During my recent trip to Britain I found www.theAA.com route finder to be much easier to use somehow than the ViaMichelin or Mappy.Com equivalents (perhaps that's just a personal quirk).

Anyway, sometimes there are places on these routes marked as a "traffic blackspot" and you are advised to "use your mobile" to dial a specific number.

Can anyone explain this?

They're two different things, which the AA link to make a few bob.

A blackspot is what I'd have thought it sounds like: a location where traffic can be awful, so you need to add a bit to your schedule if you're poassing it during predictable rush hours.

401100 is the AA's premium-rate phone number from mobiles for its Roadwatch service, which gives live traffic information for specific regions or roads. So, if you're approaching a blackspot you can - in theory - call the number and reroute if things are bad.

Complete waste of money of course. You'll get pretty much the same information just by activating the RDS system on your car radio. And there's a delay on the AA systems which is less of a problem on livce radio.

Thanks VERY much for that thorough explanation...especially the term "blackspot."

Thanks for this explanation CS but how does one tune to "RDS"? It sounds like a useful thing to do if travelling on British Roads as there are many comments in these forums about significant & unexpected (no local knowledge)hold ups? BTW What are considered 'predictable rush hours'? When I checked out some webcams on the main roads, at 7am in the morning some roads I'd expected to be busy didn't appear to be so, yet at 12pm they look very busy. I'm yet to find a webcam at the beginning of the M4 in London, but I'd assume it will always be busy.

Intrepid- We have purchased the AA 2006 British Road Atlas in anticipation of our holiday there next month and on the page concerning fixed speed cameras it states "most fixed speed cameras are installed at accident 'black spots' where four or more fatal or serious road collisions have occurred over the previous three years". Of course that definition leaves me wondering why you'd need to make a call regarding a particular 'black spot'.

A blackspot is typically roadworks or congestion, not road accidents.

Speed cameras are (allegedly) installed where SPEEDING traffic has cause accidents & deaths - so it's exactly the opposite of a traffic blackspot

RDS is a function of the radio in the car not a specific channel, it automatically brings up any radio station that is doing a traffic report.

If the car does't have it then tune to either Radio 2 (FM) or Radio 5 (AM) for frequent traffic reports

It's at least 15 years since we've had a car that didn't have RDS installed as standard - and we NEVER buy high-spec technology. I can't imagine any visitor would encounter a hired car that lacked it.

As everywhere else, by activating it you ensure local traffic announcements interrupt whatever's playing at the time - even CDs or national radio channels, like Classic FM or Radio 4.

0700 is a bit early for traffic to start building up in some parts ofthe country. Equally, some traffic blackspots can stay busy all day. You need to use your common sense about this.

The term "blackspot" is also used in the (usually quite different) context of accident blackspot. An accident blackspot is rarely the same place as a traffic blackspot, since at most traffic blackspots the chance of exceeding the speed of a differently-abled snail would be pretty extraordinary.

"most fixed speed cameras are installed at accident 'black spots' where four or more fatal or serious road collisions have occurred over the previous three years" is simply someone's bare-faced lie, uncritically reprinted by the AA.

Fixed speed cameras are placed wherever local hysteria, or plain avarice, has led a local council to decide they'd be a good idea. That's as often with an eye to the revenue they create as to queting local protestors.

From my own standpoint what I appreciated having most was an old-fashioned PAPER roadmap in-hand just so I could stay oriented. And I am not talking about the usual "road atlas"..in my case I was fortunate enough to have gone to Stanford's in London and bouth one of the A-Z regional road atlases..in this case the one for East Anglia.

It was wonderful and it also showed a lot of I guess what you folks call "clear roads" (the ones without route numbers.

Even if I did run into a black spot or a tie-up or whatever you want to call it at least with one of these I could see where I was tied up..and that was, and will be on the upcoming trip in September, important to me.

RDS sounds wonderful. Someone could make a lot of money marketing that in the US, at least to me.