clever my foot fell off.
Well I think the A303 is decent enough - providing you travel at a time of your choosing; rather than Fridays or the weekend during the summer. I reckon the journey from Hampshire to Exeter takes about half an hour less on average, than it did when I first started driving it about 30 years ago.
As to a road from hell, you need to try certain parts of the M6 to tick that box.
As much as I dislike large 4X4's I can see a time when we'll all be driving them simply to cope with our rubbish roads!
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
At the risk of straying in to BP territory, I've never understand why the unemployed or low risk prisoners aren't out in gangs repairing our roads.
I cycled from Durham down into Devon and into Cornwall in 1977, some of it on A roads. It'd be quite suicidal nowadays I reckon.
F.T.F.A.
Or employ people to repair them?
I spotted some cyclists on the roads when driving down South.
My son saying: “J*sus, cyclists as well! The whole road is splattered with ‘warning-this-and-that signs’ but no ‘cyclists-on-the-road’ warning”.
He is observation about the H@S signs are right from a Continental point of view. Even the Germans back down on the Warning signs
whenever i come back from abroad one thing i really notice and appreciate is the quality of the infrastructure in the uk , the roads for example. The other thing i notice is how clean the environment is, both in terms of air quality and there not being loads of rubbish lying around everywhere.
I would say roads in my local area are pretty well maintained.
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Had a trip down to St Tropez last September. The french drivers on the motorways were terrible, desperately flashing me because I was in the fast lane, even though all lanes were clogged with traffic...
Ok, so we are at British roads are best, Britain is cleanest and British motorist the best. Topic done.
chuckle, well that was predictable.
Yes, totally.
Nice reply, but i never actually said any of that stuff. If you can misinterpret such simple things so radically, it does put alot of your other posts into context for me. Thankyou.
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Mmmm this derailed quickly (< 20 posts). I just put down a few observations - and, granted, a few conclusions/opinions. Just to get the conversation going on a sunny morning
You took that from reading the thread? Really? You didn't read it did you? You shot from the hip.
We had a couple of weeks in Corfu earlier in the year. What roads??? A collection of tracks spaced around potholes. Some of the cracks were big enough to lose a tyre down. We were going to hire a car but decided to do the bus and coach tours instead. I'm so glad that I did. One couple in the hotel were asked to pay 2400 euros for "damage" to the car on return!!!
So OP why did you think it was dangerous?
That's very kind of you.
You should come over here. You'd love it.
Lots of milliners, plenty of vintage rally enthusiasts and all the watches you'd ever want.
I live near Seikopath and I agree with him on all fronts. However, I moved here from London nearly 3 years ago and I think the quality of roads is hugely variable. For example, the roads in and around Reigate in Surrey have more potholes than road!! Interestingly most of the locals up here in Norfolk think the roads here are dreadful - they haven’t got a clue, I often find myself driving through sweeping country lanes over smooth roads with no sign of another cat for miles, like a 1970’s car advert!
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tbh cyclists are ALWAYS on the roads even when there's a very expensive cycle line going parallel with the road! I think the average UK driver has come to expect this and putting signs up warning us of cyclists would probably mean plastering signs every few hundred yards on every road.... perhaps signs saying 'no cyclists on the road' would be better? ;-)
jovial banter that's all :-)
The allowed and average speed limit is higher than I’d expected for a busy road like this. Two lanes up, one lane down without a middle barrier is not what I’d expected. The lay-by’s without the possibility of accellerating before re-entering the main road. Some pretty steep hills with bends at the bottom without signs ‘reduce speed’ or the French ‘car with trailers max 50 m/hr’ or equivalent.
In short: it was sometimes hard to ‘read’ the road. Combine that with LH driving... is why I found this dangerous. I am aware that this is all my perception and coming from the western part of the continent where most roads are straightenend (including northern Germany, Flandres and the NW part of France - take the road to Le Mans as an example), it’s all due to what I’m used to.
For instantie, I live relatively close to the German border. So it is common for me and people I know to take the car for a blast on the Autobahn. When you’re used to it, it’s safe an pretty harmless. But when I’m towing a boat, I look at this from another perspective as well.
Last edited by thieuster; 19th July 2018 at 13:03.
I think it just depends what your used to.
In some countries, they don't have direction signs before the junction, but only immediately at the junction. I find this really difficult, but i guess it's not a problem if youre used to it. Driving on the other side of the road is also a bit of an issue.
One thing i find around here is the speed that some drivers take on roads that don't have great visibility with alot of corners etc, and also don't actually have room for two vehicles to safely pass each other.
Nevertheless i hope you're enjoying your visit to our wonderful country!
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
No worries! It’s wonderful here. And all the people I’ve met until now are so nice and friendly! I love it. I walked down the beach this morning where I met this couple with a 4 month old bull terrier. Oh man! We had a great conversation about this lovely pup. Friendly as its owners.
Interesting figures re. road safety
https://www.swov.nl/en/facts-figures...al-perspective
seems to suggest that UK roads are safer than NL!
Nice to know you're having a nice time over here. Us Brits can be a friendly bunch most of the time!
ook
If you come over again, might I suggest N. Wales... We get loads of Dutch visitors in Snowdonia, for some reason they love the mountains😎😎
It's a popular spot for the Dutch Mountain Rescue team to do some traniing.
Let’s be noted that I have only seen a needle-pin-size of the complete UK roadwork. What struck us when returning from Morrison in Plymouth this afternoon: the absence of people using their phone (+ ear pieces...) when on the bike. I am sure that phone-use on a bike is a big no. Combine that with the use of phones by car drivers (checking What’s App...😊) and you have -imho- the first reason why accidents are on the rise
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