I’m a new driver and have just completed my first week of nights. It’s been hard and the gaps between what you learn in training and what you need to know to do the job have been laid bare. But I’ve enjoyed it and I’m working hard to learn and improve.
One shock has been the sheer volume of night-time road closures that I’ve had to contend with. I bought a HGV-specific satnav that doesn’t have a live Traffic feature on it, although I hear a lot of experienced guys say live Traffic is a waste of time anyway.
I now have a link on my phone to the National Highways website that lists planned closures and I’ve started running Waze on my phone, sitting next to my nav on the dash. But I’m not sure that’s the best solution.
So a question for you old hands - what advice can you give to a new driver to help me navigate around the many night-time road closures?
Before you leave, check google maps traffic which should show you closures, depending on what time you start your night run the roads may not be closed before you get there, so some playing it by ear as you travel is the ticket.
At several points in your journey there will be cut off points when the alternative you could use is no longer valid, so check the traffic situation in good time to go the other way if your route suddenly closes at 8pm.
Forget the super sat nav, google traffic and a proper real road atlas with bridge heights are what you need, depending where you are going there might be 2 or 4 sensible alternative routes you could take, so make a judgement as best you can.
The trick with finding alternatives is second guessing where satnav will send all those who can’t be arsed to do the above, think laterally, chances are the sat nav will suggest the obvious alternative where all the sheep will follow, be one step ahead and find your own way, only a decent sized map is good enough for seeing the big picture.
Be aware of touching your phone when out and about even if its on sat nav only and fixed in a rock solid cradle, the law has changed on this in the last few days.
Suggest spending a few minutes perusing The Black Belt Barrister’s youtube channel, few days ago he did a round up of the changes.
Be doubly aware of what’s about you, i don’t know if the unmarked tractor unit the old bill go tatas in runs at night, but even a decent sized plod 4x4 creeping up behind your right shoulder might be able to see you touching the phone to adjust traffic maps.
If you do same run look for signs saying when road’s motorways will be closed.
As highways website isn’t always that accurate.
But best bet buy a map .
To be fair motoway closures usuly have signed diversions. To follow .
Just case of building up a geographical knowledge really.
I’ve been doing nights solidly for 18 years. Here’s what I’ve learnt.
Looking at Google Traffic before making a journey is invaluable, but some closures which happen at 10pm take until gone 11pm to show up. Similarly, Google Traffic often shows a road closed for an hour after it’s actually opened. Google Traffic isn’t 100% reliable, but it is very good. It’s most useful, in my opinion, between 11pm and 4am.
Most (but certainly not all) major route closures are on the gantries well ahead of the actual closure. I know so many of the usual trunk road diversion routes now, but sometimes don’t. If I don’t, then I pull into a services and plan my route using a bridge-height map. I even manually re-route my sat-nav to take me on the diversion route I want to go on.
I ignore diversion signs now, as they’re notoriously unreliable, sometimes ambiguous, take you on unnecessarily long diversions, or quite often just missing. I only rely on them if the road is suddenly closed without prior warning. But even then I’ve been known to pull over and consult my map just to make sure I’m on the right road and there’s no low bridges.
Very very very occasionally a diversion route will take you under a bridge not high enough for double deckers, and you will be stuffed.
There are twice as many night closures through March as local councils use their budgets up. It happens every year. By mid April it settles down again.
Many major road closures are advertised 2 weeks in advance, giving you enough time to plan an alternative route.
It’s strange that I started driving before many of our motorways were built and during my career they have been worn out to the point of reconstruction being required.I have been retired 8 years and one of the things i do for amusement in the small hours(yes,I know)is to play with teletext to see where all the current closures and diversions are.
God I’d hate to be a new driver it’s a nightmare isn’t it.
As already said google maps traffic is the most useful tool but not 100% accurate anymore. Forget all the other useless websites like highways England.
Most of the time they will close them around 8pm sometimes earlier so it’s difficult if your off on a long trip starting off before that time.
As said all roadwork closures should have a signposted diversion which generally are fine to follow but can add a lot of driving sometimes.
Try and get the phone number of other drivers & ask them about routes etc…
Most of the drivers i know that work nights are nearly always on the phone to eachother to keep themselves awake/entertained!
A truckers atlas is also useful for the overview and bridge heights.
When I was a new driver & would get diverted i would always stop at the first available place & check the map & write down a brief description of route ahead, as i found working nights very hard to remember anything.
In time you will learn the roads, specially if you don’t rely on prat-nav to much…
Good luck
Must admit, the closures along with finding staying awake at night increasingly less appealing has made me search hard for day trunks. Tough to find but are out there. I miss doing nights, as there us gar less traffic at night and places are quieter. I cant really add to the advice given as it has been spot on.
My biggest gripe was how they close the M1 southbound and the A1 southbound over the same few nights, when for many one would have been a viable alternative to the other.
Pre planning is the answer. And if ploughing on is going to leave you in an awkward position, divert early on roads you’re 100% sure aren’t closing. Saves a lot of stress. I used to pull a 16 4 decker and that was a ballache sometimes.
I used to experiment with alternatives before needing them, within reason, if there was a option that only added a few miles and 10 or 15 min I would aim to try it while under no pressure so I could weigh it up for future use if needed. Goes without saying don’t catch yourself out with a bridge or weight limit, I could have 4 or 5 hours wait between tip and reload so as not a light sleeper sometimes would pass the time walking through key bits of an alternative on Google maps and street view.
Google is ■■■■ it will show roads as closed which are not closed and won’t show closed roads as closed. In addition when a dual carriageway is closed one way it will often show it as closed both ways
as someone above said if you’re leaving 21:50 for a road that shows as open and get to it shortly after 22:00 it will be closed already so best way I found is go to useless highways agencies site and download their weekly excel table with planned road closures. If it says closed from 22:00 better assume it will be closed 21:00 as I often see them kicking the cones out around 21:20-21:30 even if the road is supposed to close after 22. This should be the transport office’s job really and print it out and put it on the board instead of the usual don’t drink and drive flyers
check for rail crossings (bridges) on the map and if in doubt find out the bridge height beforehand. All of that of course assuming you can find a place to stop to re-plan your route. If facing an unexpected closure I’ll stop at the first place that’s not forbidden parking to look at maps etc. It’s night so no big deal, hardly any traffic anyway
Well fatLarry the answer to your question is…there is no answer, because sometimes the advertised roadworks dont take place so if youve diverted it was for nothing. Other times you divert and that route has road closures.
There should be a system in place for motorways and A roads to coordinate the closures so that M1,A1 and M11 are not shut on the same night or M42 and A38 or A1 and A19, you get my point.
Also Ive seen the M5 shut 3 times within the space of 10 junctions. This needs looking in to cos Im sick of it.
I was going to go into a full blown rant but I think Ill take my medication and have a lie down.
FatLarry68:
So a question for you old hands - what advice can you give to a new driver to help me navigate around the many night-time road closures?
TIA
So as someoene who has been on nights for years…
Take note of any signs at the side of the road saying what nights it’ll be closed
Visit this website daily nationalhighways.co.uk/travel-u … re-report/. It’s pretty accurate and usually only misses last minute stuff. On the right of the page is a link to a downloadable spreadsheet - this contains more information than the main site about each individual closure.
Highways England as you already have
Google Maps. You need to be a bit canny with it. Sometimes it’ll not show a road closure but when you look at the live traffic there’s no green line on that road and that usually means there’s no traffic on that stretch which often means road closure. Sometimes it’ll also say it’s closed when it isn’t. You’ll need to look at it multiple times - quieter roads such as anywhere north of the M62 corridor get closures from 8pm, the majority get closures from 9pm, the busiest which is mainly the M25 get closures from 10pm.
Learn all the alternative routes for major roads - many that’ve been upgraded from a dual carriageway to a motorway will often have one of the old carriageways running alongside as a minor A or B road to allow non-motorway traffic to still be able to get to the places it served. For example if you’re going to say Doncaster from Hemel Hempstead and the M1 road closures above Milton Keynes are on the go you can come off at J13, go up the A428 and then take the A1 up instead of the M1. If the M1 is shut north of Leicester then you can use the A46 over to Newark and up the A1. For me when going up the A1 from Ferrybridge anywhere up to Scotch Corner if the A1 has any hold ups there’s the old A1 which is now the A168 and some B road north of Leeming Bar that I’ll hop onto to get around it instead. M74 still has bits of the old A74 running alongside it as a B road, the A1M at Peterborough still has the old original stretch of the A1 running alongside it to Alconbury as a B road. As you get a better knowledge of the UK road network you’ll start to figure it out. A good way to get started is if there’s a road closure up ahead follow where the most of the double decker pallet and parcel network trailers are going, they’ll be on a regular route they know the alternatives well.
thehairyarsedtrucker:
Well fatLarry the answer to your question is…there is no answer, because sometimes the advertised roadworks dont take place so if youve diverted it was for nothing. Other times you divert and that route has road closures.
There should be a system in place for motorways and A roads to coordinate the closures so that M1,A1 and M11 are not shut on the same night or M42 and A38 or A1 and A19, you get my point.
Also Ive seen the M5 shut 3 times within the space of 10 junctions. This needs looking in to cos Im sick of it.
I was going to go into a full blown rant but I think Ill take my medication and have a lie down.
Just about sums up the average night driving on our shambles of a road system. You can just never tell what’s gonna happen so the best you can really do is have a quick glance at Google maps before you leave & try to contact other drivers who might have done the same route that night or recently. Eventually you will learn your way around well enough not to worry too much about it
Used do nights years ago.when.1st past test
At time they were just starting all the smart motoway schemes. On the m6 and M5 both were always shut overnight
In the end they had to take on another driver make our runs shorter.
As was becoming impossible to do them and be back in a shift
You could be the type of driver that says, “I’ll just follow the signed diversion if there’s a road closure”, or you could be a professional and make yourself aware as much as possible what crap you are going to be confronted with every night. It makes your job less stressful and saves your employer time and money.
So with that sanctimonious waffle out the way, this is what I do.
Beginning of the week
I check this web site trafficengland.com/
It’s clunky and not always reliable but that’s the nature of these things
Regularly
I check google maps during the night which is pretty unreliable for road closures, but does show traffic density which lets you know if something fishy is going on.
I also use a TomTom truck with live traffic which is handy in many ways, and has saved me hours of wasted time, however, I think it takes about 15 to 20 mins to get it’s head round stationary traffic which is not nearly quick enough. Plus it’s gets it’s data from lots of sources, including it seems from the guys putting the cones out, their near stationary vehicles make it look like there is a horrendous delay ahead which then magically disappears within half an hour. The TomTom doesn’t populate the whole of England with all traffic issues at the same time to save the processor blowing up, so you may not be aware there is an issue until you are and hour away from it, for example.
Knowing your route and possible diversions is another string to your bow. as has been said before, the diversion signs can be next to useless, so knowing in advance which roads might be shut, and which way you might go if they are saves time and stress. Yes you might have to do a small bit of work at home, but I think it’s compensated by a smooth night with no surprises (I hate surprises).
I’m afraid night closures are a way of life with this job, but hopefully compensated for by the lack of car traffic, and an easy job when nothing is closed.
We’re generally using double decker trailers, so I’m not gonna be one of those drivers that just follows the diversions!
I now have the main websites pinned on my phone and check them before I leave the depot, along with Google Traffic; I also have my new copy of Trucker’s Britain stashed in the cab and I’ve started to believe the road signs that I always used to ignore as a car driver.
We’re always issued with a recommended route to our stores, but last night (Amesbury to Loughborough) I was able to plan my alternative before I left the dept (M1 / A45 night closures!) and didn’t have the stress of delays / uncertainty and finished my shift on time.
Most importantly I now feel more confident that I have the right tools I need, so thanks to again to everyone who replied on here, it’s greatly appreciated.