NY expressed precisely :
I remember when major roads like the A34 between Oxford and the M40 were made
up of concrete slabs, with tar expansion joints. Not a nice road surface to
drive on - very hard (tarmac is hard, but there's a bit more give in it) and
the thump-thump-thump of each joint gets very annoying after a few seconds
;-)

...and noisy. The built a motorway a few years ago in concrete, one mile
away. A petition soon had it resurfaced in tarmac.