wrote in message
oups.com...
Not sure if anyone noticed this morning, but a major accident shut the
M25 anti-clockwise, near Heathrow. It caused chaos as you might
imagine, and I bet a fair few people missed flights or wasted half the
day as the police and incident response units cleared up the mess.

Top marks must go to the Highways Agency/police control centre for
ensuring that the huge gantry signs kept people informed throughout.
Yes, with a motorway closed and traffic building up - it's always good
to say "THINK DON'T PHONE WHILE DRIVING".

WTF? Didn't they learn anything after the M25 closure (for nearly 24
hours at the QE2 bridge)? That was even worse, and the signs were
showing more "THINK!" campaign messages then. How can they happily
allow people to join the jam when a simple "MOTORWAY CLOSED AHEAD"
would allow people to make a diversion early, or turn around if the
journey wasn't absolutely necessary.

I heard a motorway police control room officer say in a lecture a few years
ago that the police preferred to keep traffic stationary on a motorway
because at least that way it isn't diverting onto other roads that can't
handle the extra volume of traffic. For this reason, he loathed the fact
that radio stations give out traffic reports that might allow people to take
an alternative route. I can see his point, but it does seem very churlish
not to tell people of a hold up and just to let them join the M25 car park
from which there is no escape. When the A34 near me was blocked by yet
another bloody HGV jacknifing, the limit of the police's involvement was to
hand out bottles of water to imprisoned motorists, rather than taking
drastic measures and either dismantling the crash barrier or reversing cars
to the nearest junction. Obviously first priority goes to rescuing anyone
injured in the crash and clearing the road, but I think motorists stuck
there for several hours tend to get forgotten about.