OPINION: A short hop back to the UK was a stark reminder of just how bad our roads are

Admittedly, the 15 minute-delay clearing the immediate traffic didn’t help, furiously crunching the numbers in my head to calculate whether I would or wouldn’t make my aimed-for crossing (I wouldn’t), but congestion after such an event is unavoidable and thus understandable. The nick of the roads and their users, however, is less forgivable.

Why the UK bothers with a 70mph speed limit is almost beyond me because, at the Southern end of the country at least, the times you can actually do that speed are vanishingly small – roadworks and the new variable speed gantries mean 50s and 60s are now the name of the game. 

Even when there’s no roadworks, if there’s a hint of traffic it seems everyone defaults to the fast lane sitting (dangerously) nose to tail at far below the speed limit. Even on a clear road, you can guarantee there will be a Range Rover sitting in the right lane oblivious to what’s around it. 

Now, we can blame the people – I do all the time, but you also have to ask the question: why on earth is motorway driving not on the driving test? My driving instructor didn’t teach me to stay left as much as possible, not at a practical level at least. No, it was my father that did it screaming “get out of their way, Russell” if I dared to linger in lane three. If you didn’t have that ‘blessing’ how would you know either way?

It also occurred to me: why does this country have a problem with building good roads that cross west to east? In my native Scotland, our two biggest cities Glasgow and Edinburgh, just 50 miles apart, are connected by the M8, a two-lane motorway permanently filled with two slow-moving streams of traffic. The day after my trip, I spoke to a friend facing returning from Cornwell with equal enthusiasm. 

The return from Goodwood to my Folkestone destination was even more exasperating, requiring a blast up the M23 only to come back down the M20. Naturally, the roads were chocka, strewn with temporary speed limits.

And then there are the roads themselves. Now, the roads down south are pretty awful, peppered with potholes and terrible surfaces (that bit of the M25 I’m looking at you) but if you think they’re bad, try Glasgow for size. There, the roads have deteriorated so bad many have more in common with gravel than an actual solid surface. Then there are the potholes, some of which you’d need a Mercedes G-Wagen to give yourself a sporting chance of avoiding punctures and buckled wheels. 

Getting off the other end was the definition of contrast. The roads were clear, the surfaces were smooth and complete and the 81mph speed limit feels about right for a modern car. When I went home and did the calculations, the differences were stark – almost a 20mph average speed difference (47mph versus 67mph) between driving at home and driving abroad. A major difference when you have hundreds of miles to travel.

If you think I’ve a downer solely in the UK I most definitely don’t. If my current home in the Netherlands is a great place to get big miles done and dusted, you’re unlikely to gain great pleasure from the experience. The roads are mostly arrow straight, broken up by the odd right-angle turn necessitated by a change in direction, not to go around natural obstacles, because there are very few in this almost completely flat country.

Confirmation of this came on a recent launch, during which a photographer (always good people to know if you’re on the lookout for a good road) told me that “the best driving roads in the Netherlands are in Luxembourg.”

The UK meanwhile, has your pick of scenic and fun-to-drive roads in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, if only we could do a better job of building motorways and using the correct etiquette to drive on them.

Images courtesy of Unsplash.