Road tips 7 - Bundesautobahn A555 between Cologne and Bonn

Today is the 75th anniversary of the opening of the A555, the road that is now generally regarded as the first German Autobahn. It's not the only contender for the title; the older AVUS motor racing and testing circuit in Berlin, now integrated into the Autobahn network, is one - and if my memory serves me correctly, another section between Frankfurt and Darmstadt also has a claim.

In fact, the A555 didn't formally become an Autobahn until 1955 and only got a second carriageway as part of a huge construction project in the mid-sixties. Until then, it had a single carriageway layout providing two lanes in each direction. What marked out the A555 in comparison with earlier roads when it opened in 1932 was that its use was restricted to motor vehicles and its junctions were grade separated.

On this basis, I reckon the claim of the A555 to be the first Autobahn is a fair one. It's worth noting, though, that this isn't just a dry technical matter but a slightly sensitive political question for Germans as well. Classifying the A555 - opened the year before Hitler came to power - as the first Autobahn allows the motorways to be regarded as an invention of democratic Germany, rather than as a product of the Nazi regime. Personally, I think that's probably irrelevant - the big construction push that gave the Autobahn network the basic outline it has today certainly did take place under the Nazis, so I don't think it makes much difference whether the birth of the Autobahns can be traced all the way back to 1932 or only to some politically inconvenient later date. I can't really see that this valuable infrastructure project deserves to be tainted by its links to the 1933-1945 period either way; it would probably have been built anyway - if at a slower pace.

So what's the A555 like today? I lived in Bonn for a number of years in the nineties, so I had the A555 on my doorstep and know it well. Large sections have no speed limit and the long, straight southern stretch nearest to Bonn is of the best pieces of unrestricted road anywhere on the German network. It's also one of the closest decent unrestricted sections of Autobahn to the UK, but please, please don't take that as a recommendation to take your car there for a high-speed blast unless you have a lot - and I mean a lot - of experience at driving at speeds that are much higher than those that are common on British roads. Traffic on unrestricted German Autobahns does move faster than traffic in other countries, but opportunities to go much beyond 100mph safely and responsibly are comparatively rare these days because of the weight of traffic and the condition of some of these roads. Those opportunities are hard to judge if most of your driving has been done in countries with speed limits, however good a driver you might think you are - and the consequences of cocking it up don't bear thinking about.

That apart, you may be asking why the Germans should have all the best roads (sorry if that sounds a bit like the question about the devil and the best tunes - didn't mean it to come out that way). The answer is that I'm not sure that they do. There are about 12,000km of German Autobahn (more than three times the British total of about 3,700km) but the standard of much of the network is surprisingly low. Often there are no hard shoulders and most sections have four (i.e. two in each direction) lanes, rather than six. New Autobahns are still being built according to this comparatively low standard. The age of some Autobahns also means that route alignments, slip-roads and junctions are often poor. Britain has avoided many of these problems - not through skill or foresight but simply because we started building our motorways much later.

One of the most interesting facts published in the German press today in its coverage of the A555's 75th birthday was to be found in the Financial Times Deutschland; only 3,000km of the German network has six lanes, the standard that is almost universal in the UK, so on this measure, the two countries are probably more or less equal. Remember too that much of the UK A road network would be classified as motorway in almost all continental countries - stretches of the A14, A34, A55, A19, A38, A13, A12 and A2, to name some of the most obvious examples, would qualify - and things don't look so bad here.

That said, I'd have to admit that we still don't have anything to match the gloriously long, flat, straight unrestricted southern stretch of the A555 near Bonn. I'd love to have been able to take the CL500 there this week.

Road tips 5 - B1248 and B1257 through the East Riding and North Yorkshire

I've mentioned here before my favourite handy 'B' road route through Lincolnshire that provides a surprisingly quick - and very pleasant - alternative to other north-south routes such as the A1 for journeys between Yorkshire on the one hand and East Anglia and the Southeast on the other.

I've often wondered whether it is possible to find a similarly attractive north-south route the other side of the Humber Bridge through the East Riding and North Yorkshire for trips to the Northeast. A quick look at a decent road atlas suggests a number of possibilities, but last week when I was heading up to Newcastle for our Verdict test of the Kia cee'd, I decided to try the following route, which starts at Beverley, a little to the north of the Humber Bridge.

Beverley, which I believe was the county town (if that is the correct term to use in connection with the artificial post-1974 authorities) of Humberside is worth a stop if you have time. As well as Beverley Minster there are several other impressive older buildings. Traffic heading north has to squeeze through a narrow archway - not sure what it's called - after which open countryside beckons.

The B1248 heads north-west; initially the landscape is comparatively flat - the former RAF Leconfield is nearby - but becomes increasingly hilly as you head for Malham in order to pick up the B1257 to Helmsley. Helmsley is where the North Yorkshire Moors start and the B1257 provides a lot of driving pleasure and plenty of attractive countryside to look at as well, before delivering you into Stokesley, just south of Middlesbrough.

I used this route in conjunction with my favourite 'B' road run through Lincolnshire and got from Cambridgshire to Newcastle in about six hours; I ran into a bit of congestion in Boston and Horncastle (but apart from that encountered only light traffic) and took a couple of breaks as well. I don't think heading up the A14 and A1 would have been much quicker - it certainly wouldn't have been as nice. The next priority is to explore other 'B' roads through North Yorkshire.

Featured web-links 4 - SABRE: The Society for All British Road Enthusiasts

Are you the sort of person who can tell the difference between a GATSO and a TOTSO? Do you know what the Cumberland Gap is - and do you care desperately about the speed at which it is being closed? Or perhaps you've wondered, as you've driven into London from Kent, why the bit of the A2 heading into town looks like a motorway but for some mysterious reason isn't.

If so, this one could be for you. The SABRE website is a mine of valuable information on just about everything to do with British Roads and its forums provide plenty of lively debate. There are links to just about every other decent site about UK roads as well.

SABRE isn't one of those rather tediously blinkered pro-motorist or pro-road building groups. It doesn't have an official anti-roads or pro-roads line - it's more about documenting and discussing what's out there. After all, if Britain bit the bullet and provided proper motorways for all of its main trunk connections as many other European countries do, a lot of the charming anomolies and special features of the British road scene would just disappear, and life would be that bit more boring for those of us who spend a lot of time behind the wheel.

http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/

Incidentally, a GATSO is a speed camera while TOTSO stands for 'turn off to stay on'; this refers to a junction arrangement that requires a driver following a particular route number to turn off. An example can be found on the A14 near Cambridge where drivers heading west have to 'turn off to stay on' the A14 towards Huntingdon, otherwise they find themselves on the A428 going towards Bedford. The Cumberland Gap is a notoriously jam-prone section of the A74 at the England-Scotland border between the northern end of the M6 and the southern end of the M74/A74(M). After one or two false starts, it is at long last being upgraded to motorway standard. As for the question of why Britain has so many roads that look and feel like motorways but aren't, there is no clear-cut answer to that - get over to SABRE and debate the different theories!