So, last night I drove in my car from Birmingham to Northampton and back, as I drove through the roadworks on the m6, nearly all the HGVs have overtook me on the limiter, despite the 50mph limit, last week, on this forum, drivers were telling me they had to run on the limiter on the A75 in order to reach the boat, yet last night, there was an easy way to avoid about two miles of standing traffic on the m1, an easy diversion up the a45, a5, and then rejoin the m1 at Crick, and yet I didn’t see not even one lorry taking this route, if we’re all in such a hurry, why not check the traffic on Google maps, I do
Seeing as the traffic situation can change minute by minute, and it being a big no no to even think of touching a device that could warn you of such things (with the modern public desperate to get a pat on the had from the current stasi for reporting such things, ja danke comrade 
), how is a driver to know once a journey is commenced, unless they stop every 15 minutes (where?) to review the road ahead, that the road network has once again been reduced to a trickle or stopped.
As for diversions, thankfully for me and some others, some do not think about diverting for a variety of reasons and many official or obvious diversions become a worse jam anyway, so we tend to find our own alternative routes that satnav wouldn’t automatically display.
Some companies do not allow their drivers to think either, and will only sanction an alternative if some child in the office approves it…usually this happens where one of the big logistics mobs is contracted to and pulls double deckers and blindly assume their drivers are incapable of independent thought…these companies often absolutely ban any use of mobile phones so no contact to get permission to deviate 
…it’s good to see their intransigence biting them in the arse now and again when their vehicles are stuck.
Some companies do not let their drivers know where they are going until they start their shift, it would be unthinkable for apparatchiks behind the desk to have google traffic running on a computer the drivers could check for the journey they’ve just been handed, it simply would not occur to those behind the desk to help the job get done efficiently.
Its entirely possible that hundreds of lorry drivers had already noticed problems on the M1 and were using the M40 or other routes instead if travelling between the two hell holes of B’ham and London.
The motorway network and speed regime is deliberately no longer fit for purpose and it’s better in most cases to use A roads along pre motorway era old school lines.Who would have thought it.
Look on the bright side 30 years ago you’d have been overtaken,while pottering along,by trucks running at 65 mph +,on clear motorways uncluttered and unfettered by obviously artificially imposed and placed ‘inducements’,which are obviously meant to disincentivise the use of road transport to move anything anywhere.
Juddian:
Seeing as the traffic situation can change minute by minute, and it being a big no no to even think of touching a device that could warn you of such things (with the modern public desperate to get a pat on the had from the current stasi for reporting such things, ja danke comrade
Set your route on Google Maps and pop your phone in its holder. It’ll then flash up any delays and options to divert. Same with TomTom, don’t even have to touch it just say yes or no when it offers an alternative.
Luke, just imagine for one moment that whilst a previous steam powered phone might finally have been upgraded, it was to one running on a BMC B series engine 
, and the person using the phone is just getting used to starting it by use of a key instead of stoking the fire 
Apart from that, i don’t have the high data package to run google maps continually, even if i could work out how to enter a route.
Juddian:
Apart from that, i don’t have the high data package to run google maps continually, even if i could work out how to enter a route.
Running google maps hardly uses any data at all.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
damoq:
Juddian:
Apart from that, i don’t have the high data package to run google maps continually, even if i could work out how to enter a route.Running google maps hardly uses any data at all.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
How much roughly? We have home broadband with EE and apparently get 5gig of data boost per month on my mobile as a bonus, haven’t a bloody clue what it means though, roughly how many hours could i run google maps with that amount please?
Juddian:
Some companies do not allow their drivers to think either, and will only sanction an alternative if some child in the office approves it…
In a nutshell. 
Juddian:
damoq:
Juddian:
Apart from that, i don’t have the high data package to run google maps continually, even if i could work out how to enter a route.Running google maps hardly uses any data at all.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
How much roughly? We have home broadband with EE and apparently get 5gig of data boost per month on my mobile as a bonus, haven’t a bloody clue what it means though, roughly how many hours could i run google maps with that amount please?
ting.com/blog/how-much-data-doe … -maps-use/
If you’ve got 5gb of data, you should have enough tor run google maps for 1000hrs per month.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The A5…
Jams solid when all the wagons go along it at once.
Google maps updates with shorter routes when there is congestion ahead. Sometime they’re only two or three minutes shorter and because it’s not specifically designed for lorries, it’ll send you down Waytoonarrowforyourlorry Lane to Yourlorryistoobigforthisvillage if you don’t use your brains.
It came up with what I thought was the oddest way into Nuneaton last year. I worked out it was ok for me to follow and did so. It saved me over an hour because the A444 and surrounding road were totally gridlocked.
Dont ask me how it works but my cars sat nav will flash up a message and some weird woman’s voice will tell me the traffic conditions on the route and if there’s any closures it will automatically plot me another route with the road closed marked with a lot of little red cars ( Merc E class Comand system)
I don’t like to rely on these truck satnavs completely, for example, I’ve seen some roads in Leicester with cars double parked all the way, you couldn’t fit an artic down them, but there’s no weight limit, so the truck satnav would send you down them
damoq:
Juddian:
damoq:
Juddian:
Apart from that, i don’t have the high data package to run google maps continually, even if i could work out how to enter a route.Running google maps hardly uses any data at all.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
How much roughly? We have home broadband with EE and apparently get 5gig of data boost per month on my mobile as a bonus, haven’t a bloody clue what it means though, roughly how many hours could i run google maps with that amount please?
ting.com/blog/how-much-data-doe … -maps-use/
If you’ve got 5gb of data, you should have enough tor run google maps for 1000hrs per month.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Much obliged to me learned friend.
Goes off to boil head first then work out how to operate google maps plotting a route, see you sometime next year 
yourhavingalarf:
The A5…Jams solid when all the wagons go along it at once.
Also many experienced drivers will immediately think of the huge queues that always build up at Weedon Crossroads within minutes of the M1 getting clogged up or closed and will discount going that way - unaware that the Flore bypass opened just a couple of months ago which has completely removed that particular bottleneck.
Roymondo:
yourhavingalarf:
The A5…Jams solid when all the wagons go along it at once.
Also many experienced drivers will immediately think of the huge queues that always build up at Weedon Crossroads within minutes of the M1 getting clogged up or closed and will discount going that way - unaware that the Flore bypass opened just a couple of months ago which has completely removed that particular bottleneck.
The bottleneck at…
Crick will still be there. The huge queues at the Towcester roundabout will still be there. Anything approaching Weedon along the A5 in a northbound direction will queue. I’ll guess the Flore by-pass will have a queue to get onto it.
Put three lanes of motorway traffic onto any A class road and you will have godalmighty traffic jams.
^^ the reasons i tend to think laterally whenever there’s a road closure, try to judge which alternative route the satnav will be telling the world and his wife to go, and then find my own instead.
Fortunately i work for a company that leaves you to get the job done as you think fit and never questions your choice of route, must be totally demoralising to work for the other sort, where drivers of proven experience are not trusted to know their jobs better than some bod behind the desk and his PC screen
Juddian:
Seeing as the traffic situation can change minute by minute, and it being a big no no to even think of touching a device that could warn you of such things (with the modern public desperate to get a pat on the had from the current stasi for reporting such things, ja danke comrade
It was a notified in advance closure of the M1 where they’re doing motorway upgrades as far as I know as they’ve been shutting it most nights and that is why the A5 from Weeton to Crick wasn’t closed as it has been recently when the M1 northbound has been open. On days I leave Google Maps running and it always informs me of any delay on my route, asking me if I want to take an alternative. You can look and see what the congestion is like on the alternative routes if you’re stationary and decide whether it is worth bothering or not. Wonderful thing this modern technology that many on here say only steering wheel attendants use - it saves you being sat there on the M1 with all the rest of the muppets when a clear alternative is available or going down alternatives that are just as jammed. One wonders who is the more professional driver, the one using all the modern technology there is available to aide progress and stand a chance of doing the journey on time or one who just has a box of paper maps and is sat there stood still with his thumb up his arse trying to decide whether to stay on the route he is or not.
As for how much data Google Maps uses, a month of using that most of the time when I’m on days AND streaming Spotify at the highest quality AND watching the odd Youtube video I’ve never gone over 6GB. Most of that is the Spotify and Youtube given my average data usage on nights when I don’t normally bother with Google Maps is around 4GB.
yourhavingalarf:
Roymondo:
yourhavingalarf:
The A5…Jams solid when all the wagons go along it at once.
Also many experienced drivers will immediately think of the huge queues that always build up at Weedon Crossroads within minutes of the M1 getting clogged up or closed and will discount going that way - unaware that the Flore bypass opened just a couple of months ago which has completely removed that particular bottleneck.
The bottleneck at…
Crick will still be there. The huge queues at the Towcester roundabout will still be there. Anything approaching Weedon along the A5 in a northbound direction will queue. I’ll guess the Flore by-pass will have a queue to get onto it.
Put three lanes of motorway traffic onto any A class road and you will have godalmighty traffic jams.
Since when did the diversion route as stated by the OP (A45 → A5) go anywhere near Towcester? Likewise it doesn’t approach Weedon on the Northbound A5. Not that it’s relevant to my point - which was to observe that many experienced drivers may have eschewed the A45/A5 route because they think it will take them through Flore and the Weedon traffic lights.
A Motorway closure is always going to result in horrendous congestion on/around the official diversion routes - but the situation under discussion was not a full closure, rather it was drivers blindly remaining in some significant queues on the M1 instead of trundling off along the obvious alternatives.
Roymondo:
Since when did the diversion route as stated by the OP (A45 → A5) go anywhere near Towcester? Likewise it doesn’t approach Weedon on the Northbound A5. Not that it’s relevant to my point - which was to observe that many experienced drivers may have eschewed the A45/A5 route because they think it will take them through Flore and the Weedon traffic lights.A Motorway closure is always going to result in horrendous congestion on/around the official diversion routes - but the situation under discussion was not a full closure, rather it was drivers blindly remaining in some significant queues on the M1 instead of trundling off along the obvious alternatives.
Drivers may well…
Come off the M1 earlier and head for Towcester and then A5 northbound in an effort to avoid congestion at the A45 junction. That still leaves the jams the inevitably appear at Crick to get back on at 18.
I agree, drivers will sit there in jams when there are alternatives. Possibly because of company policy, ignorance or they’re paid by the hour and don’t give a monkeys.
That parallel stretch of road that could be called the “Weedon Bypass” - always seems to have plenty of artics going both ways on it, going to and from the DIRFT side of J18.
I notice that since this new bit of road has been built - there’s hardly anyone coming through Weedon crossroads still, which is still a bit of a rat run if you are going from the Midlands via Daventry itself, aiming to be southbound on the A5 towards Towcester. I’m using that route at present, on those nights the southbound M1 is closed @ J15.
When Northbound @ J14 is closed - coming off at the new J11a to connect with the A5 northbound - also acts as a fairly decent short cut as well. 