PICTURE the scenario – your car breaks down on a country road, miles from anywhere and you pick up your mobile to call for help, but you can’t get a signal.
It is a problem that can affect drivers who break down on more than 5000 miles of Britain’s roads – almost 2000 miles of the total in Scotland – according to a new study.
Around 5540 miles of roads – representing about 2% of all roads – do not have coverage for calls from any of the country’s four mobile networks, the RAC Foundation found.
It listed the local authority areas most affected and half of them are Scottish – Highland (No 1 with 910 miles of road without coverage), Argyll and Bute (No 3 with 388 miles), Dumfries and Galloway (No 5 with 266 miles), Na h-Eileanan Siar (No 8 with 207 miles) and the Scottish Borders (No 9 with 192 miles).
The Welsh county of Powys was second with 411 miles of “dark” roads and the English counties of Cumbria and North Yorkshire were fourth and sixth with 296 and 219 miles respectively. Wales popped up again with Gwynedd in seventh place with 213 miles.
The RAC Foundation said a further 44,368 miles of road had only partial voice coverage, with not all operators providing a signal – representing 18% of all roads.
Motorists who rely on their smartphones to connect to the internet for route planning and to check for congestion could run into difficulty on the 5452 miles of road with a complete absence of 3G coverage.
An additional 66,619 miles are only covered for 3G by some operators and in terms of 4G, just 51% of the road network has full coverage.
The research was based on analysis of data published by communications regulator Ofcom.
Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “The good news is that mobile coverage has improved a great deal across our road network.
“On our motorways, which carry around a fifth of all traffic, every mile should now have voice and basic data coverage plus a 4G signal for all but a couple of miles.
“As rapidly as the technology has advanced, so too have our expectations of enjoying uninterrupted connectivity.
“Hopes are high that autonomous and connected vehicles will make our roads safer and help cut congestion, but that is dependent on those vehicles being able to communicate with each other and the infrastructure around them. This analysis shows that there is still work to be done to make constant and comprehensive coverage a reality.”
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