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It’s been a quiet year for Roads.org.uk, but we will be back to our usual schedule soon.
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Preston Bypass
The very first motorway was eight miles of relief for the Lancashire town of Preston. It goes without saying that there's an interesting story to be told about it.
Returning to London from the South Lakes on the 27th, and mindful of bad weather and traffic through Birmingham, I opted to use the A50 route (outstanding road. 9/10 would divert again) which brought me out here.
The mind boggled! Satnav (and signs!) were vastly confusing, especially at the cut through at 24. I don’t usually get flustered at road layouts - I learned to drive in north London where lane discipline is nil and chopping between lanes using optional indicators is positively encouraged - but at one point I felt very aware of being in the middle of two sets of traffic wanting to do different things.
I didn’t realise the scale of this horror until I used it, but as a pointer Mrs Stourdave rather scathingly observed that “you said this junction would put us straight on the motorway” some 10 minutes after we arrived at 24a, as I was still fighting through traffic to get to the bottom of this mess.
A genuinely difficult bit of road to drive - surely one of the characteristics of complex junctions like this should be ease of use for the first time visitor. I could see (presumably local) people doing things explicitly opposite to the instructions on signs to get where they wanted quicker (and laughing manically as they twizzled their Dick Dastardly moustaches - maybe). I followed the instructions, as a newbie is wont to do, and nearly disappeared into the ether. A truly awful place.