h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Actually it was more your "tourist was here last year and forgot about that bad bend" tipping sort of thing.

Before they put the e-way through North Wales the "Aber Stretch" of the A55 was the only place you could get up any speed. If you were a denizen of anywhere that has fast roads (England for example) and you didn't know that the west end of it was Gypsy Corner (exquisite pun that one) you might take to it like a duck to oil.

The local lads would often gather at the railway bridge about 2 miles out of Bangor to watch holliday makers get over their surprise -or not as it were.

(You have to remember that those were the days of 3 channel, black and white TV; which was rigidly controlled by the BBC, so that the acme of entertainment was Morcambe and Wise.)

Relatively local lads would sometimes get caught out too. An aquaintance was driving the works van and a compressor trailor that way when he forgot abot the bends.

He said he couldn't even hit the breaks. He went through it at about 60 mph with the lads banging on the partition and telling him to knock it off. He said he was doing over 80 when he realised what was coming and jamed on the brakes.

"Fortunately, although it was a busy time of day, there was no traffic coming the other way." But that was about half a mile before the bends. He said that he was drenched with sweat knowing he could only "not use" the throttle -and all the while a bunch of angry builders were banging the # out of the panel behind his head.

The Aber Stretch was incorporated into the present road virtually unchanged. For comparison with modern safety measures, if you are ever down that way, take the junction off before the one for Bangor. The one for Tal-y-Bont; it goes over that same double bend.