What a friggin joke. Came out of Brackmills at 2am heading for Sheffield and it was all flowing nicely despite J16-18 being closed. Got to 200 yards from the junction and it all came to a juddering halt. Reason? Some idiot in a parcel artic had managed to breakdown at the top of the slip ramp, partly in lane 2 so the only way to get past in an artic was to mount the o/s kerb, drive over the grass and you could just about squeeze between his cab and the motorway sign. The problem was that there was a 9" drop off the kerb onto the roundabout which, from the fresh diesel on the roundabout, was puncturing the underside of some driversā fuel tanks as they drove off.
Followed the diversion up the A45 towards Daventry and promptly came to a halt in Flore village and didnāt move more than 200 yards in over an hour. I eventually got bored as it was getting on for 0415 and they usually start taking the cones away on the motorway closures about 0430 so I turned my artic round in the tiny junction at the top of Flore Hill and went back to the motorway. There was a good 5 miles of standing traffic all sat there with their lights off and wandering about in the road chatting to each other! Got back to J16 andā¦ M1 northbound slip ramp now open! Result. I feel for those poor ā ā ā ā ā still stuck in it. I saw on googlemaps traffic there was a solid red line nearly all the way from Weedon lights up the A5 to Crick. Thatās a chuffin big queue! Was anyone further along the diversion and could see what the hold up was?
I also donāt understand why they need a full road closure of 15 miles when theyāre only resurfacing a 1 mile stretch of the middle lane. The gang who is doing the same job at J29 manage just fine with motorway open and the traffic put in single file on the hard shoulder.
And whatās with all the new smiley face signs along there - āWelcome to our work zoneā, āMy daddy works hereā. Oh do ā ā ā ā off. In fact if I was his/her daddyās boss I would sack him on the spot as 90% of the time you go past thereās no ā ā ā ā working there, just miles of cones protecting ā ā ā ā all.
Olog Hai:
Iām not seeing how a vehicle breaking down makes its driver an āidiotā.
Only an air fail on the brakes would stop an artic in a dumb, in-the-way position like halfway out of a sliproadā¦
Meanwhile, car drivers will coast their on-fire cars into petrol stations, change wheels in the third lane, and undertake at full speed in lane 1 when lanes 2 and 3 grind to a haltā¦
Michael Douglas:
I guess the driver that had a blowout in front of me the other day is an idiot too then. Idiot drivers not knowing when their trucks will fail
On a similar note, I had an old triumph have a blow out in lane 2 (I was in lane 1) today. He must have panicked as he veered immediately into lane 1 right in front of me no indicator nothing! Luckily he didnāt hang about and went straight over to the hard shoulder, and came to a stop just before the hard shoulder ended
Tha wants to calm down if the artic is broke down how does that make him an idiot ā ā I bet you didnāt stop to tell him ā ā
trouble with this job is ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā like you spouting ā ā ā ā ā on here big deal so you were a little late big wow and some peoples daddys do work on the roads we would be ā ā ā ā ā ā without em, you need to get a grip man or find another job.
Michael Douglas:
I guess the driver that had a blowout in front of me the other day is an idiot too then. Idiot drivers not knowing when their trucks will fail
More than likely he would be in the OPās world.
Sadly the haulage industry is infested with the type who have to get all angry with someone/anyone if their journey is delayed, even slightly. Easy done when theyāre sat inside a lockable tin box, but perhaps not so if they were within grabbing distance of the subject of their verbal assaults.
Carl Usher:
And whatās with all the new smiley face signs along there - āWelcome to our work zoneā, āMy daddy works hereā. Oh do [zb] off. In fact if I was his/her daddyās boss I would sack him on the spot as 90% of the time you go past thereās no [zb] working there, just miles of cones protecting [zb] all.
Going off on a bit of a tangent here
Passing that stretch today,I saw a couple of Swains ? flatbeds delivering pre-cast concrete barriers.
Nowā¦perhaps Iām just stupid but for some reason Iāve always thought that the steel fabrications used as temporary barriers were also used as moulds for these concrete barriers,and that mortar was poured into them in situ Iām sure that Iāve seen this happenā¦or am I deluding myself
I drive for Swains and was on the barrier job today,they have been having problems with the barriers that have been cast in situ so they are replacing some of them and continuing the job with the pre-cast ones currently we are doing about 16 loads a day
I was stuck on that last night around half 3 , by time I got back on m1 at j18 it had been opened again . I always enjoy the new signs that say "you may not always see us but weāre hard at work " ā¦ ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā
For ā ā ā ā ā sake - have you got nothing better to write? Did you think that driver had chosen where to break down ? Youāre not the only one on the road. You need to man up and act the professional driver , otherwise ā ā ā ā off and take a job where you need a smaller pair of balls
Came out of Brackmills at 2am heading for Sheffield and it was all flowing nicely despite J16-18 being closed. Got to 200 yards from the junction and it all came to a juddering halt. Reason? Some idiot in a parcel artic had managed to breakdown at the top of the slip ramp, partly in lane 2 so the only way to get past in an artic was to mount the o/s kerb, drive over the grass and you could just about squeeze between his cab and the motorway sign. The problem was that there was a 9" drop off the kerb onto the roundabout which, from the fresh diesel on the roundabout, was puncturing the underside of some driversā fuel tanks as they drove off.
I eventually got bored as it was getting on for 0415 and they usually start taking the cones away on the motorway closures about 0430 so I turned my artic round in the tiny junction at the top of Flore Hill and went back to the motorway. There was a good 5 miles of standing traffic all sat there with their lights off and wandering about in the road chatting to each other! Got back to J16 andā¦ M1 northbound slip ramp now open! Result. I feel for those poor ā ā ā ā ā still stuck in it. I saw on googlemaps traffic there was a solid red line nearly all the way from Weedon lights up the A5 to Crick. Thatās a chuffin big queue! Was anyone further along the diversion and could see what the hold up was?
but for some reason Iāve always thought that the steel fabrications used as temporary barriers were also used as moulds for these concrete barriers,and that mortar was poured into them in situ 
Iām sure that Iāve seen this happenā¦or am I deluding myself 