Most of you will find this post painfully boring but I’d like the cathartic experience of sharing my nightly fun over the last few weeks with you all. My job entails me trunking a van at night, 5 nights a week, from Lancashire to Farnborough then back to Lancashire. If I get a clear run and do 50 through the many miles of roadworks sections and 65-70 on non-roadworks sections (which are diminishing by the week) then I can comfortably do the 460 mile round-trip in the 9.5 hrs my boss deems acceptable to do it in.
However for the last few weeks Highways England have made this nightly trip the stuff of nightmares. Literally every major route south to north is closed for long sections every night. Last week the M40 was closed north of Warwick, entailing a diversion on the A46 and A45. Not too bad you may think, but when you eventually make it onto the m6 the m6 is closed J7-11, cue a painfully alow diversion through Walsall with all the other redirected traffic.
Use the M5 instead I hear you say. Well, not much point in that as it’s closed in 2 sections, firstly near Cheltenham, then further north between J6 Droitwich and J4. Then you can’t join the M6 north at the top end due to the J7-11 closure.
One night I made the mistake of relying on Google Maps on my phone for closure info. I checked it when leaving Farnborough and it was telling me the M1 was fully open. Brilliant I thought, I’ll just get on the M25, go up the M1 instead and use the A50…until I got on the M1 and the matrix signs began flashing “M1 closed J16-18 and 19-21.” In a fit of rage at this point I thought oh well, there’s always the A5 as an alternative. I’ll come off at J14 Milton Keynes and go all the way up the A5 instead. I got on the A5 and was on it for just a few miles before yes, you guessed it, the A5 was closed for roadworks! So I ended up on a diversion on a diversion on a diversion. Up the meandering A508 I went slowly, stuck behind a double-decker Kingsmill wagon who was probably in an equal amount of despair, before I ended up on the M1 I was so hoping to avoid at J15. So i came off at J15a, went up the A43 and eventually got on the A5 again, made my way up that and eventually got onto the m6 before meeting the J7-11 closure. The option of going up the A5 through Cannock and avoiding the J7-11 isn’t open to you as the A5 west is closed near Tamworth. When you do finally get remotely near the north west, you then have the huge stretch of roadworks on the M6 J16-19, often down to 1 lane, to contend with, the closure of the A556 linking to the M56, the M62/M60 J12 link is usually closed (this is a nightly gamble though depending on what mood Highways England are in, could be open but could also be closed without warning), before finally you’re onto the cone-infested 50 mph restricted m60 construction zone.
My question is, why do Highways England think it’s acceptable to close all the alternative routes when they close major motorways? To whom are they accountable? My Company only owns a fleet of 13 vans and carries no weight whatsoever in terms of lobbying power, but does anyone know what the RHA has to say about the situation. I have the luxury of being able to do 70mph and I’m not restricted by tacho rules, but surely the job has got quite literally impossible for any of you operating to a tight schedule at night under tacho laws?
