M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Delays

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Sun 10 Mar 2013 18:45
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Delays - Smileyman

I see in the news that the M25 Dartford bridge has been closed most of today with all traffic using the tunnels. The delays are reported to be 'up to 3 hours'.

I don't know why, and really the reason is not the issue, the sheer utter frustration that will have been suffered by the motorists caused by this delay shows the need for a better solution. It must have been quicker to drive around the M25 rather than wait - or through Central London, especially on a Sunday. I was planning to use this route today, but decided to put the trip off until next weekend, just in case the forecast snow became a problem later in the evening. (to return at 22.01, so to avoid the toll charge).

The sooner a new crossing is built, further east than the M25. perhaps linking Sheerness to Tilbury, the better.

Edited by Avant on 11/03/2013 at 23:31

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Sun 10 Mar 2013 18:56
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Dealys - RT

Remember that at one time there was only the tunnel on the M25 route - oldies like me remember when there was no M25, just the North/South Circulars.

Problem is - build more capacity and more traffic flocks to fill it up.

The answer is for 30% of the South-East's population to move to the Provinces - with modern electronic communications that should be no hardship.

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Sun 10 Mar 2013 19:18
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Dealys - andyp

Man has jumped from the top of the bridge.

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Sun 10 Mar 2013 19:22
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Dealys - gordonbennet

There is an undeniable base reason for the massive overcrowding of the nations roads but stating it will get this thread closed.

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Sun 10 Mar 2013 22:03
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Dealys - Hamsafar

"Man has jumped from the top of the bridge."

What an epitome of selfishness.

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Mon 11 Mar 2013 02:26
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Dealys - cockle {P}

"Man has jumped from the top of the bridge."

What an epitome of selfishness.

I could, in very poor taste, say that the queues of congestion on the QE2 caused by us all having to stop to pay our 'congestion charge', aka stealth tax, have probably made many motorists feel like jumping over the side.

However, I find that, albeit selfish due to the impact on others, a fellow human being has been driven, for whatever reason, to such an action as very, very sad. Having suffered from some, minor, mental instability in my life I can truly say that but for the Grace of God there go I, and probably, according to statistics, many of you.

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Mon 11 Mar 2013 09:01
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Dealys - Bromptonaut

Good use of the warning signs by the HA. Delays on M25 J29-J1 were advised as far north as Leicester. At that point drivers have choice of A43-M40 and going anti clockwise on M25 or A14/M11 and Blackwall tunnel as well as a variety of routes nearer City/West End.

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Mon 11 Mar 2013 09:16
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Dealys - RT

Good use of the warning signs by the HA. Delays on M25 J29-J1 were advised as far north as Leicester. At that point drivers have choice of A43-M40 and going anti clockwise on M25 or A14/M11 and Blackwall tunnel as well as a variety of routes nearer City/West End.

Although sometimes the one hand of HA doesn't know what the other's doing - when the warning signs advise in a different region, the original problem, and it's resulting queues, can be fixed several hours before the far distant signs are withdrawn - meaning some motorists taking a long diversion for half a day longer than necessary.

TA on the radio, using RDS, is only partially helpful - BBC local stations give updates for their areas which will interrupt the music automatically, but BBC Radio 2 which gives regular national updates isn't on the TA system !

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Mon 11 Mar 2013 10:32
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Dealys - Bromptonaut

TA on the radio, using RDS, is only partially helpful - BBC local stations give updates for their areas which will interrupt the music automatically, but BBC Radio 2 which gives regular national updates isn't on the TA system !

Gave up with TA years ago. Round Northampton it picks up alerts in a radius bounded by London, Oxford, Birmingham and Cambridge.

Press reports state that jumper was on bridge for several hours before actually launching off. Bridge closed for negotiators to try and talk hom down.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/mar/10/man-jumps-death-bridge-kent

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Mon 11 Mar 2013 11:40
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Dealys - RT

Gave up with TA years ago. Round Northampton it picks up alerts in a radius bounded by London, Oxford, Birmingham and Cambridge.

I simply look at the station name being displayed during TA and then if it's not relevant to the direction I'm travelling I just hit the TA button once to cancel but leave it ready for next time.

My previous Subaru had TA but no station name display - that was a pig as you could spend all the traffic report trying to decide if it applied to you.

Traffic reports can be poor for anyone other than locals when they only refer to road or junction names rather than giving the A/B number where possible.

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Tue 12 Mar 2013 15:28
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Dealys - BigJohnD
Gave up with TA years ago. Round Northampton it picks up alerts in a radius bounded by London, Oxford, Birmingham and Cambridge.

Likewise.

Most are well after the event. I recall being stationary on the M62 for and hour or so because of an accident ahead, but it wasn't until the road cleared and we were on our way again that "Serious delays" were announced.

And then others are so specific they're meaningless - "there's emergency road works at the junction of Church Road and Market Street" or you have to get the Atlas out to work out if the closure of the M1 at J5 has any impact on the journey.

Edited by BigJohnD on 12/03/2013 at 15:29

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Tue 12 Mar 2013 15:38
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Dealys - RT
Gave up with TA years ago. Round Northampton it picks up alerts in a radius bounded by London, Oxford, Birmingham and Cambridge.

Likewise.

Each to their own then, TA has enabled me to reroute successfully a number of times.

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Mon 11 Mar 2013 11:45
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Dealys - FP

I agree with Cockle.

Yes, suicide is selfish in one sense, in that the person concerned is not showing consideration for the impact their actions will have on others.

However, I hope no-one here believes that someone would take the decision to kill themselves lightly. By the time someone is about to do it everything else is blotted out - it is an act of sheer desperation, the only way out of mental agony. Suicide cases are not thinking rationally as we would judge it.

I also have suffered from major episodes of depression through most of my adult life, though I'm thankful that I don't believe I got close to contemplating suicide - but it makes you a bit sympathetic to those who do.

Edited by FP on 11/03/2013 at 11:46

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Mon 11 Mar 2013 10:34
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Dealys - Bromptonaut

There is an undeniable base reason for the massive overcrowding of the nations roads but stating it will get this thread closed.

The roads have been overcrowded all my adult life. The elephant in the room arrived after 2003!!

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Mon 11 Mar 2013 22:53
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Dealys - Smileyman

I saw the in news about the man on the bridge - I was not aware of this when opening the thread, so this is why I stated 'really the reason is not the issue'. I also remember using the old A13 to the single bore Dartford tunnel, my dad used this route to get to Dover when I was still a wee lad.

We know that the toll was intended to recover costs, but all costs have been recovered so nowadays it's just another way to swell the public coffers ... so these funds could be ring fenced and used to build a new crossing. The crossing could even be linked to a new airport, if such decision were to be made.

With the slow process of planning then construction, nows a good time to get started, it will take long enough as it is.

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Mon 11 Mar 2013 23:29
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Dealys - Collos25

Part of a Labour party manifesto to get rid of the toll once in power they quietly forgot it and nobody has bothered since.You can travel all the way across Europe with no problems and the first hold up is the Dartford crossing and the channel of course.

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Mon 11 Mar 2013 23:33
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Delays - Avant

I agree that there should no longer be a toll - but even it it were justified, why on earth can't it be collected electronically, as with the London congestion charge?

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Tue 12 Mar 2013 13:25
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Delays - cockle {P}

I agree that there should no longer be a toll - but even it it were justified, why on earth can't it be collected electronically, as with the London congestion charge?

It will be by, so the Government say, 2014. The downside to that is that when it goes to 'free flow charging' then the toll, I refuse to call it a congestion charge, will be increased by another 50p to £2.50 to pay for the collection system.....

So having just gone up last October from £1.50 by next year the toll will have increased by 66% in around 18 months.

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Tue 12 Mar 2013 15:43
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Delays - Armitage Shanks {p}

I am not clear why people who want to end their lives can't do it in the privacy of their own homes, using alcohol, pills or supermarket carrier bags and some black tape. One of these worked for one of my very close relatives and didn't mess up anybody except their immediate family.

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Tue 12 Mar 2013 15:56
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Delays - galileo

I am not clear why people who want to end their lives can't do it in the privacy of their own homes, using alcohol, pills or supermarket carrier bags and some black tape. One of these worked for one of my very close relatives and didn't mess up anybody except their immediate family.

Absolutely agree - after a series of suicides closing M62 for several hours each time, I wrote to the Highways Agency suggesting higher fences on the Scammonden Bridge might help - I was amazed to have a really sensible reply from the Agency, instead of the usual platitudes.

They have notices on this overbridge giving the Samaritans' phone number, but no telephone box, as this would need to be put there by the local authority.

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Tue 12 Mar 2013 16:12
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Delays - RT

I believe that the Erskine Bridge over the Clyde has several such phones - it's a regular place for those in Glasgow at the end of their tether.

I think though, that train drivers get more distress from such events than motorists.

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Thu 14 Mar 2013 16:20
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Delays - cockle {P}

I think though, that train drivers get more distress from such events than motorists.

Coming from a small community that was close by a railway depot in my youth I knew quite a few train drivers and guards and such incidents had varying effects on them. One driver I knew had got into double figures and was outwardly unaffected, a couple never got back on the footplate again after having had their first....

One of the drivers who never drove again just couldn't face it as he'd hit a young woman who looked like his daughter and she'd actually turned, smiled and waved at him just before he hit her after he'd applied the brakes fully and knew that the train wasn't going to stop in time. He sat in an armchair in his front room for weeks just staring at the wall and occasionally bursting into tears; he never went back in the depot again, it literally ruined his life.

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Tue 12 Mar 2013 16:33
M25 Dartford Bridge Closed - Severe Delays - Bromptonaut

I am not clear why people who want to end their lives can't do it in the privacy of their own homes, using alcohol, pills or supermarket carrier bags and some black tape. One of these worked for one of my very close relatives and didn't mess up anybody except their immediate family.

I suspect that by the time they do it such rational thought has gone from their heads.

They might also discount the home solution either for lack of certainty of death (including being found and resucitated) or to save their families the shock of finding the body.

Somebody on another board I frequent came home to find her partner had hung himself in the stairwell. How she's recoverd and apparently rebuilt her life I do not know.

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