Why Build Motorways?

Are we in favour of motorways, as opposed to general purpose dual carriageways? Well, it depends on the road's traffic levels. For moderately busy routes, a standard dual carriageway is often the most appropriate solution.

However, once a route is busy enough to merit 3 or more lanes each way, then it needs to be a motorway for several reasons:

• Safety. Motorways are our safest roads; you're 10 times less likely to crash on a motorway than on an urban high street. That in itself should be reason enough to build them.
• Breakdowns. Motorways have hard shoulders and emergency telephones, which mean that in the event of a breakdown or accident, there is much less disruption to other traffic.
• Limited access. Slow vehicles like tractors, as well as pedestrians and learner drivers are banned from motorways. This makes the journey safer and less stressful for motorists.
• Fewer junctions. Motorways are designed with long-distance traffic in mind, and tend to be built with fewer junctions than non-motorway routes. Since a large proportion of high-speed accidents happen at junctions, this helps improve safety and cuts down on traffic "weaving" between two closely spaced junctions.
• The 'Blue Line Brigade'. A large number of people, when planning a route to get from A to B, will look at their map and only consider blue lines (ie. motorways). Because A-roads vary so widely in quality, people who are not used to an area will only use motorways; thus making the ones that we do have more congested than necessary.

The benefits of motorways over all-purpose dual carriageways should not be underestimated.