Sep 17 2002
English traffic
OK, so England has a real traffic problem. Although it’s pretty much the size of Pennsylvania, it takes a million years to get anywhere. That’s probably why the Empire, once one quarter of the globe, has shrunk to the size of, well, Pennylvania. It took them too damn long to get to wherever they were supposed to be defending the Empire.
It seems to work one of two ways to a girl used to the wide open spaces of the US of A.
1. The quaint country lanes, winding their way through the beautiful English countryside. These are something in the nature of the gorgeous girl who looks so great at first but then turns out to be a psycho or deeply stupid, thereby completely negating what were formerly irresistible charms. The lanes, too, look great, and you think, “How nice and relaxing to drive on these lanes which have been here for centuries instead of on a soulless freeway.”
But the lanes have these really high hedges on both sides which make it impossible to see what is around the corner. So you have to drive sloooooowly. It’s like driving in football time. You know how the clock in football says 20 minutes left in the game, and two hours later it says 15 minutes left? Same thing. Signpost says 5 miles to the destination, and it takes you an hour to get there, assuming that signpost wasn’t something put up to confuse potential invaders in WWII and left there either out of an evil sense of humor to mess with those tourists who shouldn’t be there in the first place, or because they just forgot about it and never changed it, in the same way that the letter of the law still says you can be hanged, drawn, and quartered Braveheart style for damaging the Great Wall of York, though hardly anyone ever is. And assuming that the signpost doesn’t say Exeter in every possible direction.
I had a revelation on Saturday that Lewis Carroll really wasn’t all that clever in making up that part in “Through the Looking Glass” where the road Alice is following keeps coming back to the same place and not where she was trying to go. He just observed it, he didn’t invent it.
2. The parking lots that are supposed to be freeways, or some form of highway. These would be your motorways or A roads. You get stuck on them as long as the country lanes, though unlike the country lanes, which give you the illusion of getting somewhere, you sit there endlessly and get nowhere. Probably one of the well-known rooms in hell. Really, really surprising that the murder rate isn’t higher, though come to think of it, that may be why they banned guns here in the first place. They wouldn’t be drive by shootings, they’d be canned hunts.
3 Responses to “English traffic”
I can partially agree with you on the motorways. We have a serious congestion problem on the motorways and pretty much every road around London or Birmingham, and that drives me up the wall too. However it all follows a pattern – certain roads get busy at certain times on certain days of the week, so after a few months you’ll be surprised how good you are at predicting the traffic.
A lot of A-roads around the country also get used by slower moving vehicles quite frequently, which can cause pretty big tailbacks.
However, dual carriageways fall nicely in the middle. They are A-roads with two lanes and they are often not too heavily used, so all the slow traffic goes in the nearside lane, leaving you to break the speed limit to your heart’s content in the offside lane.
However, I can’t agree with you on the country lane issue. If you are in a hurry, then they are best avoided, but if you enjoy driving then there is no better venue to feel the trees rush by.
It’s true that our roads don’t follow the same pattern as American roads, but it is all to do with land ownership. If you look at a map of the US, a lot of the States have straight boundaries. In the UK, a lot of land in the countryside is owned by farmers, and all the fields are irregular shapes. This is why the roads bend so much – because they have to weave between these irregular shaped plots of land.
I’ve been waffling a bit, but I hope it was interesting.
I have to mention how much I like the efficiency of roundabouts. Once you get the hang of it, there’s nothing better to help the flow of traffic (traffic lights within a roundabout which is within a roundabout not withstanding-yikes!). I would imagine it also helps cut down emissions.
Very amusing post.
If you think the UK is bad, try Ireland. Its all country lanes with slow tractors on them. 30mph seems fast.
Great post.