British motorways are prefixed M — the M1, M6, M25 — and carry a national speed limit of 70mph. The network is about 2,300 miles, which is small, and it carries around a fifth of all road traffic.
The rules that catch people out
- Keep left. The right-hand lanes are for overtaking only, and returning to the left afterwards is a legal requirement, not a courtesy. Sitting in the middle lane is an offence — careless driving — and is enforced.
- Never undertake. Overtaking on the left is prohibited.
- No stopping on the hard shoulder except in a genuine emergency.
- Prohibited users — pedestrians, cyclists, horses, mopeds under 50cc, agricultural vehicles and, on most motorways, learner drivers. Learners were permitted on motorways with an instructor from 2018.
Smart motorways
The most contested piece of British road policy in decades. To increase capacity without widening, sections were converted to smart motorways, in which the hard shoulder is converted into a running lane, either permanently or at busy times, with overhead gantries setting variable limits and closing lanes with a red X.
The problem is what happens when a vehicle breaks down in a live lane with nowhere to pull in. Emergency refuge areas were spaced up to a mile and a half apart, and a series of fatal collisions produced a parliamentary inquiry, a coroner finding that one design had contributed to deaths, and sustained public opposition.
The government cancelled all new smart motorway schemes in 2023. Existing sections remain, with more refuge areas being retrofitted.
If you break down on one: get left if you can, use a refuge area, leave the vehicle by the left-hand door, get behind the barrier, and call for help. Do not attempt repairs.
The famous ones
- The M1 — the first full-length motorway, opened 1959, London to Leeds. It opened with no speed limit, no crash barriers and no lighting, and drivers used it to see how fast their cars would go. AC Cars tested a Cobra at 185mph on it in 1964.
- The M25 — the 117-mile orbital around London, completed 1986. Universally complained about, and the subject of a great deal of British comic writing about being trapped on it.
- The M6 — the longest at 232 miles, and home to the M6 Toll, Britain’s only significant tolled motorway, which is consistently underused because drivers resent paying.
- The M62 — crosses the Pennines at 372 metres, the highest motorway in England, and famously splits around Stott Hall Farm, a farmhouse in the central reservation. The persistent story that the farmer refused to sell is untrue; the geology simply made the split cheaper.
The Preston Bypass
Britain’s first motorway, opened December 1958, now part of the M6. It closed within weeks — frost got into the surface and broke it up, which was an inauspicious start for a network now carrying a fifth of the nation’s traffic.