Euro junctions - Just different!!
Discussion
I'm currently on a work trip to Holland/Germany. Have spent some good quality time inside a German cougar, sadly spelt Kuga and of the Ford variety. 
Anyway once I battled with the inbuilt sat nav to get it speaking English, I was off and about. Driving in Europe as many of us know is a relaxing experience with lane discipline and road decorum generally above what we face in the UK.
However one thing I can't get my head around is the design of junctions and slip roads, in this department the UK is way out in front. The signage is poor at best but the tight turns are shocking, it is my fault of course but I came barreling off (80kph, nothing mental) one road to face a narrow slip road with a tight 270 degree turn guarded by concrete walls. Thankfully resisted the temptation to brake in a panicked manner and survived okay!
However, the slip road to join the new motorway is then shockingly short too meaning a battle to get up to speed again and through a wall of trucks and merge to join the road.
Do we just spend more on roads or do we have different guidelines for this, France seems to be the same in this respect?
As for the Kuga, a good car if you're into that sort of thing, comfortable, well equipped etc. Not a car for a powerful PHer at all but okay for a soft roader, and its petrol too.
Anyway once I battled with the inbuilt sat nav to get it speaking English, I was off and about. Driving in Europe as many of us know is a relaxing experience with lane discipline and road decorum generally above what we face in the UK.
However one thing I can't get my head around is the design of junctions and slip roads, in this department the UK is way out in front. The signage is poor at best but the tight turns are shocking, it is my fault of course but I came barreling off (80kph, nothing mental) one road to face a narrow slip road with a tight 270 degree turn guarded by concrete walls. Thankfully resisted the temptation to brake in a panicked manner and survived okay!
However, the slip road to join the new motorway is then shockingly short too meaning a battle to get up to speed again and through a wall of trucks and merge to join the road.
Do we just spend more on roads or do we have different guidelines for this, France seems to be the same in this respect?
As for the Kuga, a good car if you're into that sort of thing, comfortable, well equipped etc. Not a car for a powerful PHer at all but okay for a soft roader, and its petrol too.
Definitely different standards. It makes you appreciate the length and quality of modern UK road design. I remember on a return trip on the A26 Autoroute back from Disneyland Paris. There had been a diesel spill so they scraped the entire road surface for about 300m and left it until they probably had time to lay new tarmac. The first you knew of it at 82mph was seeing a small European roadworks sign on the hard shoulder at the point they scraped the road. There was a drop of about 3 inches which was ungraded, the rough road surface and hundreds of stones peppering and shattering the windscreen, then an ungraded 3 inch ridge at the end. I pulled over into the next rest stop to check the car along with 101 other drivers.
They may have better slip roads in the UK; just a shame people don't know how to use them. Double dotted white lines mean "give way" not come down the slip road and go straight onto the main carriageway whatever speed you're doing. Do that in Europe and you'd soon know about it.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/motor...
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/motor...
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