What is the point of these UK road markings?

Carriageway? Roadway?

What’s the difference?

Do you still have carriages? (Got any pictures? No, besides that fancy one of the Queenie’s!)

Carriageway = roadway. So divided highway = dual carriageway, and two-lane road = single carriageway. The terms have a legal meaning, as the speed limits are different: 70 on a dual carriageway and 60 on a single. And these change from one to the other when the road changes, with no signs required.

Carriageway is only used in common language to refer to parts of the road where there are two or more lanes of traffic in each direction. They’re not always motorways, which so the speed limit on them varies.

London’s main roads often display inexplicable widenings and narrowings again, legacy of various plans, e.g. the Inner London Motorway Box, which have been promulgated and abandoned over the years as political and social engineering fashions turned