POTD: The Narrow Road

POTD: The Narrow RoadThe Narrow Road
Isle of Mull, Scotland
2015

The good news is that most, if not all, of the major roads on Mull are paved. The bad news is that this is how wide many of them are. And they’re two way roads, and there are often bushes on both sides, and blind hills and corners, and ditch drop-offs or walls right at the edge of the pavement. I think the roads are so narrow here that if you collected all the asphalt into one place it would hardly be enough to pave they typical Walmart Super Center parking lot in the U.S.

There are little pull-outs scattered along the roads where one car can pull over to let another pass. If you see one between you and an oncoming car then either you or they pull in and let the other pass. If you meet someone between pull-outs, then one of you has to back up to one.

This all works surprisingly efficiently unless there is too much traffic. Our landlady told us that once a garbage truck meet up with a camper van in a steep area and neither wanted to back up to a pull-out for fear of backing off the road. So they had a standoff while traffic began to back up on both sides of them exacerbating the problem. The police finally arrived and spent several hours unraveling everything and getting folks on their way again.

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