Why my classic never hits the motorway

When going on any journey in my classic Jaguar, I look at the route to see if any motorways are involved. We all tend to rely on sat navs these days rather than planning a route using a map so we can sometimes find ourselves being guided down a slip road on to a motorway for part of our journey that we didn’t expect.

I will not take my classic on to a smart motorway, despite it being very reliable and having broken down only once in the ten years that I’ve owned it and that was in the first year. I prefer not to have my 50-year-old car cruising at constantly high speeds even on a conventional motorway with a hard shoulder. It must also be said that the scenery is much better on other roads than motorways in general.

The idea that staff would be alerted within 20 seconds on a motorway using the Stopped Vehicle Detection radar system (which is only 40 miles of motorway anyway) does not fill me with confidence. Twenty seconds is easily enough for the vehicle speeding along the slow lane at speeds in excess of 50mph these days to wipe us both out. We can all imagine the scenario – a large vehicle spots you stopped or even reacts to the gantry signs to move over.

I don’t want to become the 39th death related to smart motorways ( CCW, 5 May) or be the cause of it. Driving my classic is all about enjoyment. Motorways are efficient but not enjoyable. Why on earth would you want to spoil a classic drive by using a motorway?

I for one will stick to the A-roads and byways of our fair land and will be giving all motorways a miss, especially so-called smart motorways. I don’t see anything smart about either becoming a statistic or causing one!

] Simon Biggs, Dudley