to think that some of the roads in this country are so appallingly designed that they contribute to accidents

[GetOrfMoiLand]

There are some scary stretched of road about (am sure that others can think of more examples).

M5 at Aztec West, Bristol. You come offt he motorway and have to negotiate your way across 3 lanes of fast moving traffic. What brainiac designed that fricking road. Used to work in Bristol and every damn day that bit scared me to death.

Getting from the M4 to the M5 north. One minute the signs tell you to be in one lane, at the last minute the signs change and you have to do a last minute dash across to the right lane.

Bloody minisclue short slip roads on new roads.

The whole of the North Devon link road (if you have ever driven on it you will know what I mean).

I am very confident driver but some roads put the fear up me, and I think it is because they arwe designed by nutcases.

[BellaEmbergsLovechild]

YANBU. Ther is a crossroads near us that, from one side, you cannot see if any cars are coming - you have to have the bonnet of the car well out into the road before you can see. There have been 32 accidents there since March.
The council won't improve the road layout, or introduce traffic lights, as there have been no fatalities (yet!)

[GetOrfMoiLand]

Thank you so much for not ignoring what everyone else thinks is a boring bastard thread!

Al the council does is put up signs saying '387 accidents on this road in 2009 - please drive carefully' as if that bloody well exonerates them from crappy road designs.

[ethelina]

YANBU. J10 M20 the roundabout is lethal the lanes make little sense and the traffic lights are loony. And I'm a very confident driver. There's always someone who gets it wrong. Also the crossroads near my house you have to 'peep and creep' til at least halfway across.

[EdgarAllInPink]

Agree strongly - the A24 has a 33 casualties in 3 yesrs sign and is still a crap road, would be vastly safer as proper dual carriageway. the council in that case was refused govt fundind to change it though.

some roads have really appalling numbers of incidents - vastly more than others. road design is an undeniable factor in road fatalities

[GetOrfMoiLand]

Thing is there are some roads which are well designed, so it can be done.

M5 - M42 is really well done, you know what lane to get in, everyeon has plenty of time, it is all easy and fine.

For some reason the M6 is a bloody nightmare in comparison.

The Aston Expressway - getting from one lane to the one about 600 feet that-a-way is bloody terrifying, even if you do know the road.

Some parts of the A303 are a law unto themselves.

And a couple of months ago i drove across the magic roundabout in Swindon. What the hell is that? It was as if tt was designed by a blind Amazon bushman who had only been describedt he concept of roundabouts by a small child.

[EdgarAllInPink]

A303 - has got better. still should be proper dual carriageway ~(and not go near stonehenge) - always a nightmare on Bank holidays.

[PfftTheMagicDragon]

the fucking A21 - is a dual carriageway, you're trundling along quite nicely. Then at the BUSIEST PART, is goes down to one lane. And, there's a merging lane. So you have THREE lanes of traffic merging down to ONE. Then - about 50 metres later, it goes back up to 2 lanes again and all the fucking traffic is gone. Numpties.

[ethelina]

Oh yes, the A12 is crap, why is there no decent 3-lane road into East Anglia?

[GetOrfMoiLand]

I went to Peterborough for the first time about a month ago - was quite surprised that it was an A road for such a long way.

And WHY are some of the roads covered in that godfosaken concrete for such long stretches - a bit pf teh M42 is like it, I felt like my brain was being shaken to smithereens when I last drove on it.

[PfftTheMagicDragon]

GoML - I like the M5/M42 too. I agree about the expressway - all of a sudden lanes disappear - there is no barrier in the middle of the road, people drive like lunatics, the speed limit changes by the minute.

[Nancy66]

Absolutely agree. There are some terribly designed roads and junctions - and ludicrously confusing signs and lights too.

There's a part of the south circular in London - at Tulse Hill - where traffic from three different directions has to cross one another to get to where they want to go...

[shelleylou]

Thre are plenty of roads that need sorting out. Whether that be the design or the speed limits changing. Admittedly it is a bit of a sore subject for me but it still needs addressing. Thers a stretch of road near me, just leaving a town going residental housing on 1 side fields on the other. Its a 60 limit but people race down there and turn the corners in the middle of the road. Theres been several fatal accidents on it since october. Acharity called Roadpeace campaign for safer roads and i truely hope the succeed

[gingercat12]

GetOrf I always complain about road design. Of course, now I do not remember any specific example.

Although having a one-lane dirt track on the A1 somewhere between Morpeth and Alnwick must have been a good joke for somebody. No wonder there are so many accidents there.

[EdgarAllInPink]

Safety check - the ten most dangerous routes

lifted from this article

A889 between the A86 and A9 near Dalwhinnie. Undulating and twisty road from the main north-south route to the turn for Western Isles.

A537 Macclesfield to Buxton. Known as the "Cat-and-Fiddle" pass, this route over the Peak District is popular with motorcyclists.

A12 suburban route from Romford to the M25. Often overloaded.

A4137 between the A49 and the A40 west of Ross-on-Wye. Main route from Hereford to south Wales.

A628 from the A616 to Penistone, South Yorkshire. A main east-west route over the north Peak District.

A1001 at Hatfield in Hertfordshire. An alternative link to the A1(M), providing access to Hatfield and links to St Albans and Welwyn.

A534 from the Welsh border to Nantwich in Cheshire. Heavily used as a cut-through to north Wales, avoiding Chester and the A5.

A533 around Runcorn, Cheshire. Part of ring road acting as route to the Mersey bridge, the A56 and the M56.

A682 from junction 13 of the M65 to the A65 at Long Preston, North Yorkshire. Hilly route along the Ribble Valley towards the Yorkshire Dales.

A5 from Daventry in Northamptonshire to Rugby in Warwickshire. Heavily used and running parallel to the M1.

[GetOrfMoiLand]

I have never driven on any of those roads.

I am so glad I am not the only grump to go on about roads. I bore DP to death 'who designed this bloody road' etc.

[Rockbird]

The only time I have come anywhere near close to killing myself was just outside Bristol. We were driving to Cornwall and ended up going to wrong way down a slip road onto a roundabout. I realised too late and had no option but to keep going. I have never been so fucking scared in my entire life. I'll take any number of hours queueing near Stonehenge rather than that.

[larakitten]

Where I live, there is a little village that has just had its town centre "improved". The council have removed all the road signs and markings so now no-one has a clue who has right of way etc. This was done in the vested interests of public safety .

I complained to the council as I have had so many near misses driving through this village, and all they could say was that by creating confusion amongst motorists and pedestrians they were creating a safer environment as we would all slow down.

Be interesting to see what insurance companies make of it when the inevitable crashes start happening - no road markings, so how do they decide who is at fault???

Only our council would be so daft.

[alicet]

The worst I have seen is junction 3 on the M50 heading west. As you come off there is a tiny sign indicating a bend that totally underestimates the fact that the road totally bends back on itself. I am gobsmacked that there aren't millions of accidents as unless you are going about 30mph it is pretty hairy. And you wouldn't normally be going that slow when just exiting a motorway would you?

Only saving grace is that it is probably only used by people wo live there / know it!

The A167 in central Newcastle is nuts too. Slip roads entering in the outside lane and needing to cross 2 lanes of traffic in about 100m - crazy!

[GetOrfMoiLand]

Lara - I read an article about roads in Belgium (iirc) where they have absolutley no road markings at all. Apparently it makes drivers safer as they don't just rely on road markings, traffic lights etc to tell them what to do, but actually look at the other drivers to see who will got first etc.

Might work in respectable Belgioum, don't know if it will transfer to England's mad drivers though.

[gingercat12]

alicet I do not use the Central Motorway in Newcastle if I can help it.

[ethelina]

My local council thought it was a good idea to pay a local artist to create a sculpture at a busy junction into the town centre. So far so good, but the installation turned out to be 20-odd road signs all saying different things, turned in towards each other, and out towards the traffic. The town had just undergone a massive upheaval with the ringroad going from 1-way to 2-way so all this did was confuse things even more.

Needless to say it was removed quite quickly.

[tokyonambu]

Most of the examples being quoted are when new bits have been grafted onto existing roads. And since "close the M5 for three months while we build the link" isn't an option, you have to put up with a junction where every stage in its construction leaves the road open. M42/M5 had huge amounts of spare land available and that section of the M42 wasn't opened, so the junction was easy; M5 at Aztec West was a set of business parks opening thirty years after the motorway was built, with buildings and other roads encroaching in every direction. Even in the case of Spaghetti Junction (and yes, heading from Birmingham towards the M6 is a nightmare, even for people who've used it all their adult lives) there were roads that had to be open throughout the building of the interchange (and canals, and railways, because Salford junction and Grand Junction junction are underneath it) and that constrained the design.

[Ariesgirl]

Anyone who needs to go from the south west to the north west, here's a tip. Avoid the feckin M5/M6 altogether and go up the A49 through the Marches. Ok you have to pay the Bridge toll but God it's worth it

Many roads in this country are an absolute disgrace. Don't get me started on councils who think that painting yellow circles round pot holes constitute road improvements.