The UK has been confirmed as having more traffic jams than anywhere else in Europe. The Independent Transport Commission has found that the cost of these jams to the UK economy is a staggering £9 billion per year. That’s more than the cost to most European countries combined.
Additionally, research by traffic analytics company Inrix shows that, in 2016, drivers encountered 1.35 million traffic jams in the UK. That works out on average to 3,700 traffic jams every day. The estimated annual cost of £9 billion wasted is based on time, fuel spent while idling or starting vehicles in jams and the resultant cost of all that unnecessary pollution.
M5 wins title of “worst traffic jam” in 2016
On 4 August 2016 at the M5 near Somerset, two lorries collided. This created the worst traffic jam of last year, with a 36-mile tailback. It took workers 15 hours to clear the debris. This jam alone was estimated to have cost £2.4 million.
The northbound M6 has three serious traffic jams in the top five worst traffic jams of 2016, while a serious car accident on the A406 was the fourth worst jam of the year.
The causes of the worst queues ranged from fuel spills and emergency repairs to broken down lorries. November was the worst month in terms of the total number of traffic jams. There were 169,000 on the UK’s major roads during that month. April had the second highest number of jams recorded.
(Credit – N Chadwick)
UK roads not fit for purpose
Investment has been made to update Britain’s main trunk roads. We are totally reliant on these to get up and down the country. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of traffic on them means that if anything causes the traffic flow to stop at all, there are no alternative road systems nearby for drivers to move across to. Many of the new “smart motorways” being built across the UK are exacerbating the problem because they are built with no hard shoulder in place, just emergency refuge bays provided at maximum intervals of 2,500 metres.
Government seeks solutions
The government is asking highways agencies to work faster to reduce delays caused by accidents on motorways and A-roads. In a letter in The Times from Transport Minister Jesse Norman to Highways England, the government urges agencies to consider using sliproads as contraflows to clear traffic more quickly, among other solutions.
In the letter, following an incident on the M3, the Transport Minister said that he wanted to “ensure that disruption to motorists and communities is minimized during and after events such as this.”
He added:
“A particular feature shown in the media was the availability of empty slip roads, and I would be interested to know whether you considered if these could be used as contraflow to move traffic off the motorway.”
Highways England reported that it cleared 85% of motorway and A-road incidents within the hour. However, this does beg the question that, if Highways England is as efficient as it claims to be, what is the underlying cause of the UK having more jams than anywhere else in Europe?
Looking at vehicles per capita, the UK is 34th in the world. It comes behind France, Sweden, Italy, Luxembourg and Greece, so that doesn’t seem to be the problem. The UK has six million fewer cars than France on its roads.
Looking at the road infrastructure itself, the motorway system has hardly changed in almost 50 years. Pushing more cars down the same arterial roads is surely the main cause of the problem. Perhaps it would be wise for the government to consider spending the same as they expect to do on HS2 by building a completely new alternative motorway system. This would allow Motorway System 2.0 to cope with bottlenecks on 1.0 – and vice versa.
Are Britain’s roads no longer fit for purpose in the 21st century? Should the government expand the road system to tackle congestion or look at ways to get people off the roads? Does something drastic need to happen before we change? Let us know in the comments below.
UK roads were last ‘fit for purpose’ when the Romans left
Canals were invented only because the UK’s roads were impassable
Today HS2 is squandering £80+ billion
Hinkley Point C roughly the same
Yet UK motorists pay £45 billion pa in taxes – and have less than £1 billion pa spent on road upgrades
NOT lower speed limits
NOT speed humps
NOT chicanes and ‘traffic calming’
NOT ever more yellow lines
NOT more GATSOs (etc)
NOT utterly ridiculous rural 40/50 mph speed limits (those who speed recklessly will do so anyway: as for the rest of us, we can only dream of one day managing those speeds – maybe Christmas Day at 4am?)
Just embark on a 50yr programme to double the capacity of every mile of every non-urban road in the UK.
From Cornish country lanes (designed to allow two pack-horses to pass; utterly inadequate for even ONE modern tractor, let alone two!) to the western M25.
No settlement, from hamlet to city should NOT be by-passed
The job is completed when every motorist can drive on every non-urban road 365 days a year, 24 hours a day – AT THE NATIONAL SPEED LIMIT (which should be raised anyway and be dynamic: lower when bad weather or congested and higher (MUCH higher) when clear and dry)
Suggested national standards (numbers are for EACH way)
Motorways – 6 to 12 lanes
Trunk roads 4 to 6 lanes
A roads – 3 lanes
Rural A roads – 2 lanes (dual carriageway)
B-roads – straightened; widened; dual carriageway every 2 miles (max)
Lanes – widened to allow two tractors to pass without slowing down
I do 40,000 miles a year over a wide area of North*** and West Wales, Cheshire, West Midlands
And every train line outside London commuting is almost pointless, so ALL subsidies should cease……
*** Any and every method of speed checking should be advertised in advance by flashing amber lights when active.
NO unmarked police cars (N Wales has black-clad riders on black motorbikes too)
One thing not mentioned; roundabouts. They are OK when the traffic flow is low, but they are a disaster when there are large traffic volumes. Build flyovers and underpasses not stupid roundabouts – this is particularly pertinent to bypasses around towns and cities, not only do they cause jams, driving on them is like being on a race track with chicanes every few miles. Look at Germany, they don’t have roundabouts everywhere like we do.
The fundamental problem is the philosophy in the UK where we “build down to a price and not up to a quality”. Reverse that and things could improve.
I think often neglected is the ability to get off and on the motorway. The junction infrastructure is what fills the roads with stationary cars dangerously queuing to get off the road. And doing away with slip roads like doing away with train guards and plane co-pilots will certainly save money until one day it surprises us all by costing lots of lives.
I travel to the US fairly regularly. Despite the fact that the majority of their trunk road equivalents often have a much larger number of lanes, they still get jams at peak times. That said, there are a couple of things we could borrow from their system that might improve ours. Firstly our junction system could be improved by dedicating the inside lane as an exit-only lane a mile or so before each junction (‘left lane must turn left’) and using that same lane on the other side of the junction as a dedicated entry lane, thus avoiding the need for traffic on other lanes to ‘jockey’ with entering traffic. The slips should also be longer to avoid traffic stopped where it joins local roads from tailing back to the motorway proper. Secondly, we need more hard shoulders not less. Many US roads have a hard shoulder for both the inside (slow) lane and the outermost (fast) lane. Here at best we have one on the inside. The advent of the so-called Smart Motorway will lead to greater congestion any time there is a problem, so rather than solving a problem they will create a new one. These have cost a fortune in both actual moeny paid to contractors and disruption over many years on roads like the M3 and will prove to be a white elephant.
movable barriers should be installed to eliminate sitting on a road for hours. study a bit of physics and you will see that variable speed cameras cause jams. need shoulders on both sides of the roads. better reporting and signage so people know NOT to get on a certain road.
No! the government should be reversing the exponential POPULATION GROWTH
The situation on the roads has reached crisis point in the same way the NHS and the rest of the inferstruture has. And until someone brave enough has the courage to stand up and declare the Country full then I am afraid we will continue on a downward spiral. Tinkering around the edges with this idea and that idea is a complete waste of time, we are at breaking point.
My car is essential for my work, I drive 25,000 miles a year and I class myself as a keen motorist. But I also see the benefit of multiple transport solutions. Just building more roads will only kick the problem forwards a few years, during which we will fill those new roads with more cars and be back to square one. So, yes we do need more/better roads in hot-spots but I also see value in providing safer non-motorised transport routes in cities and a better rail service will also help reduce traffic volume.
a lot of the extra traffic on the roads is due to the boom in online ordering and home delivery… can’t see that that’s going to change as so many people are used to shopping this way now so something really needs to be done soon… I remember when the M42 first opened and so few people used it that everyone was saying it was a waste of money to build it… just shows how times change
We may have fewer cars than France but we have fewer miles of roads. France is more than twice the size of the UK. Having driven extensively in France the roads are amazing – hardly any potholes despite more extremes of weather. But how many cars do they have per length of road?
Our population growth hasn’t helped with congestion, we also commute a lot, commuting 1.5hrs is not unusual. Our schools admissions policies don’t help splitting siblings or offering places more than walking/cycling distance.
Finally, we don’t build enough roads. It’s taken until this year to get Manchester, a sizeable European city connected completely by motorway to anywhere further south – which is most of the population of the UK. If we were like Germany we’d have at least 2 motorways between the West Midlands and the North West and if we were France or Italy we’d have another motorway across the Pennines between the North west and South Yorkshire/East Midlands.
Exactly our country is far smaller than France we are over populated for the size of our small island
The road system in this country hasn’t fundamentally change since the introduction of motorways in the 60’s, yet traffic levels have risen – the so-called ‘smart motorways’ are only a workaround. The only significant addition in my opinion was the introduction of the M6 Toll to take pressure off the original M6, but even then there are jams where the two roads rejoin north of Birmingham
Aside from improving the road infrastructure, thought also needs to be given to removal of traffic that simply does not need to be there, e.g. invest on getting freight onto rail. Sadly, road pricing might also form part of that as it is pretty obvious there is a big difference between the M6 and the Toll road – if it is offset by a reduction in road tax, I would pay the extra if the journey times were more predictable.
Many places in Europe deal with road accidents in a fast and efficient way, there aim is to remove the debris and get traffic moving as fast as possible but in the UK it’s lets close the road and carry out accident investigations that despite modern recording technology can take hours and the government think it’s acceptable
I worked down a coal mine, when old road ways needed to be repaired, they gave us a contract to repair the road. We was told that it would take so many men to do the job that is from start to finish. We would agree a price for the job with the manager. If the work doesn’t get finished in the time stated, we would lose money for each day late. Also every day that we worked we would have an expert looking at the work to make sure that we weren’t cutting corners. If our road works worked the same way, there wouldn’t be so many hold ups.
Take trucks of our roads and bring back our rail freight we lost in the sixties.and school kids!Walk to school.job done.
Here here
Take the trucks off the roads from midnight Friday to midnight Sunday. Have an effective police force and an effective justice system that enforce proper deterrent punishment. I would like to see the same figures from 15 years ago. Junk HS2 and Hinkley and spend the money on effective policing.
“Take the trucks off the roads from midnight Friday to midnight Sunday.”
Yes, this is the rule in Spain, I was told, whilst on a coach excursion,
when I was driving coaches around Europe a few years ago the things that stood out to me was when I was in Italy, EVERY Sunday ALL road freight was banned except for perishables ie fruit, veg etc.and yes France/Germany were far larger countries than ours so there was little concentration of vehicles other than large towns/cities. In France, their main artery routes are only 2 lanes wide + hard shoulder but when they did major repairs they could lay the tarmac in one go thus making traffic flow problems an absolute minimum, contra flow for one night only (their “deviation” routes were a little to be desired tho) and their tarmac is a better quality, a greatly reduced “water spray” for other vehicles behind.
We have fewer cars than France? Have you guys noticed that France is a little bit BIGGER than the UK? We need to tackle a fundamental issue – too many people on this tiny island, too many European trucks badly driven…get the freight on the trains. Lots of common sense ideas from people here, pity common sense is missing amongst town planners and politicians.
First Look to the USA where you can give way and turn right (for us that would be left) on a red light. Simple and it works.
Second What does traffic calming do? It slows everyone and causes jams. The proliferation of islands, hatched off areas of perfectly usable tarmac, speed limits when the national speed limit should apply and unnecessary bus lanes has cost millions just to frustrate progress. Surrey has a proliferation of all this, which need to be wiped away. The money these measures cost could have been put into actual flow improvement but that was not politically correct. Hence we are congested. Highways need to change there philosophy and serve us better.
Sadly we don’t use to the motorways efficiently or to their full potential. In other words many drivers here prefer to stay in a lane, rather than switching after they have overtaken. Its laziness. If drivers changed lanes as instructed by the highway code (and I thought was supposed to be policed?) they would concentrate more and hopefully there would be fewer accidents. Driving from France recently where motorists are fined if they drive in the outer lane without overtaking (yes their cameras are now smart) – it was a breath of fresh air. As soon as they overtake they return to the inside lane. A total absence of lethargy which means motorways move quicker with less congestion. I don’t know why the Highways Agency are not more proactive on this as its an area that could be and should be improved.
As ‘roy’ said earlier, the major cause of ludicrously long delays on motorways (15 hours??) is this crazy need for a forensic investigation, blocking the entire motorway, every time there is an accident. Of course there will be a few occasions – major fuel spills, for example – where this has to be done, but on the continent, when there is an accident, the police arrive, take copious photographs from every angle, then clear everything off the carriageway so that the traffic can flow. This is usually done in under 15 minutes. I am certain that in 95% or more of incidents on our motorways this would be done without any disadvantage to any party. Why do we not trial this?
Since 1999, all serious/fatal accidents have to be treated as crime scenes, this takes time even with the improved Sokia theodolite measuring systems. Before that it was done by hand taking even longer. The reduction in Police on motorways is due to the Highways Authority taking over the ‘Policing’ of motorways and if it becomes outside of their remit the police then have to attend and deal, this just delays the road being reopened.
In France and other countries ‘Health and Safety’ does not seem to apply as road-works are done without safety barriers in place, thereby putting workers and road users at risk.
For several years now it has been local council policy to make using a car within city linits more difficult in an attempt to force more people to use the bus. This has ended up creating huge tailbacks . Bus stops with a traffic island opposite. Pavements extended out into the road at bus stops . Bus lanes that carry more taxi’s than buses, we even have a stop on the exit of a roundabout . Thankfully the Government have realised that new drivers are currently not taught how to drive on motorways and are not bringing in new measures that will allow specialist driving schools to take these new drivers onto the motorway prior to passing their driving exam . Hopefully this will stop new drivers using slip roads as T junctions , and to constantly look ahead for developing situations . Reducing the overall speed of traffic on motorways is not the answer . Look at Western Australia , max 100kph and they have massive problems with tailbacks and accidents
There are too many goods vehicles on the roads; heavy freight should not be being moved by road.
There are too many people in Britain and they are having to make too many car journeys (schools and places of work have been allowed to move further and further from rapidly expanding residential areas). This article is for all the people who blindly insist that immigration is good for the economy.
Unfortunately the Police fail to stop traffic building up once an accident has taken place. If they immediately blocked further access on slip roads and took traffic off at the junction(s) before it would ease.the build up. Far more effective than parking loads of police cars in front of accident
Additionally Highways England should look for modernising the crash barrier system so that they can remove sections and turn the traffic round quickly. I gather they tried to do this recently and it took them several hours to dismantle the barrier.
Finally make sure we don’t get any more roads where you are only allowed to break down at one mile intetvals, it does not work! We need hard shoulders.
I recently spent six hours sitting in my car on the M6 southbound because of an accident. The M6 should no longer be designated as a motorway. it should be reduced to A road status north of Birmingham as you can’t go any faster than 40 or 50 miles an hour because of roadworks, with very little sign of any progress being made. To me, the cause is simple. We live on an increasing crowded island with too many people and too many cars. The current transport infrastructure is totally unable to cope. The UK may have fewer cars on its roads than France, but France is a much larger country. We’ve reached a stage where we simply can’t improve our roads fast enough, and especially so when speed limits are too low in the roadworks and the upgrade work is not being done fast enough. Like it or not, things are going to get worse and productivity and efficiency levels will decrease. Blame years of under funding and lack of vision by successive governments.
One of the main problems dates back to decisions taken in the early days of planning our motorway system. The original motorways were all town/city by- passed with at least two and often three junctions serving each town. These were then linked to produce what we have now. Result – far too much local traffic on the motorways. If there was just one junction serving anywhere less than a major city I am willing to bet traffic would be much lighter and therefore flow more freely. Possible answer- any new motorways built should have far less junctions and be toll routes. Not necessarily as expensive as those in Europe but sufficient to deter local (town to next town) use. You only have to look at the M6 toll route to see how many people are quite prepared to pay, just to achieve part of their journey quicker and less stressfully.
The only answer to this continued congestion is reduce the number of vehicles using the roads Road improvements just move the congestion further along a road and you get to it faster that’s all Restrictions on all vehicles will come sooner or later wait and see if new roads are built the country will just be roads .Roads are now closed by the police for a long time while they investigate once their priority was to get traffic moving as quickly as the could What as changed their way of doing things
Hi…also one of main reasons for accidents in UK are the size of the lanes. They are TO NARROW. Have a look on whole Europe (I am lorry driver since 1982, driving all Europe) and you’ll see the UK’s lanes are just simply narrowest. If you drive behind a lorry in an work area on motorways, you will see the lane have the lorry’s width, that’s meen if the road got a bit of uneven surface and push the lorry aside…..is already accident.
Adrian Serban is right about road widths. Even on brand new roads, they are just about wide enough for two cars going in the same direction, as soon as anything slightly larger comes along,. like a transit van, it is down to one lane at junctions, roundabouts where you are literally missing other vehicles by few feet. Not good driving practice, but we are forced into it by appalling road design.
Everything is down to a budget and is not fit for purpose now, let alone in the future with Britain’s spiralling population growth.
We can waste £50 billion plus on HS2, but what percentage of the population is going to use it?
Already about 90% of passenger miles are by road, yet no government is willing to accept that fact.
The road bridge over the River Forth was 2 lanes each way. This bridge is now closed and the new bridge is now opened with 2 lanes each way and a hard shoulder. The speed limit is 40mph with average speed cameras. The james since the new bridge opened has become increasing worse.
The reduction in active police patrols on motorways is a major reason why there at so many poor drivers. Middle laners are my pet hate, they cause untold frustration and delays. I tow a caravan ( oh no ) and am limited to 60 mph, I confess that at times after miles in the inside lane at 50 – 55mph, I have passed a middle laner on the inside. The old advert which showed birds flying round a drivers head can almost bee seen. Highway Agency staff are like PCSO’s, they can only roll with it, they cannot deal with poor drivers. Another cheap option that does not work.
UK roads were last ‘fit for purpose’ when the Romans left
Canals were invented only because the UK’s roads were impassable
Today HS2 is squandering £80+ billion
Hinkley Point C roughly the same
Yet UK motorists pay £45 billion pa in taxes – and have less than £1 billion pa spent on road upgrades
NOT lower speed limits
NOT speed humps
NOT chicanes and ‘traffic calming’
NOT ever more yellow lines
NOT more GATSOs (etc)
NOT utterly ridiculous rural 40/50 mph speed limits (those who speed recklessly will do so anyway: as for the rest of us, we can only dream of one day managing those speeds – maybe Christmas Day at 4am?)
Just embark on a 50yr programme to double the capacity of every mile of every non-urban road in the UK.
From Cornish country lanes (designed to allow two pack-horses to pass; utterly inadequate for even ONE modern tractor, let alone two!) to the western M25.
No settlement, from hamlet to city should NOT be by-passed
The job is completed when every motorist can drive on every non-urban road 365 days a year, 24 hours a day – AT THE NATIONAL SPEED LIMIT (which should be raised anyway and be dynamic: lower when bad weather or congested and higher (MUCH higher) when clear and dry)
Suggested national standards (numbers are for EACH way)
Motorways – 6 to 12 lanes
Trunk roads 4 to 6 lanes
A roads – 3 lanes
Rural A roads – 2 lanes (dual carriageway)
B-roads – straightened; widened; dual carriageway every 2 miles (max)
Lanes – widened to allow two tractors to pass without slowing down
I do 40,000 miles a year over a wide area of North*** and West Wales, Cheshire, West Midlands
And every train line outside London commuting is almost pointless, so ALL subsidies should cease……
*** Any and every method of speed checking should be advertised in advance by flashing amber lights when active.
NO unmarked police cars (N Wales has black-clad riders on black motorbikes too)
One thing not mentioned; roundabouts. They are OK when the traffic flow is low, but they are a disaster when there are large traffic volumes. Build flyovers and underpasses not stupid roundabouts – this is particularly pertinent to bypasses around towns and cities, not only do they cause jams, driving on them is like being on a race track with chicanes every few miles. Look at Germany, they don’t have roundabouts everywhere like we do.
The fundamental problem is the philosophy in the UK where we “build down to a price and not up to a quality”. Reverse that and things could improve.
I think often neglected is the ability to get off and on the motorway. The junction infrastructure is what fills the roads with stationary cars dangerously queuing to get off the road. And doing away with slip roads like doing away with train guards and plane co-pilots will certainly save money until one day it surprises us all by costing lots of lives.
I travel to the US fairly regularly. Despite the fact that the majority of their trunk road equivalents often have a much larger number of lanes, they still get jams at peak times. That said, there are a couple of things we could borrow from their system that might improve ours. Firstly our junction system could be improved by dedicating the inside lane as an exit-only lane a mile or so before each junction (‘left lane must turn left’) and using that same lane on the other side of the junction as a dedicated entry lane, thus avoiding the need for traffic on other lanes to ‘jockey’ with entering traffic. The slips should also be longer to avoid traffic stopped where it joins local roads from tailing back to the motorway proper. Secondly, we need more hard shoulders not less. Many US roads have a hard shoulder for both the inside (slow) lane and the outermost (fast) lane. Here at best we have one on the inside. The advent of the so-called Smart Motorway will lead to greater congestion any time there is a problem, so rather than solving a problem they will create a new one. These have cost a fortune in both actual moeny paid to contractors and disruption over many years on roads like the M3 and will prove to be a white elephant.
movable barriers should be installed to eliminate sitting on a road for hours. study a bit of physics and you will see that variable speed cameras cause jams. need shoulders on both sides of the roads. better reporting and signage so people know NOT to get on a certain road.
No! the government should be reversing the exponential POPULATION GROWTH
The situation on the roads has reached crisis point in the same way the NHS and the rest of the inferstruture has. And until someone brave enough has the courage to stand up and declare the Country full then I am afraid we will continue on a downward spiral. Tinkering around the edges with this idea and that idea is a complete waste of time, we are at breaking point.
My car is essential for my work, I drive 25,000 miles a year and I class myself as a keen motorist. But I also see the benefit of multiple transport solutions. Just building more roads will only kick the problem forwards a few years, during which we will fill those new roads with more cars and be back to square one. So, yes we do need more/better roads in hot-spots but I also see value in providing safer non-motorised transport routes in cities and a better rail service will also help reduce traffic volume.
a lot of the extra traffic on the roads is due to the boom in online ordering and home delivery… can’t see that that’s going to change as so many people are used to shopping this way now so something really needs to be done soon… I remember when the M42 first opened and so few people used it that everyone was saying it was a waste of money to build it… just shows how times change
We may have fewer cars than France but we have fewer miles of roads. France is more than twice the size of the UK. Having driven extensively in France the roads are amazing – hardly any potholes despite more extremes of weather. But how many cars do they have per length of road?
Our population growth hasn’t helped with congestion, we also commute a lot, commuting 1.5hrs is not unusual. Our schools admissions policies don’t help splitting siblings or offering places more than walking/cycling distance.
Finally, we don’t build enough roads. It’s taken until this year to get Manchester, a sizeable European city connected completely by motorway to anywhere further south – which is most of the population of the UK. If we were like Germany we’d have at least 2 motorways between the West Midlands and the North West and if we were France or Italy we’d have another motorway across the Pennines between the North west and South Yorkshire/East Midlands.
Exactly our country is far smaller than France we are over populated for the size of our small island
The road system in this country hasn’t fundamentally change since the introduction of motorways in the 60’s, yet traffic levels have risen – the so-called ‘smart motorways’ are only a workaround. The only significant addition in my opinion was the introduction of the M6 Toll to take pressure off the original M6, but even then there are jams where the two roads rejoin north of Birmingham
Aside from improving the road infrastructure, thought also needs to be given to removal of traffic that simply does not need to be there, e.g. invest on getting freight onto rail. Sadly, road pricing might also form part of that as it is pretty obvious there is a big difference between the M6 and the Toll road – if it is offset by a reduction in road tax, I would pay the extra if the journey times were more predictable.
Many places in Europe deal with road accidents in a fast and efficient way, there aim is to remove the debris and get traffic moving as fast as possible but in the UK it’s lets close the road and carry out accident investigations that despite modern recording technology can take hours and the government think it’s acceptable
I worked down a coal mine, when old road ways needed to be repaired, they gave us a contract to repair the road. We was told that it would take so many men to do the job that is from start to finish. We would agree a price for the job with the manager. If the work doesn’t get finished in the time stated, we would lose money for each day late. Also every day that we worked we would have an expert looking at the work to make sure that we weren’t cutting corners. If our road works worked the same way, there wouldn’t be so many hold ups.
Take trucks of our roads and bring back our rail freight we lost in the sixties.and school kids!Walk to school.job done.
Here here
Take the trucks off the roads from midnight Friday to midnight Sunday. Have an effective police force and an effective justice system that enforce proper deterrent punishment. I would like to see the same figures from 15 years ago. Junk HS2 and Hinkley and spend the money on effective policing.
“Take the trucks off the roads from midnight Friday to midnight Sunday.”
Yes, this is the rule in Spain, I was told, whilst on a coach excursion,
when I was driving coaches around Europe a few years ago the things that stood out to me was when I was in Italy, EVERY Sunday ALL road freight was banned except for perishables ie fruit, veg etc.and yes France/Germany were far larger countries than ours so there was little concentration of vehicles other than large towns/cities. In France, their main artery routes are only 2 lanes wide + hard shoulder but when they did major repairs they could lay the tarmac in one go thus making traffic flow problems an absolute minimum, contra flow for one night only (their “deviation” routes were a little to be desired tho) and their tarmac is a better quality, a greatly reduced “water spray” for other vehicles behind.
We have fewer cars than France? Have you guys noticed that France is a little bit BIGGER than the UK? We need to tackle a fundamental issue – too many people on this tiny island, too many European trucks badly driven…get the freight on the trains. Lots of common sense ideas from people here, pity common sense is missing amongst town planners and politicians.
First Look to the USA where you can give way and turn right (for us that would be left) on a red light. Simple and it works.
Second What does traffic calming do? It slows everyone and causes jams. The proliferation of islands, hatched off areas of perfectly usable tarmac, speed limits when the national speed limit should apply and unnecessary bus lanes has cost millions just to frustrate progress. Surrey has a proliferation of all this, which need to be wiped away. The money these measures cost could have been put into actual flow improvement but that was not politically correct. Hence we are congested. Highways need to change there philosophy and serve us better.
Sadly we don’t use to the motorways efficiently or to their full potential. In other words many drivers here prefer to stay in a lane, rather than switching after they have overtaken. Its laziness. If drivers changed lanes as instructed by the highway code (and I thought was supposed to be policed?) they would concentrate more and hopefully there would be fewer accidents. Driving from France recently where motorists are fined if they drive in the outer lane without overtaking (yes their cameras are now smart) – it was a breath of fresh air. As soon as they overtake they return to the inside lane. A total absence of lethargy which means motorways move quicker with less congestion. I don’t know why the Highways Agency are not more proactive on this as its an area that could be and should be improved.
As ‘roy’ said earlier, the major cause of ludicrously long delays on motorways (15 hours??) is this crazy need for a forensic investigation, blocking the entire motorway, every time there is an accident. Of course there will be a few occasions – major fuel spills, for example – where this has to be done, but on the continent, when there is an accident, the police arrive, take copious photographs from every angle, then clear everything off the carriageway so that the traffic can flow. This is usually done in under 15 minutes. I am certain that in 95% or more of incidents on our motorways this would be done without any disadvantage to any party. Why do we not trial this?
Since 1999, all serious/fatal accidents have to be treated as crime scenes, this takes time even with the improved Sokia theodolite measuring systems. Before that it was done by hand taking even longer. The reduction in Police on motorways is due to the Highways Authority taking over the ‘Policing’ of motorways and if it becomes outside of their remit the police then have to attend and deal, this just delays the road being reopened.
In France and other countries ‘Health and Safety’ does not seem to apply as road-works are done without safety barriers in place, thereby putting workers and road users at risk.
For several years now it has been local council policy to make using a car within city linits more difficult in an attempt to force more people to use the bus. This has ended up creating huge tailbacks . Bus stops with a traffic island opposite. Pavements extended out into the road at bus stops . Bus lanes that carry more taxi’s than buses, we even have a stop on the exit of a roundabout . Thankfully the Government have realised that new drivers are currently not taught how to drive on motorways and are not bringing in new measures that will allow specialist driving schools to take these new drivers onto the motorway prior to passing their driving exam . Hopefully this will stop new drivers using slip roads as T junctions , and to constantly look ahead for developing situations . Reducing the overall speed of traffic on motorways is not the answer . Look at Western Australia , max 100kph and they have massive problems with tailbacks and accidents
There are too many goods vehicles on the roads; heavy freight should not be being moved by road.
There are too many people in Britain and they are having to make too many car journeys (schools and places of work have been allowed to move further and further from rapidly expanding residential areas). This article is for all the people who blindly insist that immigration is good for the economy.
Unfortunately the Police fail to stop traffic building up once an accident has taken place. If they immediately blocked further access on slip roads and took traffic off at the junction(s) before it would ease.the build up. Far more effective than parking loads of police cars in front of accident
Additionally Highways England should look for modernising the crash barrier system so that they can remove sections and turn the traffic round quickly. I gather they tried to do this recently and it took them several hours to dismantle the barrier.
Finally make sure we don’t get any more roads where you are only allowed to break down at one mile intetvals, it does not work! We need hard shoulders.
I recently spent six hours sitting in my car on the M6 southbound because of an accident. The M6 should no longer be designated as a motorway. it should be reduced to A road status north of Birmingham as you can’t go any faster than 40 or 50 miles an hour because of roadworks, with very little sign of any progress being made. To me, the cause is simple. We live on an increasing crowded island with too many people and too many cars. The current transport infrastructure is totally unable to cope. The UK may have fewer cars on its roads than France, but France is a much larger country. We’ve reached a stage where we simply can’t improve our roads fast enough, and especially so when speed limits are too low in the roadworks and the upgrade work is not being done fast enough. Like it or not, things are going to get worse and productivity and efficiency levels will decrease. Blame years of under funding and lack of vision by successive governments.