Most hateful road?

[Andymacselespeed]

I had the misfortune to drive along the A14 past Huntingdon towards Cambridge today at 4.30pm, the firday before bank holiday weekend. Is there by chance a more hateful road in this country? It is like dicing with death between HGVs, knobs in German cars and caravans. It has to be the most hateful, ill designed bit of road anywhere. Hundreds of short slip roads leading to tight bends on and off the road. Poor signposing, and just for fun, a constant stream of lorries overtaking each other at 0.1mph faster than the inside lane. Oh, and average speed cameras so when you do get an open stretch and you could get away from the rolling roadblock of lorries, your stuck behind a grandad doing 50 in the outside lane just in case. Or a woman doing her makeup in the raer view mirror, while weaving across the road, and talking on the mobile (yep, saw that one today too!) Oh, it is a hateful, hateful road.

 

[Stu DemonD]

Ah yes, what a road - I was on that only recently when we headed over to Great Yarmouth!!!

We also pulled into Cambridge Services, which was also fun and games....

 

[The Beard]

You could try the A6/A7 Autoroute into and out of Lyon in southern France. We were on it just over a week ago. The road runs quite nicely two lanes wide, until the Autoroute from Paris joins it, which on a Saturday in August means a lot more traffic.

At that point the traffic levels swell by about 35% and even though the road widens from two to three lanes, this then leads to all three lanes slowing rapidly from about 80 to about 20 mph. It then trundles along at that speed for a couple of miles then accelerates to about 80 again. After a few miles everybody slows down to 20 or so before a few miles later picking up speed again. It repeats this every few miles and every time the traffic slows down, your blood pressure goes up as you avoid the car in front and watch the guy behind narrowly miss your rear bumper.

You then drag through Lyon and see the 5 or 6 miles of queueing traffic going the other way and that puts you in a really bad mood because you know you will be in it going the other way in a week's time. After Lyon it gets much worse with more of the same, but more often, and you still have over 200 miles of this to go.

At one stage we had the ridiculous situation of driving in lane 2 at about 15 mph when an old Citroen 2CV with a cage full of chickens on the back seat and a driver who avoided the cliche'd Frenchman look only by dint of not having a string of onions round his neck overtook us in lane 1. As the traffic speeded up we passed him again, only for him to pass us again as soon as everything slowed down. The next time the traffic slowed I was one jump ahead and moved into lane 1 ahead of the tin snail. HAH! Got you there Froggy didn't I? You've got to get up early to get one over on The Beard.

The traffic accelerated and The Beard moved out into lane 2 to get a move on and.....Doh! Everything's slowing down again.....and what's worse is that I can't move back into lane 1 because I'm alongside a truck. Like the theme from Jaws, I can hear the unmistakable sound of an air cooledflat twin slowly getting closer. This went on for miles and once further south of Lyon, another Autoroute from Paris joins the A7 and the same rigmarole goes on for miles, but even worse.

So for me, the A6/A7 north and south of Lyon is the most hateful road.

 

[StevenRB45]

Try the A696 from swalwell to consett...otherwise known as the low road if you are from here...If its not ridiculous o clock then you are in a stream of traffic stuck behind one hopeless giffa doing an average of 23.5mph and have no hope of getting past due to the steady stream of cars coming the other way. Or you'll have to chavs on scooters side by side congratulating each other for reaching 33.7mph on their 30mph limited bikes in a national zone...
Then at ridiculous o clock you have taxis doing 120mph...you just can't win...

 

[udtrev]

I have 3 characters to say to you - M25 !

Case proven and closed my lord

 

[PNL]

I have 3 characters to say to you - M25 !

Case proven and closed my lord

Only been on the M25 a few time and I never want to go there again..shocking road when youve never been up/down and around it..

 

[Modette]

I agree the M25 is terrible and my GPS always seems to want to take me that route for some reason, even when coming right down the M1 would be better.

However, 5 mins drive from my house is the Hanger Lane Giratory.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-501669/Revealed-Britains-terrifying-road-junction.html.


Even after living here for ten years and being used to it, I still get occasions where I am forced off the lane I want to be in by someone who doesnt have a clue what they are doing and I have had SO many near misses its ridiculous. At certain times of the day you can sail around with ease, at other times its the most stressful experience of the day, filled with beeping, swearing, hand gestures and the occasional sound of metal against metal.....Throw in the BUS STOP which is on the roundabout, the cars that choose that spot to break down and the people who think its a good place to CROSS the road and it becomes very scary.

 

[claymore]

A9, Specifically the route from Perth to Inverness.

It's a busy single carrigeway. With the occasional overtaking lane and duel carrigeway.

Known as the killer, there are a number of accidents on that road mostly involving someone on the wrong side of the road trying to overtake a slow moving vehicle (Truck, Caravan it's all the same). The roads were never designed for overtaking in the first place but that hasn't stopped some from trying.

It's become worse over the years because of the council taking a blind eye to it. Sometimes just putting speed cameras near busy junctions was all they did. Little difference it made until they actually built a flyover, the best choice to begin with.

However, 5 mins drive from my house is the Hanger Lane Giratory.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-501669/Revealed-Britains-terrifying-road-junction.html.

Just noticed the daily fail article putting the Sheriffhall roundabout there. I've been using that one for years. It's about as scary as a duckling.

 

[SeanW]

Having travelled from Grimsby down to Crawley a few times this year (and the Cambridge area a few other times lol), I can honestly say I hate the A14 and M25!!

The A16 can be pretty bad at times!! Not just coming into Grimsby, but once out of town the number of bloody tractors!!!!

A46 -> A1 (at Newark) -> A14 -> M11 -> M25 -> M23
Like -> Tolerable.........-> Just no...no, no, no -> Tolerable

 

[zazadavison]

Having had the misfortune of having to move to Shropshire, I now find the A5/A483 from Shrewsbury to Wrexham the most hateful road. Peppered with Roundabouts and just wide enough for 3 cars so there is always some tosser tearing down the white line it is the most dangerous fuel consuming road ever,and the most hateful part of My journeys up to Lanark to see my other half.

Oh and the A55 on a bank holiday weekend....Aaaaargh!

 

[maddogmorg]

....and motorists in the South West voted for the M4/M5 interchange.

The Almondsbury interchange is in no way scary, in any direction, you just choose your lane and leave and join the motorway as you would at a slip road! the only problems come when heading north on M5 joining M4 East when the outside of the two lanes connecting them has some **** dawdling along at 30/40mph!! as it joins the inside lane of a 2 lane M4 with little chance to stay on slip road bit, but if travelling at 60 or so you can adjust your speed to match, if you're not confident just stay in the left hand lane where it starts it's own lane a little further on so M4 becomes 3 lanes!

I can think of worse places in the south west, both for most Irritating and most complicated! and there's lots of places here i've never been.

 

[dronenrs]

yeah the almondsbury interchange isnt really scary. some places in the centre of bristol are a bit more hit and miss

 

[scoop987]

A9 isnt that bad claymore, been on it a good few times, the worst part of the road is just at the stanley turn off just north of perth. For some reason, it slows down for about 5 mph for about 5 mins, but then it speeds up again. Mind you, I did get caught behind a vectra VXR and this guy took the P!55, 40 mph all the way and on the dual carriage way he was doing about the tonne.

 

[ChrisUK]

Most hateful road for me has to be the A68 from Corbridge to Darlington. Single carriageway way stuck behind tractors for most of the time.

 

[udtrev]

Most hateful road for me has to be the A68 from Corbridge to Darlington. Single carriageway way stuck behind tractors for most of the time.

The A272 is good for collecting tractors too :bang:

 

[maddogmorg]

i like encountering tractors usually.

it means the road ahead is cleared so you can then gun it for the overtake! a few places you can't overtake it can be furiating, but still, better than encountering horses!

But if my friend is driving the tractor :devil: overtaking cars in a tractor is

 

[GeorgeDamper]

I live 5 minutes from the M1 and usually look at Frixo before I set off

http://www.frixo.com/traffic/m-roads.aspx

 

[Bob in disguise]

Theres a lot of sh*te roads over in Suffolk/Norfolk, The A12 between Ipswich and Lowestoft where it goes down to single lane is pretty awful!

The M25 was really bad when the road works from the M40 to near the M1 were in place but luckily 2/3 of them have gone now and its improved a lot

The A34 has a knack of annoying me I have to admit!

 

[Vance]

The road adjacent to my house, potholes like swimming pools

 

[claymore]

A9 isnt that bad claymore.

Try telling that to my mother and myself as we were almost taken out by one of those queue jumpers on the single carrigeway. That was before seeing a queue of cars ahead with a bmw jumping one car after the other not caring if he took out an oncomming car (which he almost did.) just to get in front.