HNT: Night Vision

I have spent the last four years driving up and down Britain's motorways in search of sexual satisfaction.

But the network itself has been around for far longer of course. On 2 November, the M1 celebrated the 50th anniversary of the completion of its first section.

Whilst it was quite illuminating visiting Britain's first service station and the source of the proverbial North/South divide at Watford Gap for the first time, I now try to avoid using that particular motorway whenever possible. From my first ever journey to visit Ruf, they were digging it up and the signs announced that the cones and average speed limits would be in situ for the next 2.5 years. When they completed that bit, they moved along to the next for another year. Driving back before dawn on a Monday morning, I would pray that I was going to miss the jams around Luton but to no avail and so I changed my allegiance to the elegance of the M40.

Only this year, they started digging up the M25 in two places on my journey from east to west and I had to accept defeat and curtail my weekends by returning on Sunday night.

During the day, these vast stretches of tarmac are worrying enough with the traffic hurtling along at speeds far in excess of the national limit but, at night, they become quite terrifying.

I often wish that I had better night vision because it is severely constrained by the brightness of the headlights of the congested traffic interspersed with the blue flashing lights of the emergency services.




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