Bark and ride for a lucky pup

12 FAST FACTS ON

LOVE them or loathe them, we couldn’t do without our motorways – and this week marks 60 years since the opening of the UK’s first one.

The initial section, the Preston By-pass, was opened on December 5,

1958 by prime minister Harold Macmillan.

We now have 2,300 miles of motorway and travel a whopping

68billion miles on them every year. JAMES MOORE has put together a dozen fab facts about the highways. The M1, which opened in 1959, was the country’s first full length motorway and connects London and Leeds. There were no crash barriers, lighting or speed limits. A 70mph rule was only introduced on the network in 1965 following a spate of serious accidents. The M6 is the longest at 236 miles – running between Catthorpe, Leicestershire and Gretna Green. It’s dubbed the “most haunted” after sightings of everything from ghost hitch-hikers to Roman soldiers.

The M25 around London is the most congested. The average speed over the

117miles is 25mph. Part of the route near Heathrow carries

196,000 vehicles a day. Its jams even inspired Chris Rea’s song The Road To Hell.

The longest ever tailback was a 40-miler on the M1 in 1985. In 2002 traffic was cleared from a stretch of the M1 near Milton Keynes to film 28 Days Later.

More than 700 miles of motorway are clogged by middle lane hoggers daily. A poll found that 23% of drivers still feel uncomfortable about driving on motorways. Disasters include an M5 pile-up in 2011 which killed seven, while 13 perished in a 1985 crash on the M4. In 1989 a Boeing 737 crashed on the M1 at Kegworth, Leics. Statistically, M-ways are five times safer than other roads.

Britain’s highest motorway is the M62 which reaches 1,221ft over the Pennines. Doves recorded their song M62 under one of its flyovers and a farm still stands between the two carriageways near Huddersfield.

Oxford University experts have discovered pigeons use motorways to navigate, even turning off at junctions. The M96 in Gloucestershire wouldn’t be much use to them – it’s a 400m mock-up used to train fire crews. The oldest services are at Watford Gap on the M1 and date to 1959. Confusingly it’s in Northamptonshire not near Watford, Hertfordshire. It was a

At just eight miles long, Britain’s first stretch of motorway had a hedge in the middle, no hard shoulder and was closed within weeks because of frost damage. Some 3.4million tonnes of earth had to be moved to build the Preston By-Pass which now forms part of the M6. ■MILES BETTER: M-way network transformed travel in UK Some 37% of us think it’s OK to speed on the motorway while a survey by Admiral found that 55% of drivers think the limit should be 80mph. The famous Spaghetti Junction near Birmingham serves 18 different routes, involves 73 miles of road and has 559 concrete columns. The landmark’s official name is the Gravelly Hill Interchange. regular hang out for the Rolling Stones and The Beatles. The first motorway services pub was opened by JD Wetherspoon on the M40 in 2014.

THIS pooch had a miracle escape after being hit by a car.Tero the miniature schnauzer survived 10 hours in a radiator after the accident and the driver only discovered him after work.Despite getting hit by the Renault car and spending the day in the freezing cold, Tero was unhurt.Police in Hamburg, Germany, described the ordeal that started on Tuesday morning as a “Christmas miracle”.On her commute to work, a 59-year-old woman felt a blow to her car.She slammed on the brakes and jumped out to check what she had hit, but could not see anything because it was so dark.She drove for another 12 miles and left the car at work, only to hear a whimpering when she returned after her shift.Firefighters rescued Tero, who has now been reunited with his owner.