Hello friends. I need to get a little rant of my chest.....
I recently had two weeks off, it was lovely. On my return I went straight out with a load for Budapest. Ballina in the West of Ireland is a long way so had four days to do it. Lovely run. I delivered 2am Saturday, reloaded midnight Sunday at same place and headed back.
Because of the loading time I got to run back overnight. I tweeted how this was a great way to run through Europe and that I could get 50 to 100km more done on a nightshift. I got some tweets about the UK being a nightmare at night so I smiled to myself and replied that that is very true.
I flew back, lovely quiet motorways, flying along. Well, until I hit England. Coming round M25 and up M1 I see signs warning of problems on the M4 (almost nobody heading north on M1 is likely to have the M4 on their agenda). I stopped in Coventry for a spot of shopping and off I went. I was gonna go up M6 Toll but matrix signs said shut so carried on.
Just before the M6 junction with the A38(M) I hit the back of a long queue, at half ten at night. Got through that and thought 'could have been worse'! Less than five miles later I hit another queue. Much worse than the first, M6 shut by J10. I come off to go round it. Hit traffic. Get through, then at close to midnight spend half an hour trying to get into Wolverhampton ring road. It was ridiculous. Then as I head up M54 that is shut too at J3. Five traffic jams in the middle of the night.
This is starting to really take the piss. It took me two hours, in the middle of the night to get from Coventry to the M54 at Wolverhampton. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.
So Traffic England, some questions-
1. Why oh why wasn't any of this warned about on the matrix boards?
2. Why on earth did you think closing the M6 Toll, the M6 and reducing a part of the M6 to one lane ALL AT THE SAME TIME was logical?
3. Do you have any concept of how much you are damaging our economy? I'm finishing 2 hours later than planned over 100km further away from Holyhead than I planned. I can't get this trailer to the boat out was booked on now.
4. Do any of you actually talk to each other? The only reason I can see for any of this is a lack of communication. If it was planned this way, if everyone knew about what everyone else is doing then you're pretty bad at your jobs. Even by low government department standards.
I know they'll never answer me. Because they don't care. And if they do it'll be some twaddle about roads needing repairs. I'm not saying you shouldn't close them but increasingly you are closing so many roads at once your causing mayhem. Many many business rely on overnight trunks to move their goods around. You're making it almost impossible for some of them. I reckon your easily costing business many millions of pounds a year.
There, got that off my chest. Something has to change, this country is the most depressing place to drive in Europe. If a transport company planned work in the way you do they wouldn't last 6 months. But of course, you're a horribly inefficient government department. You couldn't care less how what you do impacts us, the road users, you know, the people who pays the tax that allows you to cost us even more.
If this was a rare occurance this post would exist. But its not. Every night mayhem is caused on Englands road all over the country.
WAKE UP HIGHWAYS ENGLAND
Feel free to tweet them about it! Link this post to it!
Luke Vernon
www.lorry-driver.com
www.twitter.com/LukeVernon
www.facebook.com/lorrydriverdotcom
www.instagram.com/lorrydriverdotcom
I recently had two weeks off, it was lovely. On my return I went straight out with a load for Budapest. Ballina in the West of Ireland is a long way so had four days to do it. Lovely run. I delivered 2am Saturday, reloaded midnight Sunday at same place and headed back.
Because of the loading time I got to run back overnight. I tweeted how this was a great way to run through Europe and that I could get 50 to 100km more done on a nightshift. I got some tweets about the UK being a nightmare at night so I smiled to myself and replied that that is very true.
I flew back, lovely quiet motorways, flying along. Well, until I hit England. Coming round M25 and up M1 I see signs warning of problems on the M4 (almost nobody heading north on M1 is likely to have the M4 on their agenda). I stopped in Coventry for a spot of shopping and off I went. I was gonna go up M6 Toll but matrix signs said shut so carried on.
Just before the M6 junction with the A38(M) I hit the back of a long queue, at half ten at night. Got through that and thought 'could have been worse'! Less than five miles later I hit another queue. Much worse than the first, M6 shut by J10. I come off to go round it. Hit traffic. Get through, then at close to midnight spend half an hour trying to get into Wolverhampton ring road. It was ridiculous. Then as I head up M54 that is shut too at J3. Five traffic jams in the middle of the night.
This is starting to really take the piss. It took me two hours, in the middle of the night to get from Coventry to the M54 at Wolverhampton. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.
So Traffic England, some questions-
1. Why oh why wasn't any of this warned about on the matrix boards?
2. Why on earth did you think closing the M6 Toll, the M6 and reducing a part of the M6 to one lane ALL AT THE SAME TIME was logical?
3. Do you have any concept of how much you are damaging our economy? I'm finishing 2 hours later than planned over 100km further away from Holyhead than I planned. I can't get this trailer to the boat out was booked on now.
4. Do any of you actually talk to each other? The only reason I can see for any of this is a lack of communication. If it was planned this way, if everyone knew about what everyone else is doing then you're pretty bad at your jobs. Even by low government department standards.
I know they'll never answer me. Because they don't care. And if they do it'll be some twaddle about roads needing repairs. I'm not saying you shouldn't close them but increasingly you are closing so many roads at once your causing mayhem. Many many business rely on overnight trunks to move their goods around. You're making it almost impossible for some of them. I reckon your easily costing business many millions of pounds a year.
There, got that off my chest. Something has to change, this country is the most depressing place to drive in Europe. If a transport company planned work in the way you do they wouldn't last 6 months. But of course, you're a horribly inefficient government department. You couldn't care less how what you do impacts us, the road users, you know, the people who pays the tax that allows you to cost us even more.
If this was a rare occurance this post would exist. But its not. Every night mayhem is caused on Englands road all over the country.
WAKE UP HIGHWAYS ENGLAND
Feel free to tweet them about it! Link this post to it!
Luke Vernon
www.lorry-driver.com
www.twitter.com/LukeVernon
www.facebook.com/lorrydriverdotcom
www.instagram.com/lorrydriverdotcom
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