From the arrival of Costa drive-thrus and SMART motorways to automated toll roads, incessant congestion and EV chargers, a personal account of Britain's changing roadscapes is captured in a new book, authored by a Lancaster University professor, to be published this week.
Britain's Changing Roadscapes: Mobility, Place, Attachment, Loss, written by Professor of Cultural Theory Lynne Pearce, tells the unfolding story of road journeys by car with a focus on the shifting cultural, social, political, and economic landscapes of Britain,
The book balances journeys past, present and future with a myriad of quirky and fascinating photographs encompassing the 'wonder and poignancy' of life on the road and also relays 'the full agony' of conveyer belt motorway driving and overhead digital gantries.
It is billed as 'a must-read for anyone fascinated by the journeys we make by car' and is published by Routledge.
The motivation behind the book is a lifetime of driving by the author, specifically the long and often not-so-winding road between her current home in the Highlands of Scotland and the south-west of Cornwall where she was born and grew up.
Drawing on her trusted road diaries and photographic archive dating back to the 1990s, the book centres on a route which follows the A85, A82, M8, M74, M6, M5, A30 and Cornwall's narrow country lanes demonstrating the 'sheer variety and idiosyncrasy' of Britain's road network.
The book is also concerned with how mundane change on the road makes its presence felt, the author arguing that this often depends upon the 'yardstick' of the human life as travellers compare the road today with what it was like formerly.
Alongside the 'new arrivals' to the British
