h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I live in South Wales, and my parents live in London so I continually find myself trying to avoid the M4 to get between the two.

One of the recommended techniques was to travel late at night, so I left the London area at about midnight, and promptly got to a motorway closure just before Reading, involving all cars wishing to use this particular part of the M4 being diverted through the centre of Reading. About an hour later we re-joined the motorway completely knackered, and stopped at a service station to top up on coffee. By now the time was 1:30am, and I actually had to queue for 15minutes to get my coffee. It seemed the motorway, and the service station were just as busy that time in the morning as in the middle of the day......or did everyone else decide to avoid the day time traffic at the same time as me, and I was just unlucky.

I have actually taken the A37 through Bristol and travelled up the A303 as an alternative which is by no means a short cut but at least you arrive in a good frame of mind.

Don't talk to me about the M4! I had the unfortunate experience of being dumped at the M4 junction with the M5 whilst trying to hitch-hike to South Wales from Birmingham (Not exactly half way round the Universe!)
Nothing stops there! In fact I'm pretty convinced that the M4/M5 junction is one of the least used entrances to wales. I had to walk about 5/6 miles to the new Severn bridge, and only managed to get picked up there by offering to pay some poor womans toll charge (if she couldn't pay cash there and then, the traffic police were going to turn her car around with a "You take the long way home tonight, Baby!" comment. Must be some sort of strange French Policy. How come the French own that bridge anyway? - The ranting ends.