Wales, and some reflections on driving
Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2014 6:51 pm
So, I spent Wednesday to Sunday in Wales, based somewhere in Carmarthenshire near Lampeter. As you might imagine, it's a lovely place to drive, with lots of twisty, hilly roads.
I'm working from very limited, anecdotal data, but I noticed a few things:
First, everyone seems to drive quickly. Traffic was light throughout but I overtook maybe three cars on these kinds of roads in the whole trip, and was overtaken more myself. I regularly used the limit point, flexible gears, and all the power the car can give me - and I'm not in a really slow car - but I had all sorts of vehicles catching up and keeping pace. I followed similar too and didn't see anyone getting it wrong.
I guess it's easier to follow than to lead, and maybe they regularly went too fast through hazards, but I couldn't help but wonder if the quality of driving or at least the ability to keep pace was significantly better. Either that or I'm way off the boil. At one point I was in a long line of vehicles that included someone towing a burger van - still doing 60mph. No chance of that in England.
It was also interesting to see what they do about speed limits. Most of the roads you'd consider to be national speed limit are exactly that - the only exception I noticed was one that had signs stating 200ish casualties in the last N years: reduced to 50mph. If it's a big town, it got a 30, but otherwise most populated areas were 40.
Finally, most of the roads in the area had apparently been recently resurfaced - lots of pristine black tarmac, and very few potholes about.
Anyone spend much time there and can elaborate on all this? What about accident rates etc?
I'm working from very limited, anecdotal data, but I noticed a few things:
First, everyone seems to drive quickly. Traffic was light throughout but I overtook maybe three cars on these kinds of roads in the whole trip, and was overtaken more myself. I regularly used the limit point, flexible gears, and all the power the car can give me - and I'm not in a really slow car - but I had all sorts of vehicles catching up and keeping pace. I followed similar too and didn't see anyone getting it wrong.
I guess it's easier to follow than to lead, and maybe they regularly went too fast through hazards, but I couldn't help but wonder if the quality of driving or at least the ability to keep pace was significantly better. Either that or I'm way off the boil. At one point I was in a long line of vehicles that included someone towing a burger van - still doing 60mph. No chance of that in England.
It was also interesting to see what they do about speed limits. Most of the roads you'd consider to be national speed limit are exactly that - the only exception I noticed was one that had signs stating 200ish casualties in the last N years: reduced to 50mph. If it's a big town, it got a 30, but otherwise most populated areas were 40.
Finally, most of the roads in the area had apparently been recently resurfaced - lots of pristine black tarmac, and very few potholes about.
Anyone spend much time there and can elaborate on all this? What about accident rates etc?