I work in sales in a specialist field with relatively few customers over a large geographical area. The secret I have found is hotel nights away and early starts. I have no problem with a 5:30 am start, the traffic is very light and you tend to miss most of the jams.

situation would be eased greatly if the police acted more quickly in getting the road open .... they may have a job to do but take far too long in the process - every addtional lane opened reduces the delays.

Interestingly, on a documentary a while back about the British Transport Police it was said that in the event of a person being hit by a train the BTP get 2 hours to get to the incident, do all their investigations, arrange for recovery and get the track open to traffic again. If they fail to hit that target then compensation becomes payable to IIRC Network Rail and/or the affected train operators.

Now, I know that most railway fatalities are, very sadly, largely intentional and therefore probably far more straightforward investigation wise than a multi vehicle pile up on a motorway but they certainly do seem to take a long while to get sorted out so wonder if some sort of targetting along the lines of BTP would help oil the wheels?

Time to start investing in IT technology [tinternet,e tc] to eliminate the 'personal visit' that entails so much travelling?

Motorways today have taken on a whole new role in road transport, compared to 40 years ago...IMHO.

Today they are used just as much as a 'by-pass', as for long-distance, A-to-B low-restiction journeys.

How many motorway journeys actually involve simply driving between a couple of junctions?

IMHO, the likes of the M42, M25, etc are tyring to do two jobs instead of one.

Perhaps motorways also need additional by-passes for local traffic? {Ie, viable options for local traffic other than the main motorway system?]

Perhaps someone could come up with a useful sort of app to allow a trip to be planned using back roads, etc instead? A recent driving holiday I took was condicted with one proviso..avoid main roads, avoid traffic.

Over a week, I covered more than a thousand miles across the length and breadth of Somerset, Dorset, etc, plus the length of the country, [and including the A303 in all it's jammed-up glory.]...and barely saw another road user...certainly nothing that brought me to an abrupt halt.....It is a real pity the old A38 is a struggle to follow these days?

We are losing the art of motoring.

We no longer ''travel hopefully''....

The rising generation are completely losing the art of map-reading. Maps don't figure in geography any more and young persons now just rely on the smug voice in the idiot box to tell them where to go.

If the US ever turns off the satellites, there'll be cars bumping around with the stupid drivers having no idea where they are or where they are going. Bah humbug.

And by then publishing road atlases will have become uneconomic, so the traditionalists will have to rely on old dog-eared ones ....

At least we'll have the option!

I like the self service tills in supermarkets .... one has the option of not having to deal with the checkout person ... it's usually quicker self service too ... except on one occasion when I was accused of putting too many items on the 'bag side' and with the staff member busy dealing with a different customer who has no idea how to use the self service I just upped and walked away ... went elsewhere, not preapred to wait for the matter to be resolved.

I have a similar approach to buying petrol - I prefer the pay at pump option, no need to wait for the till person to switch the pump on, or face the long queue to pay, usually in front of a range of products on offer I don't want to buy.

Sat-nav - it has it's uses... at times