Gloucester News Centre
TRAVEL ALERT: Two lanes closed and queueing traffic due to overturned caravan on M5 Northbound between J14 B4509 (#Thornbury / #Falfield) and J13 A419 (#Stroud).
Lanes one and two (of three) are closed. Cameras show traffic is queueing on the approach.
It seems we are having a serious accident almost every day on the motorways around Bristol. Don't know what's causing it all except maybe sheer weight of traffic.
Picking up my son from Manchester Airport on Friday afternoon and the M62 was closed due to a woman climbing up a bridge for a jump. She was talked down, but I do feel sorry for her family in having to cope with it.
(Still a bloody nuisance though!)
------------- Some days you are the dog,
some days you are the tree.
Am I alone in thinking there should be more emergency exits/run offs when this happens? I've been stuck in these queues for hours, when I can see a local road only metres away. I'm talking emergency exits here, not major junctions, not more junctions to get onto the mways, but emergency exits to get off when something like this happens.
If they can put the HS2 in, why not improve the mways to provide more emergency exits.
I once spent 9 hours at a complete standstill on the M5 (the only upside being we were on our way home from Cadbury World & had plenty of chocolate!). The emergency exit idea sounds an excellent one and might hopefully cut down on the idiots who think it's a good idea to reverse back up the hard shoulder at speed.
Do they still do what they did in olden times and open up the non-motorway exits for service stations? Got quite familiar with one or two of those on the M6!
Excellent idea, Jax.
------------- " When I die I don`t want my life to flash before me in an instant, I want it to be a 3 hour epic !"
Quote: Originally posted by Bridgelayer on 02/11/2013
Picking up my son from Manchester Airport on Friday afternoon and the M62 was closed due to a woman climbing up a bridge for a jump. She was talked down, but I do feel sorry for her family in having to cope with it.
(Still a bloody nuisance though!)
This is quite common these days. Our son had one land right in front of his van. He was quite shaken and stopped at the next services and speaking to another driver there, the other bloke claimed to have one one going out and another coming back one day.
I recall a fair number of years ago, there was a bomb threat on the M6, from Knutsford down to Stone, Staffs., I think... they shut the motorway completely and there wasn't a single car on there within 15 minutes. They had directed a lot of traffic off before the stretch that was unsafe, and more were directed off through service stations, and along the hard shoulders. It was really impressive what could be done in the event of a bomb threat. Something similar should be possible in the event of a serious accident as well.
Why are caravans owners trying to move vans in the high winds that have been well publicised? I can't make head nor tail of why the idiots think their units will be different from every body else. May be the authorities should ban high sided vehicles from the motorways as they do on certain bridges when the wind reaches a certain speed because common sense doesn't seem to work for some people. I know accidents happen but taking a high sided vehicle out into gales isn't an accident!
Quote: Originally posted by pnefan on 30/12/2013
Why are caravans owners trying to move vans in the high winds that have been well publicised? I can't make head nor tail of why the idiots think their units will be different from every body else. May be the authorities should ban high sided vehicles from the motorways as they do on certain bridges when the wind reaches a certain speed because common sense doesn't seem to work for some people. I know accidents happen but taking a high sided vehicle out into gales isn't an accident!
This original post was 1st November 2013. Was it windy on that day? I can't recall.
Sometimes it is necessary. We were burgled in the early hours of Christmas day, we were away near Lancaster and would not have chosen to tow in those winds under normal circumstances.
Amazing family weekend with old steam engines, classic car displays, market stalls, and full catering and bar. And camping on site - Save £25 by booking in advance.
Topic: m5 accident
