Saturday 15 January 2011

Road Movie!

For some weird reason, firefox doesn't like me editing this post with the video showing. Putting it into Edit HTML mode seems to have sorted things out.

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Google Earth now incorporates Street View. Its rendering in Google Earth tends to be far smoother than the browser based version. So much so that it's possible to undertake a fairly coherent virtual journey. This I have done. The video below shows a part of what I did.


I'd like to imagine that this is what it would be like to drive after you've dropped a tab of acid. Somethng that I suspect would be extremely dangerous in real life, whatever Hunter S Thompson might say.

The journey takes you westbound along the East Lancashire Road, from the Golbourne Roundabout to the next major junction to the west, the M6 intersection. It's a journey I've undertaken many times in my life because when I was training to become a driving instructor, the training sessions took place close to Golbourne.

Funny how particular roads can have an impact on your life. The A41 is also of interest to me, as I posted last year, following a journey I undertook when I was 16.

The East Lancs road is technically called the A580. It connects Liverpool to Manchester, and is reckoned to be Britain's first Dual Carriageway. When I was travelling along it once or sometimes twice a week, a few years back, most of it was national speed limit, or 70 miles an hour. The last bit of national speed limit section is the bit in the video. It's now had a 60 mph limit introduced, so the entire journey is regulated by local speed limits of 40, 50 or 60 mph. The restrictions have been introduced mainly for road safety reasons, although I suppose fuel economy is also in the minds of the planners.

(saving at this point. Got more to add to this post shortly)

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