Is there really any excuse for closing what must be one of the busiest routes in Europe for up to 24 hours and simply beacause of a fire in a van.
Whilst I can accept that due to the fire and the presence of potential explosive material they have to err on the side of safety there must be another way.
What sort of untold damage is this doing to the UK economy not to mention inconveniencing many many thousands of people?
Wouldn’t it have been simpler and a ■■■■ site quicker to deploy the army to blow the van up with a controlled explosion then clear the debris and reopen the road.
I am sorry but we really need to take a leaf out of Europe’s book here and treat getting roads reopened as a high priority.
The problem is that acetylene when hot gets so unstable that even careful movement of it can cause a most unpleasant bang & a gas cylinder can (& normally do) become projectiles travelling many many yards & inches when going pop.
Also we don’t know how many canisters are involved, it could be a van load or just one cylinder.
I know that the fire brigade sometimes put these cylinders into a skip of cold water to cool down, but it still takes many hours to stabilise them.
However if the Police were, like the Transport Police, subject to the same pressure to keep routes open I’m sure, that like the railways, disruption would be kept to a minimum.
from what i was taught on my ADR course, a knocking the top off a cylinder would send it off like a rocket which would go through just about anything. presumably, a heated cylinder would be similiar. the weakest point would go and the pressure built up (even more with the heat) would fire it off in the most convenient direction. you would NOT want to get in the way of that 
They shut the roads or cause unneccesary chaos in Britain if someone has had a nudge, I was on the Lincoln by-pass last week and someone had had a rear end smach the car involved was still in the middle of the road alongside a massive layby where they could have driven it or pushed it ( the front end was smashed but both front wheels looked ok) and let everyone else get on their way.
Instead they left it in the middle of the road with 2 police cars either side of it causing absolute chaos to anyone wanting to get past.
I can understand a gas cylinder but minor shunts should be moved immediately.
What do they do on the European roads can any of our Euro drivers fill us in?
You saw that one as well Jammy, I fully agree with you, they should have dragged the car off into the layby.
As for Gas Bottles having their necks knocked off, I saw a 5ft tall Oxygen bottle have this happen.
It was stood up at the end of the Hospital corridor, hadn’t been secured, it got knocked over, the valve was broken off and off it went down the corridor like a torpedo, people diving out of windows all the way down.
It went through a 9 inch brick wall about 150 yards from its start point and buried 2/3rd of its length into the side of an ex WW2 Airraid bunker, that was being used as a bottled gas store.
It vented itself after about 10 minutes 
Scary or what.
Then I would agree, sort it fast. Shame there’s no compensation for these types of events, because then it would be sorted ultra quick.
Edited by me, due to scum events