Edinburgh to Glasgow......

[Noops]

Sounds an absolute shambles on the M-8, hope no one is having to sleep out tonight right now its -9. The police have a lot to answer for on this one they should have been allowing traffic to leave by whatever means even the hard sholder should have been in use for 4 X4s etc . If I was caught up in that in the jeep I would be driving along the banking..

[robin]

The problem with a free for all is that somebody might lose an eye ...

Now that it's stopped snowing (I think), you would think a follow-the-leader session with a snow plough could clear the road in just a couple of hours ...

Cheers,
Robin

[Noops]

The problem with a free for all is that somebody might lose an eye ...

Now that it's stopped snowing (I think), you would think a follow-the-leader session with a snow plough could clear the road in just a couple of hours ...

Cheers,
Robin

Robin I agree where are the gritters??? also H&S gone mad, however if you have run out of fuel and your child is freezing what do you do??? If there's a death tonight due to this madness someones arse should be kicked.. starting with the police.

[vxc]

i think everyone was basically thinking the same (leave early to get home miss the congestion) your basic 11am-13pm turned into a 5pm with traffic all up in your face..

allot of works around my area were told to leave if you can in around 11am, even my carpark got congested....

[j2 lot]

Noops, How do you reach the conclusion that the Police are responsible?

[campbell]

We were in ...wait for it...Arrochar this morning, having spent my birthday weekend over that way. Needed to be back home sharp to get Eilidh to school, checked out of our cabin at 8.15am and hit the A82. All fine, albeit care needed, until near Cameron House on Loch Lomond and the queue started. Trucks, ice, ineptitude (of drivers, Police, you name it), and you have a heady cocktail of fun. In the main a couple of big "wagons" couldn't make the incline due to pack ice beneath the rapidly falling (but *very* accurately forecast) snow.

Original plan was to get to motorway "network" and take the "safe" route home.

One or two Radio Scotland bulletins and a few classic "phone-ins" on Real Radio, like, were all that were needed to convince me that actually the x-country route of the A811 from Balloch through Drymen, Buchlyvie etc to Stirling was the answer.

Getting to Balloch from Cameron House area took around 2 hours.

Killed an hour in the McDonalds (scene of the grand start of "Way out West Dubya Run" some 7 or 8 years ago, btw!), then with the ever-present help of Alistair in Mission Control, tackled the A811.

Very little traffic, road had been ploughed and gritted although was mostly pack-ice with the odd slushy area under the trees. Entertaining

Passed a couple of trucks struggling up hills.

Reached Stirling, already with a plan to avoid the M9 etc which was reportedly "gridlocked", by using A905 out through Fallin then Skinflats then Grangemouth (the fug from Ineos always keeps things nice and warm there eh Neil )

Saw evidence of movement on M9, but M876 from Kincardine Bridge looked v slow so drove right under it and onward to Grangemouth with no delays. Tempted to join M9 for one half mile section to J4 but thought better of it, can you imagine if we got jammed up barely 4 miles from home, so wound through the winter wonderland of Polmont, and back home at last to Linlithgow.

To find our estate looking much like it did last weekend before we cleared a load of our own snow

Car abandoned in a neighbour's drive as no guarantee of getting it round to our own, shipped all the weekend's gear to ours via sledges (!) and then started to reflect upon it all.

Best part of 5 hrs on the road to travel maybe 80 miles. 16mph average. Not bad, I think, against today's benchmarks!! Bulk of delay was waiting for struggling trucks to give it up on the A82.

Al's advice to seek a hot cuppa somewhere and some space for the kids was a masterstroke - killing an hour at McD's in Balloch is not part of our usual itinery but made a lot of difference, as the snowfall had stopped by the time we were ready to leave. We were keen to complete the journey in daylight, though, as the forecast was for v v low temps and given what we'd witnessed, we knew we were dead meat if still out on the roads in those conditions tonight.

I have just seen Stewart Stephenson, the Scottish "Transport" Minister, being interviewed on Newsnight Scotland. I imagined he'd get a pasting, and despite it not being Paxman doing the asking, indeed he did. He claimed the snowfall was "un-forecast". WRONG, I watched the BBC weather team describe the expected band of snow in fairly accurate detail, and I reckoned it would very much coincide with rush-hour...and our own, unrelated, journey back home from holiday. The Govt can't hide behind that one.

He also claimed their response was "first class". WRONG. Well, nothing personal on any of the individual people on-duty, but if collectively that was "first class" then those with an eye for Scottish Independence need to take a long hard look at themselves.

It's easy to be an armchair judge of all this, but like many others, I was out in amongst it. I was reflecting on what you would do in a position of authority if the most important motorway in your country was logjammed from J1 to J26 (which I heard on the radio at one point in the day). Well, how long does it take to remove a section of the now-continuous armco at crossover points normally used for contraflows? A few hours to do it non-destructively? A couple of hours if you attack it with WMDs (as Robin would...)? Then get segments of traffic released from the goldfish bowl of a m-way, filter them off the next junction (pre-gritted and ploughed of course) and hey presto.

To get information to all motorists quickly is not easy but in most instances many will be tuned to a radio station, so broadcast a consistent message on there like "please vacate the outside lane, a plough will be clearing it to allow safe passage to the next exit, please tell drivers around you who may not have heard this msg" etc. You could also deploy pairs of Police officers to "floorwalk" the standstill carriageway, at say 1-mile intervals, to pass on said consistent message and also log any major problems and feed those in to "control" to be prioritised.

The list of other workarounds goes on...

[Noops]

Noops, How do you reach the conclusion that the Police are responsible?

I said "starting with the Police", and so far a comment from an other thread has justified my quote..

[robin]

It's all very well saying clear the outside lane, but when a lorry jackknifes across both lanes, what are you going to do with your snow plough except join the queue ...

That said, you got home. Why did you get home? Because you took some responsibility for working out which way to go and drove sensibly. It's so boring listening to people moan about the state of the roads when most cannot even clear their own doorstep.

If this type of weather becomes the norm, we may have to spend more on having more resources available to deal with this type of situation.

Cheers,
Robin

[Gooldie]

Saw a police BMW sliding about going no where yesterday, please tell me traffic cars are fitted with cold weather tyres during winter. If not then that is utter stupidity that they provide officers with rear wheel drive cars with zero grip in these conditions

[rossybee]

Saw a police BMW sliding about going no where yesterday, please tell me traffic cars are fitted with cold weather tyres during winter. If not then that is utter stupidity that they provide officers with rear wheel drive cars with zero grip in these conditions

The same thoughts crossed my mind when a snowplough/gritter got stuck in my street...

Driver jumped out effing & blinding about the difflock not working, but I thought "why the fook haven't they fitted winter tyres?"

[campbell]

It's all very well saying clear the outside lane, but when a lorry jackknifes across both lanes, what are you going to do with your snow plough except join the queue ...

That said, you got home. Why did you get home? Because you took some responsibility for working out which way to go and drove sensibly. It's so boring listening to people moan about the state of the roads when most cannot even clear their own doorstep.

If this type of weather becomes the norm, we may have to spend more on having more resources available to deal with this type of situation.

Cheers,
Robin

Jack-knives are tough, I realise - indeed it would be good to have a friendly local haulier on here to tell us more about what is involved in sorting it out, but surely if a gritter is followed by a recovery truck or two (or the police bring them in "the wrong way" down the carriageway), then the more jack-knives are sorted the faster things improve?

Indeed, once the "word" gets out to the trucks that jack-kniving is a real probability, and they pull in (as they eventually did on the A82 yesterday), the whole process should continue to improve.

The whole thing is down to coordination and communication. With traffic at a crawl on one carriageway, there is surely no reason why traffic police couldn't relay this kind of thing vehicle to vehicle if need be, in extreme circumstances?

I have run down a queue of cars at Scotland's ski resorts to pass on critical road info before, and it can be done.

Don't get me wrong, I witnessed a high proportion of people "getting it wrong" in terms of basic driving technique yesterday, which is really soul-destroying in a way, and in this regard I really understand how Martin lost it eventually with Mr Audi!!

[jason]

Surely by definition, snow plough/gritters always have tyres suitable for snow conditions? I would assume that stuck vehicle did, Ross.

[kerryxeg]

9days since the first snow here and we've not had a proper plough putting down grit. I salted the front of my house as an experiment and it does work, so the temperature arguement is a bit of a generalisation. Fortunately a set of fantastic tyres and FWD car see me past the worst of it, but I have neighbours who haven't been out in 9 days.

(stand on soap box)
I think we are witnessing the perfect storm, some of the worst conditions combined with some of the harshest cutbacks. Services are cut in very inventive ways by the blue suits that very rarely venture out into the real world. In addition people are looking at places to cut costs themselves so don't invest that little extra to replace the truck or car tyres in preparation for bad weather. There is no question that the weather is bad, but really that is only part of the problem - the services and those using the roads are simply not prepared. Until yesterday it was probably incomprehensible that a log jam of this proportion could happen, but now it has many will find it easier to justify avoiding the journey or being better prepared.

Personally I'd go the German route first - illegal to travel without the appropriate tyres - if it's snowing or below zero, you can't travel without winter tyres. The Germans have now made winter tyres manditory for a number of reasons, but that could be considered as a secondary step. I think Manditory on commercial vehicles would be a good starting point for them.

Some years ago the Councils outsourced the A road and Motorway maintenance contracts, the councils themselves bid for the work. A friend of mine was involved, and was astounded at the low rates that came in from the winning contractors. I don't know how these contracts are structured for the varied winter work, but we certainly seem to have a reactive approach to road treatment not a proactive one.

(off soap box)

Off to Austria on Sat, and looking at the weather could encounter a massive dump of snow over Munich, this will likely bring the Autobahn to a standstill and double the journey time - so it's not just the UK that is affected, but we could do better.

Kerry

[David]

Having spent six hours on the A80 making my way to work for a night shift, all I can say is that It was not the conditions that stopped the traffic, but generally poorly prepared motorist and some poor decision making by council workers. Most of the congestion on my part of the A80 was cause by an HGV flailing about on the hill out of Moodiesburn. It was witnessed by a gritting crew who for the best part stood and watched. If someone had taken a grip (sorry) of the situation and prevented the valiant attempt of this driver to turn the entire hill in to ice rink many more people would have made it home that night.

Personally I recon a winter ban on BMWs and empty HGVs would cure the problem.

[DDtB]

Seems HGVs cause a lot of problems in general.

Other countries ban them from using the outside lane in rush hour or even during most of the day and I think that's a great idea. I think we should do something similar here. Being stuck behind an HGV for 7 miles whilst he overtakes at 1 mph faster than another HGV isn't just annoying.. it causes big tailbacks in the outside lane, which then have a knock-on effect on congestion.