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Most of us who use the major road network will have, at some time or another, have faced a long delay caused by a crash or some other incident. These days, it is common practice to completely close a road if there has been a fatal crash. The road is now classified as a crime scene and is closed to preserve evidence and to allow the police to investigate the crash unhindered. Of course, there are other reasons for unexpected road closures. Between Clevedon and Weston-super-Mare this week, there was a rather strange event of an articulated lorry carrying hay bales that had caught fire. The fire had burned through the straps holding the load on, and so there were burning bales deposited across all lanes. The road obviously had to be closed until it was cleared up.
So, what happens when a major road is closed? Well, in the old days, as I find myself saying more and more frequently these days, I used to grab the huge UK road map from the seat pocket and try to work out the best way around the closure.
In this day and age, we, of course, have Sat-Nav’s either as part of our cars or if not, then most people have map software on their mobile phones.
This is or course great for this sort of situation, or is it? In my opinion, Sat-Nav’s are actually terrible for unexpected road closures for several reasons.
The first is that unless they have a live traffic option, and it’s enabled, there is a good chance that you will find yourself at the back of a long queue of stationary traffic before you get any warning. The radio traffic alerts are usually pretty good (Did you know that the TA button on your car radio stands for Traffic Announcements?) as long as you are listening to a local radio station, but again, in this day and age of connectivity, many people are listening to their own devices through Bluetooth or similar. I understand this because I hate the fact that most radio stations play an extraordinary amount of adverts or jingles, or the presenters just talk inane drivel.
Secondly, if you manage to get off the closed road before getting stuck in a jam, your Sat-Nav is initially programmed to assume that you’ve made a mistake, and keep trying to re-route you back to the closed road. Some are much better than others, and I’ve found Google Maps to be the best for not doing this, mainly because it uses live data from anyone using a Google-enabled device with the location data on, and as such, will “know” that your original best route is now blocked. So, quite probably, you initially need to ignore what your Sat-Nav is telling you. This will give it time to recalculate your new route.
Thirdly, and I hate this, virtually all sat-navs will have the same “idea”. They will automatically direct you on exactly the same route as everyone else, so even if you avoid the closed road, you’ll almost certainly, in the case of motorways, find yourself sitting in an equally frustrating queue on a secondary road with the added problems of traffic lights, roundabouts, junctions, and a whole load of people who are doing the same as you.
So, what can you do? What I do is to stop once I can, and have a quick look at the overall map view. Then I look for a place that’s away from the new route that the Sat-Nav is suggesting but not too far off the route. I then program that as my destination and set off. This will usually keep me clear of the majority of the traffic, and although it may well not be the “fastest route”, it will help keep my stress levels low as I explore a road that I’m unlikely to have driven before. This has led to some amazing accidental sightseeing over the years. Once I arrive at the off-route destination, I re-program the Sat-Nav back to my original destination, and once again, usually find myself on roads away from most of the traffic trying to bypass the closure.
This method is not about finding the fastest route around the closure. It’s about enjoying what would otherwise be a frustrating journey. I refer to one of these little excursions during a recent trip to Scotland.
I remember years ago watching a program about the frustration of not making any progress on a journey. It was discovered that those who suffered the least frustration had in-fact travelled further and took longer getting around the obstruction, but were less stressed because they were on the move most of the time.
Next time you’re faced with a closed road, do something different, you may well find a wonderful new place, but at the very least, you will hopefully have a less stressful time.