Our motorways and road network are not fit for purpose
Discussion
Our motorways and roads are not fit for purpose, an example on Saturday two coaches left Huddersfield at 7.30am for a three kick of at Wembley they never made it, the fans ended up watching the match at a pub on route.
On Friday I was working with my son and his employees in Telford, we finished after a long hard week working . At four pm we left for home a two hour journey max, it was after eight at night before we arrived home exhausted after hours sitting on the M6 and all the Manchester motorways were at a stand still.
Just two examples , but it's now nearly impossible to travel any distance on our road network without major holdups, making it impossible to guarantee arrival times, and this is before the Olympics start.
On Friday I was working with my son and his employees in Telford, we finished after a long hard week working . At four pm we left for home a two hour journey max, it was after eight at night before we arrived home exhausted after hours sitting on the M6 and all the Manchester motorways were at a stand still.
Just two examples , but it's now nearly impossible to travel any distance on our road network without major holdups, making it impossible to guarantee arrival times, and this is before the Olympics start.
Conversely, I travel up & down between Liverpool & London regularly, and it invariably takes me 3h15m - 3h45m - which means I can plan my arrival time quite well.
If course there's always the chance (such as the M40 accident yesterday) that will add 1-4 hours onto a journey, if you can't route around it. Fortunately I was able to do so, and only arrived 30 minutes after my planned arrival time of 25 minutes before I 'NEED' to be there, and only 5 minutes 'late'.
I tend to look on the BBC, Highways Agency, and Direct.gov traffic sites before I travel to check for any major delays before I depart, and then plan my route accordingly. Sometimes on my way back from London I'll head across into Wales to avoid major delays on the M6 after Birmingham.
However, sometimes you just end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there's nothing you can do other than turn the engine off, open the windows and read a book/listen to the radio/etc. for a few hours.
I don't think more spending on the roads would help in most situations, unless you created a road network where every road had 2 or 3 back-ups of equivalent size/capacity - and then there's still the rare chance that they all have accidents on them in a short period.
If course there's always the chance (such as the M40 accident yesterday) that will add 1-4 hours onto a journey, if you can't route around it. Fortunately I was able to do so, and only arrived 30 minutes after my planned arrival time of 25 minutes before I 'NEED' to be there, and only 5 minutes 'late'.
I tend to look on the BBC, Highways Agency, and Direct.gov traffic sites before I travel to check for any major delays before I depart, and then plan my route accordingly. Sometimes on my way back from London I'll head across into Wales to avoid major delays on the M6 after Birmingham.
However, sometimes you just end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there's nothing you can do other than turn the engine off, open the windows and read a book/listen to the radio/etc. for a few hours.
I don't think more spending on the roads would help in most situations, unless you created a road network where every road had 2 or 3 back-ups of equivalent size/capacity - and then there's still the rare chance that they all have accidents on them in a short period.
Friday was a pig to travel - we did a return trip Kent to Cornwall and back, lost 30 mins on hold ups on the A303. Travelling back the next day - not one single queue!
We hired a Toyota Avensis that had satnav, and it was able to display holdups in real time. Unfortunately we were not sufficiently au-fait with the device to avoid the first hold up...
I think the system is too often operating at (or over) capacity - one accident and the chaos spreads alarmingly. Up to that point and it is just very very busy.
We hired a Toyota Avensis that had satnav, and it was able to display holdups in real time. Unfortunately we were not sufficiently au-fait with the device to avoid the first hold up...
I think the system is too often operating at (or over) capacity - one accident and the chaos spreads alarmingly. Up to that point and it is just very very busy.
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