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It’s a sign!

I have recently undertaken a road trip!

I drove from Nottingham to Torquay and then, a day later, drove from Torquay back to Nottingham. While I was in Devon there was a lot of local mileage, so the tripmeter actually reads considerably more than 462 miles.

And what a dull, dull, dull 462 miles it is. The first half of the journey is the excruciatingly boring A52, A453, A42, M42, M5, A38, and A380. The return half is the excoriatingly stupefying A380, A38, M5, M42, A42, A453, and A52.

Almost all of that two-way stretch has a mandated maximum speed of 70mph. Except that’s not how it worked out at all.

For huge amounts of the return journey The Motorway Powers That Be changed the speed limit through the use of these little blighters:

For eight miles on the M5, south of Taunton, traffic was held to 50mph for no reason at all. For EIGHT MILES. No roadworks, no breakdowns, no forest fires, no herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain… no reason, no reason at all. No reason given, and no reason seen. I was good (yes, I know). I set the cruise control to 50mph and promptly fell asleep sang loudly to annoy the people in the car behind. Except the car behind (along with every other vehicle on the motorway) overtook me at speed. I sort of couldn’t blame them. 50mph sign after 50mph sign after 50mph sign crawled past, yet there was no reason. Absolutely no reason. I ground my teeth.

Later, just north of Bridgwater, all traffic was held down to 60mph for twelve miles TWELVE MILES because of (wait for it) a queue on the off-ramp. Not a queue on the motorway. Just a small line of traffic on the exit slip road. TWELVE MILES! My fellow travellers had, by now, had enough of motorway false alarms. Traffic was speeding past me; there was no attempt to slow down – even HGVs were overtaking me (creeping past me at a relative 1- or 2-mph).

Anyway. After a couple of miles on the M42 traffic was slowed down again:

For thirteen miles THIRTEEEN MILES I crawled along at 50mph because… because… because of no reason at all. No reason given, no explanation, no crash on the motorway, no breakdown, not even any debris on the road. Everyone else just gave a metaphorical shrug and carried on at 70mph.

But with crap like this going on, is it any wonder that people choose to exceed either the statutory or temporary speed limits?

2 thoughts on “It’s a sign!”

  1. As someone who has recently been caught out by the variable speed limit cameras, I feel your pain.

    And as someone who had to make that journey down to Torquay when I was contracting, I fully understand how dull a journey it was for you… and you had a fair bit further to go! However, I had to do it weekly for nine months – imagine that!

    Having stayed at many, many all over the country, the Premier Inn in Torquay still remains my favourite.

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