What happened to our roads over the weekend?

[Chris71]

I spent a lot of time on the motorway over the weekend and I've never seen it so bad. The entire western stretch of the M25 seemed to be solid, there was a massive queue on the M27 and the M3 had about twice it's normal weight of traffic.

Am I missing something here? I thought the school holidays had ended. Was it just the visit of the chief nazi that did it?

[OwenK]

We were theorising perhaps it was kids being driven to Uni - saw lots of cars packed to the rafters.

[volumeone]

Probably Uni students as said above. Freshers week is this week so they're all enrolling at the moment.

[_Batty_]

M4 was closed at Swindon as well.

[rfn]

Uni Students, as stated.

[Chris71]

True. I guess there were Battle of Britain events in London and the Great North Run too. And the M1 was closed.

It was worse than Bank Holiday Monday on the A303 or Friday night when the schools break up though. Took me 4.5 hours to get from London to Bournemouth!

Edited by Chris71 on Monday 20th September 10:03

[Graebob]

M1 Northbound was a sodding nightmare after Donington last night. Honestly, how can anyone claim to be a motorsport/car fan and then drive so fking poorly? Miles of domino effect L3 traffic @68-74mph while I sit in L1 doing 70 with nothing in L2. Bizarre.

Saw an RTA happen on southbound A1 too, which everybody northbound of course immediately braked to look at

Edited by Graebob on Monday 20th September 10:06

[n3il123]

Graebob said:

M1 Northbound was a sodding nightmare after Donington last night. Honestly, how can anyone claim to be a motorsport/car fan and then drive so fking poorly? Miles of domino effect L3 traffic @68-74mph while I sit in L1 doing 70 with nothing in L2. Bizarre.

Saw an RTA happen on southbound A1 too, which everybody northbound of course immediately braked to look at

Edited by Graebob on Monday 20th September 10:06

M1 southbound was rubbish too coming out of Donington... good job they never got the gp

[madala]

....students and the Pope to blame in any order you wish....I detest both.

[Craigyp79]

Yeah, it's been busy Uk bound at the Eurotunnel all weekend, but couldn't work out why. I think it's an amalgamation of the things mentioned above tbh.

[RobM77]

I got stuck on the M3 and M27 too. I guess it was a combination of the Southampton Boat Show and one of the last sunny days of summer for visiting the coast.

[Allanv]

_Batty_ said:

M4 was closed at Swindon as well.

What time was it shut?

Lucky I had a st sleep and decided to work from home.

[reggie82]

Maybe other universities have different dates, but Freshers Week is next week at the uni I work at. So if it was due to students going back to uni, it's going to be even worse next weekend!

[_Batty_]

Allanv said:

_Batty_ said:

M4 was closed at Swindon as well.

What time was it shut?

Lucky I had a st sleep and decided to work from home.

Sat from about 9 till after midday.
i was stuck in it

[Dracoro]

I'm not convinced there's *that* many students to create traffic jams.

I remember doing the M20/M26/M25/M3 trip to Soton 10/15 years ago and it was mostly clear.

I suspect there was something else causing the jams.

[RobM77]

Dracoro said:

I'm not convinced there's *that* many students to create traffic jams.

I remember doing the M20/M26/M25/M3 trip to Soton 10/15 years ago and it was mostly clear.

I suspect there was something else causing the jams.

As I said, boat show and one of the last sunny days of summer. The traffic's always quite bad on the M3 on any sunny day, and the boat show was on

[Deranged Granny]

reggie82 said:

Maybe other universities have different dates, but Freshers Week is next week at the uni I work at. So if it was due to students going back to uni, it's going to be even worse next weekend!

Some, probably most, universities started this week - the rest start next week.