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Great Britain road numbering scheme

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Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme

#31

Post by OJFord »

teleforce wrote: post #25

Probably the most useful numbering scheme in the UK is the postcodes. It is very accurate and simple to use. For example, if you are looking for any house you can just use the postcode instead of the actual house's address, and 99% of the times you will arrive very close to the house by using the GPS based navigation [1]. It is also very easy to remember and I still remember my former school's postcode despite have n…

Post codes are sometimes totally unique for an address; they're always unique in combination with the street (or flat) number.

E.g. a short form address (useful for scribbling a return address on the back of an envelope/parcel for example) could be '123/AB4 5CD' instead of '123 St George Crescent // Upper Bockingbrook // Froimington // Froimingtonshire // AB4 5CD'.

Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme

#32

Post by nicky0 »

prennert wrote: post #9
tokamak-teapot wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the opposite of my experience. I often navigate by road signs alone in the UK. Maybe your experience is from a particular part of the UK where this depletion has happened, but I thought things like direction signage were centrally managed.

Are you native to the UK? (I.e. do you have a good knowledge of the cities and areas you are driving to and passing by?) Is there a system you are using to navigate / prepare when driving to areas that are new to you? Particularly off motorways?

In the pre-satnav days I would consult a road atlas before the trip, and note the roads, turnings and principal destinations on a piece of paper.

e.g. M1 North to J21 for M69 South M69 South to J2 onto A5 North A5 North for 11 miles to Tamworth turning etc.

Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme

#33

Post by edjw »

MandieD wrote: post #24

The Isle of Skye is where I learned that an A road was likely the most significant road in the area, not necessarily a large, well-developed one. A855 is single lane around most of the island. Not a single lane each way, but a single lane with little pullouts every so often to let oncoming traffic past. We drove extremely defensively. However, the scenery was top notch.

Long stretches of the A1 in Northumberland is a single lane each way.

Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme

#34

Post by jfk13 »

dash2 wrote: post #30

I'm trying to think if there are any iconic roads in Britain, the way that Route 66 is in America. Ireland has the N17 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32-WdYOeJLk ). The M1 is pretty famous - it runs up and down the country like a spinal column - but I can't think of any songs. The M25, which goes round London, is known for its traffic jams and gave Orbital their name ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV-hSgL1R74 )…

Look back a little, and before the M1 we had the Great North Road https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_North_Road_(Great_Britai..., which I think comes much closer to "iconic" status.

And yes, it appears in songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH1buq3Ks0I

Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme

#35

Post by ironicman »

dash2 wrote: post #30

I'm trying to think if there are any iconic roads in Britain, the way that Route 66 is in America. Ireland has the N17 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32-WdYOeJLk ). The M1 is pretty famous - it runs up and down the country like a spinal column - but I can't think of any songs. The M25, which goes round London, is known for its traffic jams and gave Orbital their name ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV-hSgL1R74 )…

How about the A303 ( https://youtu.be/I5g8qlIDUVI )

Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme

#36

Post by joefife »

dash2 wrote: post #30

I'm trying to think if there are any iconic roads in Britain, the way that Route 66 is in America. Ireland has the N17 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32-WdYOeJLk ). The M1 is pretty famous - it runs up and down the country like a spinal column - but I can't think of any songs. The M25, which goes round London, is known for its traffic jams and gave Orbital their name ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV-hSgL1R74 )…

Not one road, but the NC500 is a famous and popular route.

Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme

#37

Post by IanCal »

teleforce wrote: post #25

Probably the most useful numbering scheme in the UK is the postcodes. It is very accurate and simple to use. For example, if you are looking for any house you can just use the postcode instead of the actual house's address, and 99% of the times you will arrive very close to the house by using the GPS based navigation [1]. It is also very easy to remember and I still remember my former school's postcode despite have n…

It's a shame it's a closed thing now.

Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme

#38

Post by cooperadymas »

masklinn wrote: post #17
cooperadymas wrote: post #7

While are are not on the topic, anyone want to help me petition our senators to get all U.S. Interstate exits to be numbered by their mile marker rather than sequentially? Know that exit 32 is at mile marker 32 provides me so much more information than knowing that exit 8 is immediately after exit 7, which could be 1/4 mile past it or 40 miles past it.

> Know that exit 32 is at mile marker 32 provides me so much more information than knowing that exit 8 is immediately after exit 7, which could be 1/4 mile past it or 40 miles past it. OTOH you know that exit 8 is the exit which follows exit 7[0], whereas you have no clue whatsoever whether there are other exits between 15 and 32. [0] except for exit 7B.

That's not any more useful, though, is it, since you don't know the distance between exits 7 and 8?

If you're running low on fuel, and you know you need exit 32, and you come up on exit 15, you don't know if there are any exists between 15 and 32 but you can at least judge whether your car can make it 17 more miles on its fuel.

If you're low on fuel, and you know you need exit 8, and you come up on exit 7, you know it's the last exit before you need to get off the Interstate, but you don't know the distance between exits 7 and 8, so you can't make an informed decision on whether the fuel you have remaining is sufficient to get to your exit.

To be fair, your point is the argument my SO has been battling me with for the past decade :-)

Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme

#39

Post by pjc50 »

cooperadymas wrote: post #38
masklinn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Know that exit 32 is at mile marker 32 provides me so much more information than knowing that exit 8 is immediately after exit 7, which could be 1/4 mile past it or 40 miles past it. OTOH you know that exit 8 is the exit which follows exit 7[0], whereas you have no clue whatsoever whether there are other exits between 15 and 32. [0] except for exit 7B.

That's not any more useful, though, is it, since you don't know the distance between exits 7 and 8? If you're running low on fuel, and you know you need exit 32, and you come up on exit 15, you don't know if there are any exists between 15 and 32 but you can at least judge whether your car can make it 17 more miles on its fuel. If you're low on fuel, and you know you need exit 8, and you come up on exit 7, you know i…

You know you can refuel before the light comes on, right?

Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme

#40

Post by [deleted] »

melonkidney wrote: post #16

Slightly off topic... UK road signs have a very clear and consistent color scheme based on the category of road. E.g., blue background for motorways, green background for A roads. This scheme was (maybe still is) reflected in the color of roads on printed maps. Google Maps also used this scheme some years ago. I understand their reasoning, but the day Google standardized on the current yellow & white scheme was a sad…

[deleted]
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