When were you last stuck in traffic?
I'm thinking about a proper jam, not just a few minutes.
My biggest jam story goes back to the late 1970s when there were power cuts in London, which meant darkness and no traffic lights.
I was on a motorbike on the North Circular road and I've never seen so much standing traffic.
Henly's Corner was so congested I had trouble threading my way through on two wheels.
Plenty of people had given up and were standing around talking to each other.
What's your best - or perhaps that should be worst - jam story?
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M6 North, a few years ago - consequence of one of the many fatalities.
Stationary for a long time, eventually got off onto the backroads which were solid with traffic too.
Gave up and went back home.. wasted day, but survived it, unlike some.
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M5 in Devon this last summer when someone tipped their caravan over for some obscure reason. Before that was on the A5 in Shrewsbury on the way to France in June, some hay wagon had burst into flames - bike was fully loaded and not fun to weave, so we parked up and read the paper for an hour and a half.
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>> When were you last stuck in traffic?
Just 2 days back - see my thread about M1 closure :o)
Obviously you don't drive in M25. In that case the answer would have been "everyday".
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Snow in Manchester about 18 years ago at rush hour going home.
Took two hours to do a ten minute journey.
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December 22/23?rd 2009 - Drove all the way from S of F with snow/ice problems from Paris onwards, but no delays, until we came to leave the M25. then 2 hrs for the last 2 miles!
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5 or 6 years back, brother-in-law and I took our motorcycles through the Alps and came across a stretch where they were repairing a landslide. We'd overtaken about a 3 mile queue and with a fair degree of Franglais and looking at the bleedin obvious, decided to wait as they reckoned it was only going to be 40 minutes or so.
We did the mad Brit abroad bit at the head of the queue and brewed a cup of char as my B-i-L had a gas burning ring and kettle in his panniers. Lots of laughter from the locals, inc the road gang.
It ended up being quite social, loads of people wandered up and looked at the bikes (Honda CBR 1100XX SuperBlackbird and Kawasaki ZZ1200R).
We'd have to have had a break at some point anyway, so it wasn't a problem.
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Bikes are always good ice breakers wherever you are.
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It can be hell down here in Pembrokeshire.
The other day I had to almost stop for a roundabout because there was a car already on it. They should do something.
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>> It can be hell down here in Pembrokeshire.
>>
And here north of Hadrian's attempt at keeping the English in. My London based BiL says if we can see half a dozen cars at once we think it is a traffic jam.
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>>And here north of Hadrian's attempt at keeping the English in
And those pesky Picts out. ;>)
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>> The other day I had to almost stop for a roundabout because there was a
>> car already on it. They should do something.
>>
More than a little truth in that. Roundabouts being a bit of a novelty down that end of the Principality, many drivers simply don't know what to do when they get on to one.
In fairness that's not exclusive to Wales.
Last edited by: Harleyman on Sun 17 Oct 10 at 19:20
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It was in October 1987 when we had the hurricane.
I was heading down the M11 to Deptford with a flat trailer full of baked beans.
I left about 4am for a 7am delivery and the winds got worse and worse until when I left the M11 to head through Leyton and Stratford towards the Blackwall tunnel.
Almost immediately a bus shelter blew past me and just missed the cab, we shuffled along but all the traffic lights were out and finally in the middle of Leyton we all stopped.....for 3 hours.
On the good side I was parked opposite a café, and it is the only time I have locked up the lorry in the road and gone into a cafe and eaten breakfast! I finally got to Deptford at 13.30 and still had to wrestle with the sheets to get them off the load and folded up.
But I was so pleased I had a flat trailer on that day.
Pat
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Winds and Baked Beans - makes you think that,
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Never really. I did get stuck on the M56 in May this year on the way to Wales but I wasn't driving. in his Panda. The traffic was caused by people tailgating (slamming on brakes etc). It took a good hour to clear. I remember it took an hour and a half to reach the start of North Wales, its usualy just 45 minutes away from Manchester.
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No really bad experience in thirty plus years of driving.
Longest stop was well over an hour on the M6 in around 1996 or 97. March/April with weather fast cycling between benign sunshine and vicious squalls of rain and hail. Inevitable pile up a few miles north of J15. Emergency vehicles and tow trucks tearing down the hard shoulder every few minutes. Five year old soon wanting loo but was very good. I think I could have carried her over the hard shoulder to crouch on the verge if I'd had to but I really didn't like the risk.
Other one was in the snow c2003. Rain had turned to heavy snow around 3pm. Offices immediately discharged their staff so the gritters couldn't get near the roads 'cos they were gridlocked. Virgin trains got me from Euston to Milton Keynes in the programmed 36minutes. It took three times that do do less than a mile from the commuter car park in Grafton Gate opposite the Abbey HQ to the A5 at Portway. HA had managed to keep that gritted and the rest of the journey was OK.
Lot better than the folks who were stuck all night on the M11.
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Not caught up in this jam but I remember in about 1967 being on duty in the centre of Manchester when a smog came down. The city was gridlocked for hours, you could only see about 6 ft and you couldn't see the traffic lights up the poles.
I was in Mosley Street when I heard the bells of an ambulance. A colleague and I managed to guide him all the way up the pavement to Piccadilly where a traffic car took over.
When I booked off a about 7pm, I drove home, about 2 miles, with my head out of the car window following the centre white line, hoping no-one coming the other way was doing the same. Still, it wouldn't have been much of an impact at walking pace.
All cleared up by morning, there must have been some wind in the night....Maybe Pat's beans !
Ted
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A couple of years back, coach fire at the junction of the M3 and M27, so they shut everything down....for hours (no injuries). My normal 1 hour commute home from Basingstoke took 4.5 hours.
What really, really annoyed me was that they'd just put up those expensive, useless big overhead signs; which were showing 'J13 closed' rather than the correct 'M3 closed at J13' . Hence I stayed on the motorway rather than use one of the many back road routes I know, and pretty much sat there for 3 hours plus, inching forwards every few minutes.
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>Other one was in the snow c2003.
Probably the same time when, despite 72hrs warning, Hants Co. Council were totally unprepared for the freezing conditions and a few inches of snow.
The roads ended up as an obstacle course of abandoned vehicles and compacted snow.
It took me five hours to drive the last five miles home from the Basingstoke Ring Road.
The situation has improved dramatically since then. It only took two hours when the same thing happened last winter and the Council have said that they 'intend' to provide more roadside grit bins.
Whoopee! When the M3, A30 and A33 are closed by snow again we can all muck in and clear 'em with grit bins.
Kevin...
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>> The situation has improved dramatically since then. It only took two hours when the same thing happened last winter and the Council have said that they 'intend' to provide more
roadside grit bins.
Last year, my less than an hour commute from Reading to High Wycombe took...... 7 hours....
I left at 5.30pm, got home at 1.30am. not happy, and VERY tired.
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Stuck on the M40 for 5 hours after a lorry went up in flames - that was the worst.
However, the most upsetting was being trapped on the M23 northbound after a van went through the central reservation and caused several fatalities. I was stuck for a couple of hours until the police released the trapped traffic, since the motorway was closed behind us, and we had to weave past the covered wreaked vans and cars...
RM
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>> Probably the same time when, despite 72hrs warning, Hants Co. Council were totally unprepared for
>> the freezing conditions and a few inches of snow.
Perhaps I'm too charitable but it's difficult to see what the Council in MK could have done that day. While the rain was falling there was no point in gritting, the stuff would just have been washed down the drains. As soon as the forecast temperature drop occurred and the snow started even if grit would have been effective (and its only useful in certain conditions) they'd no chance to get it down before the world and his wife bailed out of their offices and clogged up the roads.
OTOH if people knew how to drive on snow/ice (I was brought up on the edge of the Dales/Pennines & hope I do) we'd have done a lot better.
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>Perhaps I'm too charitable but it's difficult to see what the Council in MK could have done that day...
Bromtonaut, you are too charitable.
That's the excuse that Hants Co. Council used. It's also complete tosh.
>OTOH if people knew how to drive on snow/ice (I was brought up on the edge of the Dales/Pennines & hope I do)
So was I. I managed to get an XJ8 home, which isn't the easiest thing to get moving or stopped on snow.
Kevin...
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Maybe other cities are the same, but Chester can get properly gridlocked seemingly completely at random, the gridlock being caused by people not leaving the various roundabouts that sit on the inner ring road clear. In their defence, if they didn't try to move when the chance arose then they'd never make any progress at all.
A couple of years ago it took me 3 hours to do a journey that should have taken 10 mins. My daughter has to cross the city centre to commute and the 5mins she should be on the inner ring road regularly turns into an hour+ with no obvious cause.
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>> Bromtonaut, you are too charitable.
Why do you say tosh; is there clear evidence of incompetence?
I was certainly entirely plausible in CMK that night. I don't know, for comparison, what they were able to do on roads away from the offices/rail station.
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I agree with Bromptonaut - our climate makes it difficult for councils to always be in the right place at the right time with the right kit.
We have very unpredictable weather in this country, it's part of the charm of the place.
The countries which are said to 'do' snow well have predictable conditions.
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Council's budgets also make it difficult to be in the right place at the right time with any kit at all!
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I have misfortune to need to use the M62, M6 and M1 on a regular basis. As for when was the last time I was stuck in a jam on one of them I fear it would be easier to record or report the occasions when I wasn't.
Worst though was on the M74 a few years ago having to spend the night in the car in a blizzard. Fotunately I had plenty of fuel and was able to keep the engine running. Getting out for a wee took a lot of effort as the snow built up around the car. Had to slither out the window and back in again.
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If you had used a container, and not wasted that heat outside, it would then have acted as a hot water bottle to keep you a bit warmer.
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Are you taking the...
:-)
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I could tell you how male lorry drivers do it.......
It involves the ability to point.
Pat
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>I agree with Bromptonaut - our climate makes it difficult for councils to always be in the
>right place at the right time with the right kit.
The snow was predicted with approx 90% certainty more than 72 hrs earlier. There's also the fact that Hants County Council have early warning agreements with surrounding councils to warn each other. In this particular case they were warned but didn't react.
>We have very unpredictable weather in this country, it's part of the charm of the place.
It may surprise you, but that isn't true. Forecasts for the UK are pretty accurate until you reach about 5 days. Forecasts longer than five days are still OK but the timing can shift.
Not as easy as forecasting weather in the Sahara but far from unpredictable.
>The countries which are said to 'do' snow well have predictable conditions.
No, they just get it more often so they take it seriously and are better prepared/equipped for it.
Kevin...
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>Why do you say tosh; is there clear evidence of incompetence?
The council tried to use the rain/busy roads excuse at first but later admitted that they'd been warned by Dorset & Wilts. CCs that the snow was on it's way but they hadn't reacted quickly enough. They have an agreement with neighbouring councils to warn each other of adverse weather.
They only reacted after it had begun to settle. By that time the roads were already packed and it was too late.
Kevin...
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January 2000, on a coach - does that count ?
Apparently there are always jams from the Tyrol to Munich at as everybody goes home after New Year, and the millenium stuff made everything worse. It had snowed heavily, traffic out of Zillertal was backed up and the coach driver took a gamble on the rural route rather than the autobahn. We saw some stunning scenery, but we weren't in the frame of mind to enjoy it
When we hit the autobahn, twice if not thrice, he drove through service stations as it was actually quicker than staying on the motorway
Did we catch the flight ?. Well we were working on the GB/Paranoia level of get there 2 hours in advance of flight, but Lufthansa had choppend the flight so the first leg was internal, so we rocked up 20 minutes before the flight took off and just walked on!
Last edited by: borasport on Mon 18 Oct 10 at 19:04
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Stuck in traffic - AnotherJohnH
