Great Britain road numbering scheme
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Great Britain road numbering scheme
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Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme
#2Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme
#3The radial numbering can be a useful ‘signpost’.
As an anti-invasion tactic during World War II, a civil defence measure was to remove many road signs. That’d stop those nazis in their tracks.
So to this day, I find the UK a difficult country to navigate by signs alone as they are often absent at important local junctions.
In many other parts of the world, you can trace your way from a major destination by signs at forks/exits. In the UK, this often only works on ‘M’otorway routes. With satnav now ubiquitous, much local signposting tends to deplete over time, unless it is to control traffic flow.
Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme
#4Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme
#5The ultimate origin is obviously geographic and topographical, as first laid out by the Romans.
The region 4-5 boundary along the A5 is just Watling Street. It originates in London today as Edgware Road, which preserves its distinctive Roman straightness (it even has the faux-Roman Marble Arch at the start in Hyde Park):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watling_Street
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgware_Road
The obvious exception is the boundary of the phased Roman invasion, which cuts diagonally from south-west to north-east:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fosse_Way
The Fosse Way was originally a military road to support the eponymous barrier 'ditch' and rampart. Now it is mostly (near) the course of the A38 which does not follow the radial region 3 and does not fork from the A3 to the SW of London.
The regions are also approximately the division of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: Sussex ( South Saxons, region 2), Wessex ( West Saxons, region 3), Essex ( East Saxons, region 1) and Mercia (er... midlands, for all-the-other-Saxons, regions 3~4):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heptarchy
Watling Street later became the border between Viking and Anglo-Saxon sectors of the island (hence the radical divergence in accents and place names on opposite sides of the road):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danelaw
Also note that because it is essentially topographical, it was also followed by the private railways, giving LNER (region 1), SR (region 2), GWR (region 3) and LMS (aforementioned Mercia and west coast line, ~ regions 4,5,6), hence the originating stations in London:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_and_North_Eastern_Railw...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Railway_(UK)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Western_Railway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Railway_(UK)
P.S. Direct links to Wikipedia should be banned from HN submissions.
Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme
#6The radial numbering can be a useful ‘signpost’. As an anti-invasion tactic during World War II, a civil defence measure was to remove many road signs. That’d stop those nazis in their tracks. So to this day, I find the UK a difficult country to navigate by signs alone as they are often absent at important local junctions. In many other parts of the world, you can trace your way from a major destination by signs at f…
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.
Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme
#7While 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.
Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme
#8The radial numbering can be a useful ‘signpost’. As an anti-invasion tactic during World War II, a civil defence measure was to remove many road signs. That’d stop those nazis in their tracks. So to this day, I find the UK a difficult country to navigate by signs alone as they are often absent at important local junctions. In many other parts of the world, you can trace your way from a major destination by signs at f…
I completely agree. Without savnat it would be very hard to navigate in the UK for me. Even with preparation ahead of time. The only useful feature in the UK vs other EU countries I have driven in are compass directions: NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST. Some motorways also have reflectors on the lanes to guide you, which is great and I don't remember from Germany at least.
Everything else is weird. Starting from the typography which looks clumsy, to inconsistent signage (which city am I tracking at the moment? Why is it not on the sign anymore?), junction numbers which are sometimes missing, abbreviations of places on signs, directions painted on the tarmac at junctions without signs.
A lot of those A roads go through cities, but are rarely labelled as such. Fully consistent with the patchy signs of street names in cities at junctions and house numbers only present on about 30% of houses, particularly shopfronts.
Not using the E numbers is just the icing on the cake.
Further, driving on the country side is dangerous at night as there are no reflectors on either side of the road.
So I guess you are right. Non-locals are still being kept at bay by the leaky signage traditions of the UK.
Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme
#9The radial numbering can be a useful ‘signpost’. As an anti-invasion tactic during World War II, a civil defence measure was to remove many road signs. That’d stop those nazis in their tracks. So to this day, I find the UK a difficult country to navigate by signs alone as they are often absent at important local junctions. In many other parts of the world, you can trace your way from a major destination by signs at f…
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?
Re: Great Britain road numbering scheme
#10Earlier 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?
I'm native to the UK, but I've not found any of the difficulties that you mention in your previous post. I'm 49, so I'm from the pre-sat-nav generation, and I will generally not use one [x] until I get to the city in question, or traffic/isues necessitate it, so I'll navigate from major town to major town to get where I'm going.
I don't find that they will generally disappear from signs (unless you're past them), and I find the system used in the UK very logical.
Also, I don't find the lack of reflectors at the edge of country roads to be an issue - most are delineated by white lines, which means it's easy to see the edges at night. This is not the case in most African countries, and I found driving through Africa at night a challenging, tiring experience because of this, but maybe if you're used to reflectors, it's the same situation just at a different level.
x - I don't think it's good to be babied and feel you need a sat nav for every journey. Since ditching mine (I was a keen user until maybe 3-4 years ago), I've felt much more independent and capable, and happy to drive wherever. I'm sure I'll be in the minority in this opinion, though.