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

So, hit the M6 motorway for the journey home and immediately into traffic jams, annoying thing is if I'd been just a bit quicker noticing the matrix board I could have gone another way. Oh well.
Any way, sat in traffic, outside lane, pootling along at 10 mph and stopping all the time.

After about 20 mins traffic starts to move and then speed up and everyones off.

So I looked to see what had caused the tailback. There's a car on the road side. With a wheel off it. And three young ladies sat on the railings.

Now, I'm sure the accident on the opposite carriageway 10 miles further up the M6 may have been partly to blame. But did I really just sit for 20mins if a traffic jam caused by blokes on their way home from the office gawding at three (quite attractive I must say. Um. Probably shouldn't admit that. ) ladies ? Surely the world isn't that mad yet?

maker me thinkof the Joe Jackson song "real men".

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/joe-jackson/72749.html

I got stuck behind a long line of cars whose drivers were slowing passing a vehicle which was up in the grass on the opposite side of the road. I though "OH! Must have hit a tree!"

No... the drivers were gawping at the van which was obviously a maintenance truck driving up along the bicycle path on a job... Jaysus! It took me all of a split second to figure that out and these idiots were CRAWLING by, absolutely mesmerized by this.....

Actually, you know what REALLY irritates me?!?

People whose car breaks down and, instead of rolling it safely off to the side, leave it askew in the centre lane blocking the lanes...

Same with people who have a minor fender-bender. By law, they can't leave the scene of the accident if the damage is over a certain amount. However, they are supposed to move the cars to one side if they are movable. Instead, they sit there, in and out of their cars, moving about the other lanes endangering themselves and making it impossible for any one else to move.

AND! People who have accidents in which the cars are not movable who stand about in the traffic. You are safer to (if you are in a fast lane or there has been an injury) to stay in your vehicle. If you have no injuries and it is safe to do so (or not too cold or inclimate) to move yourselves off to the side of the highway in case some idiot who isn't paying attention slams into you or your car.

We had a horrific accident a couple of years ago (July 2003) when a car full of people broke down and, instead of pushing their car of onto the shoulder, left it sitting in the bus-lane (a lane reserved for city buses between the slow lane and the shoulder). They did what they thought they should do and stayed in their vehicle despite the fact that 12 feet away and easily accessible to them was a grassy slop and it was a lovely sunny summer day. Apparently, a city worker who had pulled over to help them told them to stay in their vehicle.

Unfortunately, their stalled car was situated just 250 metres east of an overpass and the driver of a bus (who had been approached just moments before by a passenger asking for the time), driving at highway speed saw them too late to stop. Apart from other injusries, the driver of the stalled was paralyzed and a baby died.

http://www.orleansonline.ca/pages/N2004111602.htm

If people would only take the time to learn what they should do when their car stalls, there would be fewer tradgedies...

I'm glad I go to work on the tram.

G was driving down the M6 on his way through Birmingham when he hit traffic.

He pootled along pretty much as you did.

He began to get a bit annoyed (he doesn't like traffic jams one iota), when he spotted what the problem was ahead.

There was a truck that had gone onto it's side. It was a beer truck. Beer everywhere.

He drove past on the outside lane and noticed the traffic on the other side was backed up.

He clocked a 16 mile tail back!!!!

Are men that addicted to beer that they have to cause a 16 mile tail back just so they can get out of their cars and lick the beer off the road?

heh! My sympathies to G as another traveller on the M6 - every now and then I get tempted and use the toll road but its not economic for regular use.

I remember a few years back when a freight train north of Coventry came off the track a bit and dumped a container of guiness in someones back garden, or at least at the back of. Can't quite remember.

I wonder how many friends the owners of those houses suddenly gained?

I had been listening to an interview on the CBC about the efforts of a group of citizens to clean up their area which was full of crack-houses.... This man talked about his deep despair for the addicts after winessing one man down on his hands and knees licking the filthy pavement after having spilled his stash....

Mudhooks, could you clarify your motives in making that post?

"Are men that addicted to beer that they have to cause a 16 mile tail back just so they can get out of their cars and lick the beer off the road?"

Ah.
I thought so.