Don't know what's going on, but it seems to be closed in both directions from J10 to J8. I spent half an hour queuing on the A34 to get to J9 thinking the accident was only southbound, and discovered it was closed in both directions. It's really surreal seeing a motorway completely empty; I wish I'd had a camera.

An hour or so later and I'm about 5 miles from home when I avoid the traffic jam on the A road and find people ahead of me turning round. As I get closer I see what looks like the police putting somebody into a body bag in the middle of the road.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/o...re/6927059.stm

 

 

They also usually close the motorway in both directions when the air ambulance is involved.

 

Mate got caught up in that. He wasn't happy to say the least.

Something about the electronic signs being turned off warning you of the accident ahead, and all the cones being removed prior to the crash site, and then getting to the junction only to find the police directing people off the Motorway. Either way he was stuck in a traffic jam for 3 hours and finally got home at 2am.

 

Having caused disruption for months installing those signs, they now all have smaller yellow signs attached to them saying "sign not in use".

 

That would be enough to tip me over the edge if it had been me sat in that queue. The Highways Agency appear to be a total waste of space.

 

It was a gas tanker apparently no injuries or need for body bags

 

I went from the M25 towards the M3 the other day but saw a sign saying 'M3 J1-4 long delays'.

I took another route only to find later the sign was put up in error with no reported delays at all on the M3

I dealt with an accident on the M25/M4 slip a couple of months ago and pointed up at the matrix signs to the HATO on scene ..... the sign showed '20mph' but the road had been blocked for ages. I suggested the person at the other end might be helpful and actually put up the red crosses over both lanes to show the slip was shut to help protect us a bit

I have also dealt with an accident in lane two of the M4 elevated section on a bend .... not a good location to deal with it; particularly when the HA put in a lane one closed sign before it ... and made worse when after 45 minutes and having been told 3 times about their error the wrong sign was still in place sending cars towards us and not the lane which was clear

Another accident on the M25 where the 'slow accident' sign was about 400m past the accident and not before it

The list goes on ..... down to teething problems I have been told

The HA worry me alot - and I don't even have to go on the motorway network that much !

 

Some of those examples John are simply shocking.

And as for the excuse of "teething problems", that's total bull. How many years have the HA had matrix signs on the Motorway network. It's not like it's rocket science.