The M25 was 40 years old on 29 October. Its queues helped inspire Chris Rea's 1989 hit The Road to Hell, while it's also been called the UK's biggest car park. Those nicknames have proven rather harder to shift than the traffic, yet the M25 has also inspired sightseeing trips and acquired a following for some of its graffiti; there's even a cricket ground above it.
New research to mark the big birthday shows just how much businesses still depend on London's orbital motorway, yet a quarter of local van drivers have declined jobs because journeys on the M25 are just too unpredictable.
