There are some things in Britain that we Americans just don’t have a name for back home.
For example, what do we call an accident blackspot, a portion of road that seems to lure mangled vehicles like football hooligans at a Millwall match?
Sometimes accident blackspots will be marked with a sign near the perilous area, oftentimes they are not.
Accident blackspots are often synonymous with speed traps, with speed cameras set to catch those drivers who would go through that perilous stretch at too high a speed, according to driverstechnology.co.uk, a Web site for navigating British roadways.
Just as in the States, accident blackspots here occur around sharp turns or bends in the road, where a driver eating a bacon wrap while rocking out to the DJs on Radio 1 may run into some trouble.
A traffic blackspot is essentially the same thing, a cruddy piece of the motorway where traffic backs up like Saturday afternoon lines for London’s public loos.
Traffic blackspots can be identified by signs that show cars backed up with the words “queues likely during peak periods.” If that’s the case, sit back and watch the rain fall. You might not be going anywhere for a while.
Got a question about something you’ve seen or heard around the United Kingdom? E-mail us at: uknews@estripes.osd.mil
