Three lane S3 section on A6, with "suicide lane"

This is a section of the A6 road which passes over Shap Summit, filmed heading South. Before the M6 motorway was completed in 1970, this was the main road between Scotland and England, and it handled large amounts of traffic. Sections of it were marked with three lanes: one for each direction of travel and a central lane for overtaking. This allowed faster vehicles to pass slow moving lorries.
This system of road marking was commonplace on some main roads in Britain in the 1950s to the 80s, but due to the lack of priority with the overtaking lane there was a high possibility of head-on collisions occuring. Indeed this lane was often called a "suicide lane" due to the accidents which occured on this type of road. As traffic volumes increased, this system was phased out and the roads either englarged into dual carriageways, re-marked as two lane single carriageway (S2) or with solid lines on one side of the overtaking lane which dictate the directional priority of use (S2+1).
This section between Shap and Kendal is one of the few true S3 sections that survive and can be used legally in both directions as intended - see Highway Code rule #135. The lanes are narrow and the climb is steep, hence why I waited until I had a clear, downhill run before overtaking the car in front.
Filmed using an iPhone 4 with a windscreen mount, hence the video quality's not great and it's quite shakey. Note the interference when passing under the HT cables.

[@ianstewartorr8455]

Up here I remember the A8 as a kid it was exactly the same

[@crazyrabbitbob]

this helped with driving theory and problems with three lane two-way roads!

[@jaycee330]

Holy Shit, even in the US we got rid of that insane design decades ago! Why don't they come out and remark this properly, make it a 2+1 or something?