Recently, I covered how many of the roads in the UK are dangerous – especially those that are found in more rural areas. No doubt part of it comes from poor lighting, ill-conceived bends and zero-visibility rises. Other problems can arise for drivers where there are poor weather conditions on narrow roads – bringing cars quite close together when they shouldn’t be. Of course, there is the issue of people simply driving too fast for the conditions and the type of road that they are driving on. Personally, I think there’s one final issue. This issue is that most drivers don’t understand how their cars handle and they haven’t got the relevant experience.
Let me explain this a little more. If you tootle about on average roads in urban areas doing your driving at the regulated 30mph, then you might find it a big change when you’re careening around at 50 on roads that can have much bigger bends. Do you know how your car handles under heavy braking? How about where your maximum power lies for an overtake? What about how your steering loads up? Do you know the etiquette for using the passing points?
After completing my article recently, I thought I’d take a drive over to a certain rural area of the country in order to test my theories with my own car. I was very quickly shown to be right. Not only do quiet, rural roads encourage you to drive faster, they clearly provide far more of a challenge (and thus more danger) due to all of the points I have outlined above. I remember a road with a massively steep incline – there was no way that you could see over it until you were on the crest. Had someone been carrying excessive speed over that then there would have been an accident I have no doubt.
It isn’t all bad though. Rural roads can be fun, as can certain empty car parks/industrial estates when you fancy completing a handbrake turn or two. In fact, when driving back after the ubiquitous hike my mate and I completed in the pouring rain, he commented on how great it would have been to have had a Subaru Impreza or Mitsubishi Evo for the run. Whether this would have encouraged us to cane it however remains to be seen.
The fact remains that as rural roads are less used than urban roads, they attract less funding. Less funding can mean fewer barriers, less lighting and greater difficulties for drivers. Nonetheless, the countryside is there. Just don’t go mad. Be a courteous, kind and above all aware driver and you should be able to complete all journeys safely on any road.
Leave a Reply