A reader writes to ask if I could recommend some good driving roads on his way to and from Wales. And I will, by direct message, but not, if you will forgive me, online, because advertising driving roads widely (even though I know I’ve done it) is almost universally a bad idea.
It’s a shame, because one wants to share the love, no? Like an amazing restaurant: my goodness, you must go there. But some roads are just so well known that for all of the sensible drivers and riders, there will be a few who drive and ride badly and let us all down.
Early one morning recently, a farmer stopped to shout at me while I was in a car park cleaning a Lamborghini because he assumed I was going to spend the day driving on local roads like a pillock, which is what some visitors do. I wasn’t, but while I tried to explain this, slightly hurt at being yelled at, I understood his annoyance.
We don’t share where this road is – it’s just good for photography – but people do, so drivers go there, some drive dangerously and it wouldn’t even be on my private ‘recommended’ list. One day they will drop the speed limit and install cameras.
It’s not the first time we’ve been accosted on a job. A few years ago, we were going to take photos on a collection of roads known as ‘the Evo Triangle’. A local heard an Aston Martin with a loud (albeit standard) exhaust and stepped out to stop a colleague, who wasn’t driving like a berk so didn’t run her over, to shout at him.
I get her frustration. That this route is known by name shows the root of its problem: it was broadcast and lots of people ended up going there, and while most car people are sensible, some are not, so now there are average speed cameras along it.
As there are now on the A272 between Petersfield and Winchester, which I remember reading about in magazines when I was a kid.
It’s not just car magazines that over-attract drivers, among them bad drivers, to good roads. Visit Wales advertises the Black Mountain Pass as ‘one of Britain’s best roads’ on its ‘Highways to Heaven’ webpage. “Also known as ‘the Top Gear road’, after Jeremy Clarkson was filmed driving it, ”it announces for all to see, “this swooping mountain pass is a favourite with car magazine test drivers, bikers and motorists – and, consequently, the local bobbies.”
