I don't drive, and nowadays rather seldom travel as a car passenger; which may contribute to a thing witnessed recently, having struck me as strange. Spent a couple of days recently in Dorset, travelling around with a friend -- he the driver, me the passenger and assistant with navigation. Friend has rather a liking for using minor roads for getting from required A to B -- fewer other vehicles to have to share the road with ! On one journey, we needed to get from near Shaftesbury to near Weymouth. His large Philip's "Navigator" GB road atlas showed, running due north -- south for some seven miles from a junction with the B3081 at Cann Common near Shaftesbury, to the outskirts of Blandford Forum, a from its "atlas" appearance, very minor road: which he adjudged excellent as part of our route. From appearance in atlas, I -- admittedly ignorant about these matters -- was prompted to slight uneasiness: the road was "uncoloured" in the atlas, denoting sub-B-road status -- and a particularly "narrow" version of this symbol; and shown in the atlas as slightly eerily ruler-straight -- with no settlements along it. This caused to me, visions of possible poorly-surfaced / grassgrown "forest ride" stuff; we agreed, however, that we would give the road a try -- should there be problems, there would be ways of extricating ourselves.
On our taking this seemingly highly-minor road, I was surprised to find it looking more like a "B" or even lesser "A" road: width appropriate for same, well-surfaced, dashed white line down the middle -- this throughout its seven-mile-odd length. Essentially, little traffic: that, at country-lane level. A phenomenon which I can't recall ever encountering before -- generally, I have found minor roads as per map, to look / feel / behave like minor roads ! The A350 lies a mile or two west of my "strange road", throughout; wondering prompted as to whether this might be a relatively new development of the superseding kind? Or: the Army is prominently on the scene in this part of the country, with assorted training facilities -- the one big instance of traffic activity we saw while driving along the weird road, was a string of military vehicles heading rapidly in the opposite direction. Could it be that this road has been made over to the Army to do with as they wish, for training activities re things vehicular; with their allowing its use, to what little civilian traffic there is -- presumably reserving the right to close it off when they require to do so?
The two road atlases (different makers) which I possess, both show this road with the "uncloured = unclassified" symbol, and decidedly narrow. The O.S. "Landranger" map shows it as "yellow" and "generally more than 4m wide" ("yellow" = unclassified, but a step above uncoloured tiny lanes / tracks). I find it intriguing that map-wise, an "unclassified" road can, in real life, look bigger and more imposing than is usually the case with roads shown thus on the map; and wonder whether this situation maybe obtains more often than I would have imagined. Would be interested in participants' thoughts on this issue. (My friend who was driving, found this whole thing totally uninteresting, and had no views about it to offer.)
On our taking this seemingly highly-minor road, I was surprised to find it looking more like a "B" or even lesser "A" road: width appropriate for same, well-surfaced, dashed white line down the middle -- this throughout its seven-mile-odd length. Essentially, little traffic: that, at country-lane level. A phenomenon which I can't recall ever encountering before -- generally, I have found minor roads as per map, to look / feel / behave like minor roads ! The A350 lies a mile or two west of my "strange road", throughout; wondering prompted as to whether this might be a relatively new development of the superseding kind? Or: the Army is prominently on the scene in this part of the country, with assorted training facilities -- the one big instance of traffic activity we saw while driving along the weird road, was a string of military vehicles heading rapidly in the opposite direction. Could it be that this road has been made over to the Army to do with as they wish, for training activities re things vehicular; with their allowing its use, to what little civilian traffic there is -- presumably reserving the right to close it off when they require to do so?
The two road atlases (different makers) which I possess, both show this road with the "uncloured = unclassified" symbol, and decidedly narrow. The O.S. "Landranger" map shows it as "yellow" and "generally more than 4m wide" ("yellow" = unclassified, but a step above uncoloured tiny lanes / tracks). I find it intriguing that map-wise, an "unclassified" road can, in real life, look bigger and more imposing than is usually the case with roads shown thus on the map; and wonder whether this situation maybe obtains more often than I would have imagined. Would be interested in participants' thoughts on this issue. (My friend who was driving, found this whole thing totally uninteresting, and had no views about it to offer.)