Parked cars with battered wing mirrors, a chorus of horns as you approach a dreaded roundabout, a bouquet of flowers, which mark a life tragically taken too soon.

These are the tell-tell signs of dangerous and difficult routes, I learnt as I spent an afternoon criss-crossing the county's roads.

Driving instructor Steven Earl points out potentially hazardous spots on the A2, A249 and A229

Last month, the AA revealed that Kent was home to two of the most dangerous rural roads in the country for young drivers, according to AA Charitable Trust.

The new data comes as the trust launches a new interactive map which displays the most dangerous rural routes in the UK.

The A229, which runs from Rochester to Hawkhurst took the top spot by collision density.

Connecting Dover and London, the A2 comes second while the A249, an 18-mile road which runs from Maidstone to Sheerness, came in as the ninth, again both by collision density.

So what makes these routes so dangerous and what particular hazardous points should we drivers be aware of?

Armed with my mobile phone for filming, a notepad and pen, as well as the hope the car sickness I had as a child didn't suddenly return in a terrible stroke of timing, I set out with a driving instructor to find out. I'm in the passenger seat of course, the instructor is doing the driving.

Steven Earl, from Sittingbourne, has been teaching teenagers how to drive in Kent for 15 years.

Cars are in his blood. His stepdad found vehicles for TV shows such as Foyle's War and Steven did up his first car, a 1960s Hillman, before he was old enough to drive it, at just 15.

He is not taking students currently, but rather is focussing on making Youtube videos on his channel Chimp on Cars, and TikTok clips with his 12-year-old son, where he shares tips for learner drivers.

The A2 was up first. Being 71 miles long, and my phone only having a finite amount of storage, we tackled the section from Upper Harbledown, near Canterbury, through Faversham, and into Sittingbourne.

AA data reveals that between 2013 and 2018 there were 764 collisions on the road, with 26% of crashes involving young drivers.

Starting on the dual carriageway, we were greeted by several lorries. Steven said the amount of lorries, due to the proximity to Dover, "must be a factor" in making the A2 more dangerous than other roads.

He added: "Whenever you're changing speed, whenever you are changing lanes, that's where the major danger is."

After we came off the Brenley Corner roundabout, we saw several houses on the side of the A-road, and there were more on the A299 and the A249 as well.

Steven said: "You don't even have to have a slip road, so if a car was turning into one of these properties and they were in front of us they would have to slow down quite a lot, to first or possibly second gear."

The narrow roads, a lack of driveways and parked cars as we enter Faversham are also a hazardous combination, Steven explained, adding: "you see lots of wing mirrors, in fact if you look on the road you might even see some debris of somebody's door mirror that's been left hanging off.

"One of my learners has actually hit somebody's door mirror there in the past."

Heading down hill, we leave the roundabout that takes us to Teynham, where Steven says there have been a couple of accidents recently.

One of the collisions was at the junction to Doddington and Newnham, where a van coming down the hill hit a car coming out of the junction.

When asked for examples of poor driving the instructor has seen on the A2 and in Kent in general, Steven said: "I do notice lots of drivers on telephones as well, I doubt if that's unique to Kent."

Even more worryingly, he used to see it a lot when he was teaching on the school run.

Passing through Teynham, we see a water pump, erected to mark Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee.

The pump was rebuilt after a car crashed into it on the early hours of New Year's Day in 2016.

Two men in their 20s died after the car, which had been travelling towards Sittingbourne, crashed outside the Dover Castle pub. It flipped on to its roof after colliding with the water pump.

The driver, Ashley Howard, then aged 23, was jailed for seven years for causing the crash.

Afterwards, the owners of the Dover Castle called for something to be done to force down the speed of traffic entering Teynham, to prevent another tragedy.

Before we see the water pump, Steven explains the hazards of entering the village, coming from a national speed limit road.

He said: "You're coming over quite a blind hill and if you haven't got your speed down to 30 or less then if you come across a parked car over here, even if it's half on the pavement half off, that can be a danger."

The nearby pub means on busy nights you will see a lot of parked cars on the road, something else to be wary of.

We pass Bapchild Cricket Club, where flowers were tied to the fence, possibly in tribute to 14-year-old Kyle Coen, who was hit on his bike by a driver in his early 20s.

Next we head to the A249, towards Maidstone.

Between 2013 and 2018, there have been 246 collisions on the A249, with 20% of crashes involving young drivers.

Steven explained that there have been some accidents at the Stockbury roundabout.

"The accidents I have seen have been on the approach to the roundabout, where you've got people trying to change lanes as well as slow down."

He points out a short slip road and properties on the left as we make our way to the county town on the dual carriageway.

A friend of his lives in a road which branches off from the route Steven tells me, adding: "He takes his life into his own hands every time he goes in and out of his own road."

"That's why motorways are safer than dual carriageways. Motorways will not have properties that you can enter, they will only have proper slip roads."

Given Kent's unreliable weather of late, it's not surprising that the clear skies turned to grey. As the rain fell, we headed on to the A229, starting at Blue Bell Hill and making our way to Chatham.

AA's research found that the A229 was the number one dangerous rural road for young drivers, for collision density.

It also found that between 2013 and 2018 there were 175 collisions on the 22-miles of the A299, with 30% of crashes involving young drivers.

There have already been multiple crashes on the road this year.

Steven pointed out that long queues can form at the exit to Waderslade, presenting some "level of danger", as drivers have to slow down.

'He takes his life into his own hands every time he goes in and out of his own road...'

Entering Chatham, we head through a more built up area, which Steven describes as probably the "safer bit of the road".

Rather than going on to Rochester, we headed back the way we came, driving towards Maidstone.

Trouble was ahead as we merged with traffic coming off the the M2.

The heavy flow of cars forced us into the right hand lane.

Steven said: "The extreme left lane is just a slip road, that's going to disappear, now we've got people working out whose going to go fast, whose going to go slow, as we're coming into a national speed limit."

As we prepare to move back into the left lane, a black car overtakes us on the left.

"Good job I was looking in my mirror, otherwise I would have crashed into them," Steven comments, surprisingly calmly.

"Certainly back there, there would have been an element of panic if I was inexperienced driver trying to get back into the left lane. "Once you're experienced you know that people will do stuff like that, but if you've not seen it before maybe you'll be expecting it less."

As we glide closer to Maidstone town centre we join the inevitable congestion.

We pass the Fremlin Walk car park and head to the gyratory which will take us back to Sittingbourne, where our journey started.

I have flashbacks from autumn 2019, trying to stem my panic while navigating my way around the County Town for the first time.

On approach, even Steven admits to never knowing whether he is in the right lane or not - a comfort to us mere mortal drivers.

During the afternoon I never felt unsafe, because I was being driven by an experienced and calm driver.

However, I know first hand, having only started driving on Kent's roads a year-and-a-half ago, after moving to the county, how daunting and difficult these routes can be.

Now I know which areas in particular to look out for I hope I will approach them in a more confident manner- but let's see.

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