I had the misfortune to have to do a Yeovil to Cardiff return trip yesterday and got caught in the congestion on the M5. I was expecting it to be heavy going due to the summer holidays but it turned out to be far worse than I expected. I discovered later that the northbound carriageway had been closed due to an accident (J15 I think) which though well north of my route probably explains the northbound backlog, but it was equally bad traveling south.
Anyone any idea why it was so bad, I mean was it the start of the 'Birmingham fortnight' (does that still exist) for example ...
... and can anyone suggest a good website for predicting bad travel days/times?
Cheers.
FTF
Edited by rtj70 on 09/08/2009 at 11:43
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I believe it was to do with an incident involving a car/caravan combo.
... Give this a whirl fred ~ www.trafficengland.com/index.aspx
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Where the M5 and M4 meet (Bristol) it's always bad. Too much traffic and too little road makes for a congested area at the best times. Add in the odd accident or two and inexperienced drivers / families making the trip on holiday with a fully loaded car and drivers being distracted by the kids / arguing with the misses etc and the marginal situation just ends up in chaos.
Rubber necking also doesn't help but then we all do it to some extent.
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Harumph........ Went to Exeter yesterday - a 2 hour tip took 5 hours. Not happy.....
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Its them caravans wot does it
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Also holiday makers returning from Wales on the eastbound side? Found this on the A35 yesterday outside Poole, with an unusually high proportion of caravans and motorhomes.
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My trip to Cardiff is normally something to do with two of my daughters being at Uni there. Allowing for a bit of unloading a round trip normally takes about 2 hours. Yesterday it took 7 hours. It wasn't continuous driving cos we had plenty of loo stops but it was knackering all that stop start driving!
FTF
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>>a round trip normally takes about 2 hours
Sorry meant 4 hours!
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>>Its them caravans wot does it
especially when they fall over, or the tyres shred, etc etc
It's not funny dodging the carcass of a tyre.
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Harumph........ Went to Exeter yesterday - a 2 hour tip took 5 hours. Not happy.....
You don't say from where Mad Ducks.
Regards...MD
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Twas the Bristol balloon fiesta at the weekend, and that didn't help matters - That, combined with holiday traffic and the usual M5/M4 bottleneck probably finished off any progress. I hear that the traffic in and around bristol was appalling too. Wanted to go to Chew Valley Reservoir for the day on Sat, got stuck on the A37 going S. of Bristol, and gave up. Went to Dyrham Park instead. Saw a lovely 1969 e-type Jag in the car park.
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We went to the balloon festival yesterday. Approaching Bristol from the east on the M4 at about 2.00pm, the overhead signs warned of congestion so turned off down the motorway (M???) into Bristol instead of M5 J18 as planned. I thought the centre of Bristol would be bad, but we sailed through and straight into the car park. Great afternoon/early evening. Left about 8.00pm and went for a meal before setting off for home about 9.30. Brilliant journey - smug or what!
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Basically, just avoid the M5 from the avonmouth interchange to Weston Super Mare (J21) on Saturdays during the summer holidays. A lot of the congestion seems to be caused by flaming middle lane hoggers creating a rolling roadblock as they mimse along, merrily sitting in lane 3 in the 4 lane bits. Knock on effect is that A370 becomes as bad as people try to divert away.
Is pretty much a given over the summer there will be jams as Saturday is the holiday swapover day for a lot of sites.
PS also went to Balloon fiesta Saturday afternoon and sailed up the 370 to it- although went up for the mass ascent Friday night and took 90 minutes to get to Bedminster from Weston due to accidents and M5 being shut for the air ambulance.
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This time of year the M5 is a no-go area from junction 14 south to the Weston turnoff, J21. The A38 north of Bristol is just as bad. Heading to Aust, then Avonmouth from junction 13 does cut out some of the crawl.
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Left Penzances today at 10:00am. Got home here in north surrey at 17:45. Many traffic pinch points. SatNav has traffic avoidance, which on two occasions took us through very narrow single track lanes and small villages which added more time in my view. Kept wondering what time I would have done it in sitting in the traffic. Some of these villages have crazy traffic calming causing additional jams that I was trying to avoid.
I always try to avoid, when I can, the A303 past Stone Henge. For some unknown reason the SatNav took me right past it. A traffic pinch point in both directions due to rubber neckers slowing to look at a pile of rubble in a field :-)
Why can't the HA erect screens along this section near to SH to get the traffic moving. If these Neanderthals need to visit the thing, then go and see it properly.
Having slipped down some stone steps yesterday injuring 5 vertibrae, the drive was rather unpleasant I can tell you, hence the rant.
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