Came by this tonight between J8 and J9 which made me wonder. There appeared (repeat appeared) to be signs of the vehicles at the front of the queue being let go through in small batches. There were several large gaps in the queue and vehicles moving to join groups further forward, so:
What do drivers who are going to need a daily rest period if they are held for lets say more than 3 hours do? Are they told to keep to, say, the left hand queue - or what?
The left hand queue was for the tunnel,the right one was for Dover,once you eventually got to jnt 9 then they let through a certain amount of wagons every half hour for the right hand lane,I should know this as I sat in the mother ■■■■■■ queue for 8hrs!!
9hrs to get from Maidstone to Dover!!
And on a digi!!
Never again…
The a2 was fine this morning Best way go through Dover to the swimming pool …
It is an interesting question. If for example you arrived at the end of the “stack” on 10hrs duty and by the time they ordered you to move it would amount to lets say a 17hr spread over and only 7hrs of rest, how do you stand? Theoretically its out of your control and you’d do a print out I presume but how much would you get away with? Its not like you’d actually find any parking before you got in to the port so you’d have to ship across and the hope to find something in France but that could be several hours later and a complete distaster on the tacho. Would this henious crime you’ve commited by prosecuted by the more shall we say, ‘un-caring’ member states police forces because they think the law is black and white and reality is the same?
Another question. If you’re heading down to customs in Dover do you have to join the queue or do you go in to town and clear first and then join the queue? I used to do regular Swiss and clear and get T-Forms in Dover but luckily never got stuck in operation stack as we’d ship out Killingholme-Zeebrugge if there was any chance of sillyness in Kent.
Is it just for trucks? are other passengers allowed to go straight to dover?
got caught twice this week once on monday night got to the train got to the lane then it snowed and snowed and snowed trains all stopped trucks struggling to get up the hill to the train finally got over at 2.00 in the morning did a printout what else can you do when you are in the q you have to catch the train.
french roads next morning was very bad from the calais into belgium and beyond at 14.30 in the afternoon france had put a ban on any think over 3.5 ton till 18.30.
came back over weednesday morning calais side of the train empty straight over.
i had to join operation stack again wednesday afternoon the q between 9 and 8 took ages once i got passed the services i joined the train q i went straight to the front sat there for 1/2 hr they then let a load of us down.
IF YOU ARE IN THE FERRY Q YOU ARE GIVEN A PIECE OF PAPER IF YOU GET TO DOVER WITHOUT IT YOU ARE BUGGERED AND HAVE TO GO BACK.
i got parked up in france did another printout yet again what can you do i keep the receipts for the train and it was on the news so hopefuly my explanations will be excepted if pulled.
the q at calais port was still back to the pidou on thursday aftenoon but i got thru it pretty quick got the to lane and boarded straight away.
AT THE MOMENT P&O FERRIES ARA HAVING THE ODD STRIKE WHICH WASNT HELPING LAST WEEK
anser to the mucker85 everyone goes of at jnc 9 m20 the cars then have to go a20 the trucks are put back on the m20
I’ve never been caught in this, only had to divert to reach local destinations. So apart from the boredom and frustration, what is it like being in the queue, are you treated like mushrooms? When the Stack is all over and the M’way reopened you can see the odd Portaloo on the edge of the hard shoulder, but how well organised is it? are there toilets every half mile or so, or does it take a couple of days before any are in place? Not everyone will want to use up food they have with them, so are there any hot dog vans etc?
No snack vans nothing only a portaloo every 500yds or so not that many used them most of them preferred to use the banking!!