Special road
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A special road is a classification of road in the United Kingdom. For a road to become a special road, it must have a Statutory Instrument sanctioned under the Highways Act 1980. A road which is not a special road is termed an all-purpose road. The vast majority of the roads in the UK are all-purpose roads.
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[edit] The Special Roads Act 1949
The passing of the Special Roads Act 1949 through Parliament allowed the UK to construct roads that were not automatically rights of way for certain types of user. All previous roads were automatically rights of way for all road users, including pedestrians, so it was not possible to build roads designated only for vehicular traffic. The Act therefore allowed the construction of motorways.
The Special Roads Act was merged in with the Highways Act 1959, and later the Highways Act 1980
[edit] The first special road
The Special Roads Act was first used in late-1950s to designate the Preston Bypass, now largely part of the M6 motorway, as a special road.
[edit] Motorways as special roads
All motorways and associated sliproads in the UK are special roads. The special road regulations allow motorways to prohibit certain types of road user, including learner drivers (except learners of Large Goods Vehicles (LGV), agricultural vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, horseriders, invalid carriages, motorcycles under 50 cc and motorscooters. The special road regulations also forbid stopping, except in emergency, waiting in a queue, or under the direction of traffic signals or a police officer. In England, Highways Agency Traffic Officers can now stop traffic.
Unless there are other speed limit orders in force, a special road which is also a motorway comes under the Motorways Traffic (Speed Limit) Regulations 1974, which defines the speed limit, currently 70 mph (113 km/h) for cars. There are different speed limits for coaches and LGVs, together with some other limitations, such as a restriction that LGVs may not use the third (outside) lane of a three lane carriageway. Although the legal speed limit for an LGV on a motorway is 60 mph (97 km/h);[1] other legislation requires the fitting of a speed limiter to most LGVs, which restricts their maximum speed to 90 km/h (56 mph).[2]
In Scotland, there is a requirement to sign all speed limits on motorways due to variations in the equivalent Scottish legislation. At the entrance to most Scottish motorways it is normal to see a 70 mph sign.
[edit] Non-motorway special roads
Although the majority of special roads in the UK are also motorways, there are a number of special roads that are not motorways. Quite a number of these are toll bridges, and several others are former motorways which have since been downgraded. In order to charge a toll on a newly built road, special road regulations are usually necessary.
In addition, a small number of non-motorway special roads are relatively newly built dual-carriageway roads, such as the A1 expressway east of Edinburgh and parts of the A720 Edinburgh bypass, or parts of the A55 in North Wales. These particular roads have many of the same regulations as motorways, apart from the speed limit regulations, since that only applies to special roads which are also motorways. The usual speed limit regulations that apply to all-purpose road do not apply to special roads, so a non-motorway special road must define a speed limit as part of its Statutory Instrument.
It may be the case that, with high-profile campaigns against the construction of the M3 motorway at Twyford Down, in order to reduce the possibility of delays and cost due to protests, the Government opted to build the roads as a dual carriageway special road rather than as a motorway, even though many of the regulations are similar.
