Forum menu
M1.Pretty much all of it to be honest. Shit services, perpetual roadworks, atrocious drivers. I see more middle lane hogging, tailgating and general ****wittery on that road than even the M6.
I agree with crazy-legs. I think the A1 has marginally worse driving though.
Cornwall is not even that nice.
The thing is it's quite a lovely place when viewed in isolation.
BUT
It's certainly not worth the M5 or either of the routes from central Southern England at any vaguely holiday related time of year.
Nice to see the Chichester bypass getting another vote although out towards Arundel is also pretty shocking.
Why the hell do I live in the South again?
The thing is it's quite a lovely place when viewed in isolation.
Each to his/her own but I find it crowded, expensive, increasingly pretentious (rich newcomers mainly), not welcoming and an awful lot of it isn't nice at all.
A14, particularly between Huntingdon and just east of Cambridge.
It takes most of the HGV traffic that leaves from the ports on the east coast and is no way man enough for the job.
Couple that with all the commuter traffic and it's a nightmare.
Oh, and there are currently road works to basically stick a new road in that won't be finished until Dec 2020.
One of my colleagues' brother-in-law is project managing the works and it is a massive project!
A31 & a35 through Dorset. 45 mph for miles and miles behind coffin Dodgers unless you are really eat or really late.
Gary Rhodes
I too detest the A34 but the A27/M27 has to be above it on my list. Absolute chaos, especially around J11, J9 & J7.
M25 clockwise from jct 29 to the QE2 bridge...was three lanes of pure driving hell and now it's four lanes of total dispair...all caused by people queuing up to get into Lakeside shopping centre (the third circle of Hades) and IKEA ( the second) and then the cars, trucks, busses that either slow right down, break down or crash as soon as they hit the incline of the QE2 bridge. One high point was watching two drivers having a post cut-up incident fight/wrestling match/heavy petting sesh (wasn't sure as I didn't want to stop as I was in a hurry to get home) in the middle of lane 3 of the bridge one sunny afternoon in bumper to bumper traffic...
Only positive now is that the toll booths have gone so you now avoid the 12 lane automotive equivalent of "Runaround NOW!" (One for older viewers) once you finally reach Kent.
Very closely matched with jct 4/3/2 ( depending on the severity) to jct 30 via the Dartford tunnel...abandon hope all ye who enter...
11 years of my life was spent commuting on that road, the day I quit my job and realised I didn't have to do that commute was a very special day indeed.
Now the queuing on the local A27 at Arundel, whilst bad, seems pretty tame in comparison, not being in a hurry any more and a mix of flexi-time/working from home helps greatly too 🙂
No-one's mentioned the A12! The East Anglian superhighway! Awful, awful road to use.
Surely the A14 has to get a mention. Especially now with added permanent road works and 40mph limit until 2020.
They are closing it next week completely during the night. I think they should just leave it closed.
Yep, this as well, huge (barely-)rolling lorry park.
I was also going to post up both the A13 out of Town and into Essex, but coming into Townnis the worst.... but then you are only doing 15mph in an 8mile queue.. but it's mainly residential.. and it's North East London where everywhere is a rammed arrogant place to drive.
So the A13 is out.
What about the A2? That can be annarse of a road, but since the AveSpeed cameras have been fitted it's actually not that bad.. unless you come within 3miles of the Dartford Tunnel... then you encounter blindside idioticness and pure arrogance.
But I've one more to add to the A27 ChichBypass...
The A286 on any hint of a sunny day, weekends and bank holidays are especially cruel to the locals.. because it's the road that leads off the A27 at Chichester and heads towards...
West
Wittering
Pure hell.
It's not a very long road, normally from the roundabout to Witts it takes 15mins to the beach, but during "peak times" it takes 2+ hours!!!! Honestly sitting in a queue in 30C to get to the beach with engines running powering a/c's in cars is quite repugnant.
Welcome to the South Coast fellas.
Seems like all major roads are dreadful in one way or another. Happen its not the actual road?
Happen its not the actual road?
It's not always the road but the design does play a part.
The common factors across all the hate roads above (more than half of which have been a regular part of my life for too long) are a combination of 3 main things to my mind.
1) high traffic density
2) driver behaviours
3) high junction frequency and poor road design
3 & 1 impact 2 and 2 makes the effects of 1 & 3 worse. Self perpetuating problem!
There's a 4th factor too which is the lack of any redundancy in the transport network by which I mean if something relatively minor occurs the knock on to secondary routes (or absence of secondary routes) is horrific.
We are decades behind some European countries (Germany and Netherlands for example) in our road/junction design and transport infrastructure generally. While they have more space per capita / lower densities they also seem to have the appetite and political will to invest. We have the attitude that we can put a sticking plaster on a compound fracture.
Nothing wrong with any of those roads, just all you lot clogging them up in your cars. Oh, but of course it's not [i]you[/i], it's everyone else...
I don't commute regularly so I don't get to see this rush-hour hell that often. I'm usually driving up the M6 on a weekend or evening when it's just busy. However whatever time of day it is the M62 seems to have the worst drivers on it. Shockingly bad.
We are decades behind some European countries (Germany
Hah. I used to live near some unbelievably terrifying badly designed junctions in Munich. Worse than anything I've seen here, even M4 J27.
M5 J26 to Avonmouth, Bristol Junction.
I LOVE the A34.
A34 = holidays. In all honesty, the only bad bit is at Winchester where it meets the motorway but peel off through Winchester, stop at Sainsbugs for a meal deal and hop back onto the motorway, missing the traffic. Jobs a good 'un.
It used to be the A9 for me, but since they set the speed cameras and allowed the large trucks to do 50mph on the single carriageway sections it has much improved. You can still get the convoys behind caravans though.
Came down it at the weekend, speed cameras have made a difference but there's still arsehole behaviour at the end of the dual carriageway sections where most cars filter in to the single lanes then some dick decides to barrel right past everyone making everyone else brake so they can just about squeeze in.
the North Circular (A406). it's basically a race track with no normal rules:
- speed cameras are just an opportunity to test your emergency braking
- you stay in the middle lane unless you're overtaking
- you use the outside or inside lane to overtake depending on which lane your opponent has chosen
- sounding your horn is basically an invitation to a death-match
The A14.
Totally unsuitable for being _the_ major road from Felixstowe to the midlands and, now that people have recognised this, it is just a mess of roadworks that will be in place for another 3 years.
Total FUBAR.
For me its a close thing between the M25 (J16 [M40] - J10 [A3]) and the A40 between Witney and Oxford!