Auto Trader Blog

Last week my journey back from the Classic Motor Show was blighted. Not by the sight of a slightly rusty Maxi (although it didn’t help), but by a monster traffic jam.

My predicted three-hour run from Birmingham’s NEC to Essex ran into a six-and-a-half hour nightmare.

It took about three-and-a-half hours to clear the traffic – apparently caused by an incident involving two lorries on the M6 – and my now-longer route took another three hours to complete.

The crash happened at 2.30, but I was still hearing traffic reports of the closed road about four hours later.

I fully understand the need to assess the scene to work out what happened should the incident need to go to court, and it has to be done properly especially if there are deaths or serious injuries.

But minor shunts – the kind where both cars are almost driveable – should be photographed tout suite, sweep the debris up and get the traffic flowing. With a country totally reliant on its road infrastructure to keep going it is essential.

By my reckoning, it should take little more than 45 minutes to reach a prang, half an hour to cone everything off and photograph and measure the scene and about 15 minutes to scrape bits of car off the road. If it needs more people to do this, well, there are plenty of people looking for work – take them on.

There still might be long tailbacks, but let’s have no more of this “shut the road for five hours” business.

Stuart Milne