Driving for masochists- old roads you don't miss

[J6onM27]

A27/A35 Southampton (missing section of M27)
A27 through Brighton
A35 Tolpuddle/Puddletown/Bere Regis
A30 Indian Queens
A31 Ferndown/Wimborne
A33 Winchester
A20 Ashford to Maidstone (missing section of M20)

[Ben302]

A2 East Rochester Way

[jonnyf90]

Those Shap photos are absolutely superb!
Will definitely take the A6 rather than the M6 when I head to the North West later in the year.

Cheers
Jonny

[SteveA30]

Aw shucks. Ok, you talked me into it, here is another one, from a postcard this time. I've reduced the garish postcard colours to less sickly. This seems to be the late 60's, from the blue P sign. Would that date from about 1967 onwards, when Worboys were being introduced? The S3 has now gone. I guess it really was as dangerous as the other pics imply.

A feast of Shap can be found below in the Roadhog/Shutterfly link. Pictures and Videos - then 16 down past all of the diversion albums. 62 pics, soon to be 64, when I've added 2 more newly found. M3 and Exeter are good as well.

[Helvellyn]

Aw shucks. Ok, you talked me into it, here is another one, from a postcard this time. I've reduced the garish postcard colours to less sickly. This seems to be the late 60's, from the blue P sign. Would that date from about 1967 onwards, when Worboys were being introduced? The S3 has now gone. I guess it really was as dangerous as the other pics imply.

Nice. There's still the odd bit of S3 left up there even today (unless it's gone very recently), although the longeset three lane stretch still there is S2+1 now (I assume it was once S3).

[Glenn A]

A2 East Rochester Way

How about the western S2 part that trundled through Kidbrooke and Eltham and went through the middle of a housing estate?

[Ben302]

A2 East Rochester Way

How about the western S2 part that trundled through Kidbrooke and Eltham and went through the middle of a housing estate?

That was the bit I meant but inevitably the queue started at Danson for that bit most days. Another one that popped into my head today was the A228 before the Sharnal Street by-pass was opened. This section had an appalling accident record mainly involving head-on collisions with HGV traffic heading to and from Thamesport - the road was a narrow S2 with many frontages and hidden dips and crests and pinch points. The local news often featured accidents on this stretch and the road was abandoned and gated off when the bypass opened in 1995. The rest of the route has progressively been improved with D2 realignments and widening and realignments to eradicate the accident blackspots although one narrow section remains but has a draconian 40mph specs enforced limit and today accidents are rare on the route

[milly]

One of the best posts I've seen on the Interweb for a long time. Thank you!

The cats eyes on this S3 section in the foreground are still there today
Thanks. I wish there were more general traffic views out there. Mostly, it is local newspaper stories.

Re, awkward junctions like the A303/A359. Travelling from Fleet to Reading on Saturday shopping trips was a journey of 2 halves. Fleet to Hartley Wintney and HW to Reading. Crossing the A30 was via a half mile staggered crossroads. Most of the 10-15 mins was just waiting for the cars in front to nudge their way out into the endless procession of westbound traffic. Much the same at junctions all the way to Cornwall I guess.

Here are 3 more at Shap.
1. Another Ford Anglia tries a blind overtake. A coach and van have to slot in to the line of traffic somehow. The white coach looks as if it may have locked up, as the traffic in front bunches up.
2. A quieter scene as 2 cars and a lorry line up for the swoop downhill.
3 The traditional Shap snow scene. A long convoy crawls up at less than walking pace probably. A southbound lorry creeps carefully downwards in low gear, to avoid brake fade and a possible runaway. I don't think an advert for Black Boy Tips Tea would pass muster today!

[Glenn A]

The A39 through Wadebridge, I was there a week before the by pass opened and locals were planning a big barbecue to celebrate. I can remember walking along a narrow pavement and the traffic being so bad people were bunched up in doorways to avoid lorries going past.

[J-Rod]

Not a British example but anyone remember the N138 between Rouen and Le Mans? Kill me now. The Alençon Bypass was the only motorway on the whole route. You did get some D2 but bottlenecks like Sees and Gacé wiped out any benefit.

The worst from memory was a crossroads at Nonant le Pin where a level crossing also added to the fun.

Today for that kind of experience you have to take the N147 from Poitiers to Limoges.

we go through there every year on our way to Spain, there still doesn't appear to be a way to avoid Rouen. All North/South European traffic that doesn't go through Paris must use at least part of this route. If ever a city needed a bypass it's Rouen!

[Chris Bertram]

The A39 through Wadebridge, I was there a week before the by pass opened and locals were planning a big barbecue to celebrate. I can remember walking along a narrow pavement and the traffic being so bad people were bunched up in doorways to avoid lorries going past.

I was holidaying in that part of the world recently. The old road through town is certainly narrow in places, and the bridge must have been at risk of structural damage. Definitely a deserving case for a bypass, and the new road is straighter and shorter too (though it must be said that a short section of the old road in the centre has now been pedestrianised, with traffic sent around the edge).

[Ruperts Trooper]

A5 from Shrewsbury to Crick (pre-M6) and A446/A38/A39 Wolverhampton-Newquay (pre-M5).

I too remember the dual A74 on my Wolverhampton-Peterhead trips in the early '70s - fast but dangerous as it was narrow, twisty and prone to bad weather - slow through the roadworks between Gretna and Carlisle and trying to get from M74 to A80 during M73 construction - I do though have fond memories of the A94 from Perth-Stonehaven (pre-A90), always busy but easy to make progress for an impetuous youngster.

[multiraider2]

The A39 through Wadebridge, I was there a week before the by pass opened and locals were planning a big barbecue to celebrate. I can remember walking along a narrow pavement and the traffic being so bad people were bunched up in doorways to avoid lorries going past.

I was holidaying in that part of the world recently. The old road through town is certainly narrow in places, and the bridge must have been at risk of structural damage. Definitely a deserving case for a bypass, and the new road is straighter and shorter too (though it must be said that a short section of the old road in the centre has now been pedestrianised, with traffic sent around the edge).

I stayed Dinham Farm in nearby St. Minver in 1996 and 1997. That was June and not in the school holidays. The queue throughout the day often stretched beyond the B3314 junction and it could be 20/25 minutes to get through. Traffic from the A39 had to merge with that on the A389 at a mini-roundabout just before the bridge. I wouldn't like to imagine what it was like in August. So, with a new section of A389 joined in 1993 to the new roundabout above town, the bridge serves as bypass for both roads.

[Piatkow]

The old A12 through Brentwood. I remember my cousin and I walking down Brook Street hill one summer weekend in the 60s and keeping pace with the traffic. The first rat run that I ever learned from watching my father's driving was round the back roads of Brentwood to avoid the High Street.

[mark3evo]

i remenber the D2 from alconbury to peterborough, i remember being in a 5 mile slow moving queue, caused bt 8mph steam traction engine

i could see the column of black smoke

[multiraider2]

The old A12 through Brentwood. I remember my cousin and I walking down Brook Street hill one summer weekend in the 60s and keeping pace with the traffic. The first rat run that I ever learned from watching my father's driving was round the back roads of Brentwood to avoid the High Street.

I'm from Brentwood, but born in 1965 I can't remember 1966 and the A12 pre-bypass. But because of the High Street and the three-phase light-controlled A128 Junction pre- M25, it was still advisable to miss the centre in the 70s and 80s.

So: This as a rat run?

or this?

or something else?

[Owain]

The Lancaster one-way system. Truly horrendous at almost any time of day, on almost any day. Sundays could be the worst!

[Piatkow]

The old A12 through Brentwood. I remember my cousin and I walking down Brook Street hill one summer weekend in the 60s and keeping pace with the traffic. The first rat run that I ever learned from watching my father's driving was round the back roads of Brentwood to avoid the High Street.

I'm from Brentwood, but born in 1965 I can't remember 1966 and the A12 pre-bypass. But because of the High Street and the three-phase light-controlled A128 Junction pre- M25, it was still advisable to miss the centre in the 70s and 80s.

So: This as a rat run?

or this?

or something else?

Neither: Sawyers Hall Lane, Ongar Road, Western Road, Park Road, Weald Road.

I had forgotten the A128, I tried riding a bike down there (pre M25) once and only once. It was terrifying, narrow lanes and wide lorries.

[RichardA626]

The Lancaster one-way system. Truly horrendous at almost any time of day, on almost any day. Sundays could be the worst!

Recently Sundays seem to bring out some odd driving standards, not just the usual pensioners going further then the usual around town driving either.

[Enceladus]

Where to start with the roads here in Ireland? Most of the inter-urban routes were S2 until the 2000s with very little motorway and not that many bypasses. So many midlands towns were dreadful bottlenecks. Prior to the 1970s and 80s, these S2 sections were little more than goat tracks, very windy and narrow with no hard shoulder.

Dublin pre-M50 was a nightmare in places. Chapelizod, a pretty village in the West Dublin suburbs, was an atrocious bottleneck.