Central London Road Conditions?

Crabman

Hey folks

I was supposed to be in central London this weekend but does anyone know what the road situation is like there, i.e. snowy/icy roads/abnormal congestion? I'll be using the A40 and mainly A/B roads so I imagine all will be well but there's nothing quite like local knowledge.

bbl_2

Not entirely sure in london specifically, but i work for Highways agency and we are getting absolutely plundered with snow from saturday night specifically. We cover sort of north kent among other areas so not far from london in terms of the weather. Is it a must to travel through?

Crabman

Thanks for the reply. It is important that I make the journey although not to the degree that I take too much of a risk in doing so. Ultimate destination is Docklands (Excel).

I'll keep an eye on the forecast and see what it's like. Although the present forecast
is showing Sat and Sun as quite clear. Is there something coming that we don't know about? :eek:

Bushboy

Most of the A & B roads are fine here in West London at present.
Only problems seem to be heading down residential streets as most of these have not been gritted so are quite slippery.
The A40 should be fine though in any event although it sure could change for the weekend!

SailorSam

The television news has been saying that although main roads were getting treated they're not able to keep side roads clear.
On Breakfast this morning they had a reporter talking from outside 10 Downing St, i noticed there didn't seem to be a lot of snow about,
Isn't that a minor road ?

dacouch

I agree with bushboy, all of the main roads are well gritted and are fairly safe, the side roads however have frozen ice. I've been out in my van a lot in the last few days and have not had to many problems apart from when I stopped on a sleeping policeman and struggled to get the traction to pull away (Resolved by reversing and then going forward).

I've driven along the A40, central london, city and East End and as above the main roads are fine, the side roads are frozen. The cobbled side roads off Brick Lane were a pain last night!

The sun is out at the moment so is melting a lot of the ice, but it may refreeze tonight.

It's nice driving in London at the moment as the roads are empty so journeys are much quicker. If it starts snowing though you will find the traffic slows massively as you tend to find only one or two cars go through traffiic lights because they accelerate very slowly instead of the normal say 15 cars going through.

The key to driving in these conditions is to keep a steady speed up, if the lights are red approach them slowly to try and time it so they change as you get there etc and drive a little slower. On any side roads that are iced up do not over accelerate when going around bends or at junctions.

I wish the roads were this empty all the time

bbl_2

Looking at our forecasting systems and weather stations, we are going to get hit heavy around the north kent area late into saturday night.

If your local and seen what we had yesterday it has been described by snow desk as twice as worse with gale force winds

Good luck regardless

bbl

Crabman

The weather forecast seems better than before with London showing a low of -1C over the weekend which doesn't seem too bad compared with the recent weather. The Highways Agency cameras are showing motorways as being in a good condition too.

Radsteral

i ve been out on motorbike 3 days now. main roads as safe as after a rain, no problem everywhere pecially central london... side roads, beware

Crabman

I'm back and it was fine - lane 3 of the M40 wasn't gritted but the other two lanes were fine. Didn't have any problems and London traffic was actually much better this time as dacouch experienced. Never been from Docklands to the M40/A40 junction so quickly before.

Thanks all for the replies, much appreciated

dacouch

Glad your journey went so well.

One of our drivers said about the outside lane on the M40, he said people had not bothered driving in it / not gritted so it was covered in snow, he said it was quite an odd experience

It's amazing how easy it has been to drive in London recently, shame it will go back to normaly shortly.