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Worst Traffic Jam you have been stuck in?

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think the worst one i was stuck in was in Manchester , got stuck about 17.30 , finally got out of it about 19.00
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  • RichardD1970
    RichardD1970 Posts: 3,796 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    The big freeze Birmingham 12 ish years ago.

    The road had been gritted, then it rained, washed it all away then froze! Was like an ice rink.

    On way to work nights, go through Birmingham City centre out towards Selly Oak. Aprox 10 miles.

    Total gridlock, set off at 20:00 for a 20:45 start, finally got in for 02:00.
    Hung around for about half an hour before being sent home.
  • londonTiger
    londonTiger Posts: 4,903 Forumite
    i was driving home from west London to East London, I had already paid for the congestion charge so on the way back decided to drive along the embankment. (north of the river) instead of driving along the norther boundry of the congestion zone which is often used by congfestion charge avoiders.

    I was literally stuck there for 4 hours, the conversvatives got into power and the queen travelled to HoL or the PM travelled to buckinham palace (not sure which). But the police cordoned off several roads.
  • The big freeze Birmingham 12 ish years ago.

    The road had been gritted, then it rained, washed it all away then froze! Was like an ice rink.

    On way to work nights, go through Birmingham City centre out towards Selly Oak. Aprox 10 miles.

    Total gridlock, set off at 20:00 for a 20:45 start, finally got in for 02:00.
    Hung around for about half an hour before being sent home.

    That was the night many were just abandoning their vehicles.
  • oscarward
    oscarward Posts: 904 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper Car Insurance Carver!
    edited 25 March 2016 at 9:50PM
    i was in the Birmingham freeze , left 5 ways @ 4 arrived home in wordsley @ 10. It wasn't helped by Bus co deciding to withdraw all services after they had a crash or 2. Just stopped at next stop and told everyone to get off.


    But the worst was Thursday before easter 2000 ? Bodmin to Dudley. Crash on M5 around Taunton closed M5 both ways. Left Bodmin 2pm, caught up in traffic around Bridgewater and diverted on to A38, crawled then diverted through to Bath and then Bristol finally arriving home 11pm!
  • bigadaj
    bigadaj Posts: 11,531 Forumite
    Ninth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Mate of mine went to visit his girlfriends family in the phillipinnes when we were working in Hong Kong. The taxi back to the airport got caught in a typhoon, and marooned in a flood, spent twelve hours overnight with three of them in the cab.
  • forgotmyname
    forgotmyname Posts: 32,920 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Halesowen to Sutton Coldfield 11.5 hours... 1989 or 1990. ish?

    Snow started about 10am and it came down so heavy they closed the office and sent everyone home. Probably would have been better to stay and work overtime.
    Censorship Reigns Supreme in Troll City...

  • Johno100
    Johno100 Posts: 5,259 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    The big freeze Birmingham 12 ish years ago.

    The road had been gritted, then it rained, washed it all away then froze! Was like an ice rink.

    On way to work nights, go through Birmingham City centre out towards Selly Oak. Aprox 10 miles.

    Total gridlock, set off at 20:00 for a 20:45 start, finally got in for 02:00.
    Hung around for about half an hour before being sent home.

    I remember that, it was the day of my gran's funeral and I was off work so luckily I was home from the service before the chaos hit.

    I did however get caught up in the 'Perry Barr Lido' debacle about 18 months ago that paralysed most of North Birmingham for about 8 hours due to a puddle:eek:, and ended up making a huge detour through the Black Country.
  • Definitely about 15 years ago when it took me nearly 11 hours to get from Bristol to Liverpool on a Friday afternoon / night - there was a traffic jam for the entire distance! I never really worked out what the cause was.
  • jaydeeuk1
    jaydeeuk1 Posts: 7,714 Forumite
    Debt-free and Proud!
    I was on the m6, probably a good 6 or 7 years ago on way to a meeting from Belper to North Cheshire NHS in warrington. I knew there was going to be a storm, didn't know how bad though. Usually a 2 hr drive, remember being a good 20 mile away and at a stand still mid morning, when I got to warrington all routes in where blocked, so turned around and went back on m6 (was at least an hour late for meeting anyway by this point), they diverted all traffic off m6 south on to a single track toll road where you had to pay 10p (I'm trying to find it on google maps) Imagine 10000+ cars queueing to get over a toll booth with a single kiosk..... Think I was in my car for something like 14 hours, had to p*ss in a bottle twice and eat mints to keep me going as I'd not eaten as I just wanted to get the f*ck home.

    Worst part is, I was in a hire car stuck on the motorway and at one point a big motorway junction sign blew off from somewhere and smacked in to mine and the car next to me leaving a nice dent on the wing.
  • rich13348
    rich13348 Posts: 840 Forumite
    Seventh Anniversary 500 Posts Combo Breaker
    I got stuck in traffic between Dundee and Perth on my way to Falkirk, some time in 2015 when a lorry got blown over in the high winds on the Friarton bridge, the only other route is through Perth itself. So all traffic had to go through Perth for all routes North to Inverness and Aberdeen and south to Glasgow and Edinburgh. Sat there for 6 hours until I got off the dual carriageway round the roundabout and back home to Dundee again.
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