British Roads: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
'''British Roads''' are considered some of the best in the world, although, unless you specifically looked, they share a lot of similarities with the roads of any other industrial nation.
Probably the biggest difference between British Roads and those in the rest of the world (except for Japan, Indonesia, Ireland and a few Commonwealth nations, such as India, Australia and South Africa) is that we drive on the left almost everywhere - the only exception is the short road outside the Savoy Hotel. This is <s> probably</s> said to be a hangover from the days of highwaymen, as riding on the left makes it easier for a right-handed person to draw a sword or fire a pistol if some ruffian in the middle of the road tries to waylay them. Interestingly as most people are right-eye dominant it lets modern motorcar uses see oncoming traffic better, resulting in very very slightly lower head on collisions than right-hand drive nations.
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Motorways in Britain are similar to freeways or autobahns - other, less busy, roads that Americans would describe as "highways" are generally called A-roads - less major roads are then B-roads. C and D roads technically exist as well, but nobody labels them (they are usually just referred to as "unclassified". Particularly major A roads are referred to as "Trunk Roads", and are under national control rather than local. Many of the Trunk Roads follow the routes of former Roman Roads (see below). Other than Motorways which have their own sets of rules, there is very little standardisation between the types of roads, for example in terms of width, lighting, kerbing etc, other than that outside of urban areas, most dual carriageways are A roads (although not all A roads or even trunk roads are dual carriageway).
Speed limits in the UK are generally 30
There's an ongoing argument about whether the motorway speed limit should be raised to 80 or 90
With the rise in eco-friendly transport, many roads now have divided areas for other traffic - most large towns have bus lanes, taxi lanes or tram lanes, and cycle lanes are common in suburban and semi-rural areas. These are marked with heavy lines and usually filled with red tarmac. There are also lots of speed bumps and chicanes in the suburbs. Modern traffic calmers generally consist of a small beveled square in the road - positioning your car over the middle usually reduces the bump, especially if you have a wide car. The idea behind this is that ambulances and fire engines pass over the bump without noticing it; they're also reckoned to be safer for cyclists, who can skirt round them.
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Like other European roads, British roads tend to be narrower and smaller than American ones.
The UK has undergone a number of different registration systems in the automobile history. If you know this system, you can understand a lot about a character.
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The dashes below are for ease of reading and do not appear on license plates.
One or two letter region code- a number from 1 to 9999
Three letter region code - number from 1 to 9999
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* [[Stroke Country]] still uses this system
Number from 1 to 9999 - Three letter region code.
Three letter region code - Number from 1 to 999 - Year code (A= 1963, B= 1964, etc, skipping a few letters)
Year code - Number from 1 to 999 - Region code
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From 1998, the year code changed twice a year.
The current system goes something like this.
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I, J, Q, T, U and Z are not included in the region codes. A car beginning with Q does not have an easily determinable age.
<s>Don't be such a twat.</s> Considered a sign of possessing extreme vanity and too much money, but available for a fee if you really insist. However, the registration numbers of any car that appeared regularly on television are ''not'' for sale, lest someone try to pass another car of similar make off as the (presumably now non-existent) genuine prop. Your mileage may vary on the acceptability of these. Some may simply be a normal looking plate that happens to have the owners initials, which are normally accepted as being a personal thing (after all, only people who know your name will tell anyway). The more obvious and flashy the personalised plate is, the less acceptable it tends to be. Many will even make changes to the font or spacing to make the plate read differently to what it says. This can make figuring out what the actual registration of the car is very difficult, and hence is not only widely looked down on, but also illegal. Buses and coaches may also carry these numbers, usually to hide the age of the vehicle but sometimes for the same reasons above. These plates can also be Northern Irish plates, which don't carry a year identifier and can be transferred without regard for vehicle age.
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