Traffic issues
I have not been having much luck recently whilst travelling in my car.
Last Friday, having been detained on the south coast until mid-afternoon, I then embarked upon my drive home to south-west London – a trip I’d estimate I have undertaken in either or both directions well over a thousand times in the last half-century and one, which I used to joke, my car before last could have undertaken at any time on its own without a driver, such was its familiarity with the two (okay three) routes by which this can be done.
Ordinarily the journey concerned – of approximately 80 miles in length – takes an average of roughly 100 minutes to complete in either direction, with any duration of close to or on the mark of 90 minutes being regarded as “good or better”.
These numbers apply largely because a good deal of the journey takes place on the A3(M) motorway, along which all responsible drivers proceed at a steady 69mph.
On the occasion I’m writing about (last Friday’s) thing proceeded pretty much as contemplated until I reached the intersection between the A3 and the M25, which – on any trip to London – I join to take me around the M25 in a clockwise direction towards Heathrow for approximately ten minutes before I nip off at the intersection with the M3 and then proceed for about twelve miles in a north-easterly direction into Richmond on my way home.
However.
On Friday, as I approached the aforementioned M25 intersection with the M3, the M25 traffic slowed and became slightly congested.
This was no particular problem.
Stuff happens.
I was about on course for another 100 minute completed journey home – perhaps just 15 to 20 minutes max still left to drive.
Then one of those yellow lights on black electronic messages came up at the side of the M25 featuring a “Road narrowing” sign and the words “Lane closed”.
I filtered – as per normal – over to the right and the slip road taking me from the M25 onto the M3: I needed the right hand of the latter’s lanes because, of course, I was going “right” in order to turn up towards Richmond (London).
Only the right hand lane (taking me “right” to Richmond) was denied me by a horde of traffic cones.
There was nowhere else to go – I had to follow the left-hand lane and go onto the M3, now going south-west towards Southampton, exactly the opposite direction to the one I was expecting to travel (and needed to take) in order to get home.
Ten minutes later I had reached the M3’s Lightwater junction, came off at it, circulated the roundabout over the motorway and came back round to go north-eastwards, back toward the M25 … and hopefully then straight on, towards Twickenham/Richmond.
Another ten minutes later and – as intended – I did not go off onto the M25 when this became possible … simply because I wanted to continue straight on under it (up the M3 to Richmond).
Only I couldn’t do that – it was also cordoned off by a horde of traffic cones.
All I was able physically to do was re-join the M25, now going anti-clockwise, back towards the M3 in the general direction of Gatwick, some 45 minutes beyond.
Stunned at my previous “100 minute duration” journey now being suddenly being snatched away before my very eyes, I quickly assessed the situation and – now in gridlocked M25 Friday rush hour traffic – struggled inch-by-inch towards the very-first exit I could reach, that going to Weybridge, Chertsey and Shepperton.
As I came off, I ‘opened’ the new App on my smartphone that my son Barry had recommended to me – a sat-nav device entitled Waze.
This took me via various unfamiliar back routes – eventually – back to the A316 somewhere near Hampton … and then towards my onward destination.
The supposed 100 minute journey – which at one stage, as previously mentioned, I had been within 15-odd minutes of completing without any incident – eventually took me almost 170 minutes!
Furthermore, later in the evening I discovered from a BBC radio station that the cause of my hold-up had been a lorry that had caught fire somewhere near the M25/M3 intersection.
What I cannot comprehend is why – when said vehicle caught fire – they didn’t get a couple of fire engines to it pronto and then simply drag it off the road to the side … so that the rest of us could proceed on our merry journeys with a minimum of fuss and interruption.
It didn’t help matters that yesterday – on my trip to shop at a local example of a well-known supermarket chain, I was caught gridlocked for fifteen minutes in Richmond town centre because a bus had broken down and, subsequently having been attached to the back of a pick-up lorry-loader, had somehow got stuck on a corner, thereby preventing all traffic on both sides of the road from moving at all!
