From Derby to Stoke - a A500 tale

Yesterday, I swapped working from home to a day in the office over in Derby at Adaptive Towers. At just after 5:00 I started the long slog home (hence the reason I work from home so much) and set off towards the A50.

After about 50 minutes of uneventful, rain soaked driving I left the A50 slip road and proceeded onto the A500.

The first part of the A500 between the Stoke A50 turn off, is a calm casual 50MPH zone, and normally at this time of night (as I say I work from home a lot so this is just going on tri weekly trips into the office) is crammed with cars all doing about 10-30MPH.

Last night was marginally better, and I could drive at a constant 50MPH towards the Etruria turning. So far so good. No swearing, no idiot drivers.

1) Just after the slow bend (40MPH) section the car on the inside lane decided to pull out into on coming traffic, slowing the traffic behind down by a good 10MPH to 35MPH. At no point did this motorist look like he was going to speed up, and then suddenly pulled back in lane,

2) We then reached and passed the the Etruria slip road and passed under the bridge and into the national speed limit section (70MPH), and passed the Etruria slip road down onto the A500 without a single car coming down. The van in front suddenly started to brake from 70MPH to 50MPH and then jumped lanes without bothering to indicate. Probably the worst thing about this procedure was the driver needn't have squeezed between two cars (into their braking zones), but simply gone behind the driver, who had a couple of buses behind him and the next car.

3) Travelling passed ASDA without a hiccup, and towards the Tunstall ramp, I then met another driver who also possessed what can only be described as "$^&t for brains". This driver was driving at around about 55mph, anticipating cars coming down the Tunstall ramp, he indicated for about half a second and swung in front of a line of traffic. This maneuverer was bad in it's self, but he then proceeded to brake for no reason, the road was clear in front of him, bringing the speed down to 30MPH.

Mr McGoo then accelerated up to 50MPH and pulled back in.

You can't really count the Reginald Mitchell Way roundabouts as the A500 but the same lane discipline and stupidness was also displayed over the Chatterely Valley Roundabout (next to the Genesis and Tunstall Cemetery)

I came home and typed a tourettes inspired tweet on twitter, which I later removed after a few mentions from other users of twitter.

The loverly @SimplyStaffs said "@MyTunstall & breath - hope there's a beer when you do get there!"

So what is the problem with the A500 then. All of the problems can't be blamed on the road. It's pretty much a straight(ish) road.

Ok the Etruria junction needs some money throwing at it to extend the run down (especially as some one in the Council's Faulty Towers Highways department thought it would be a good idea to send two cars down the ramp onto the A500 at the same time).

Apart from that though, I blame the drivers. Some people treat it as a B road, driving down at 30MPH, some people treat it as a race way hurtling down at 80MPH+

However probably for the first time I'd say it's not the fast drivers that are the problem, it's the ones going too slow, and driving without due care and attention (and mirrors).