Missing the Action.

At about 10 am yesterday morning I had just left Paignton Bus Station as a 12A heading for Brixham when I heard other drivers on the radio reporting that Brixham Town Square was once again gridlocked. I would be getting there in 35 minutes so I was looking forward to spending 20 or 30 minutes, instead of 6 minutes getting into and out of Brixham. As you can see from the photo by the time I got there all was clear. I am not sure what happened, did the police arrive and sort it out or if someone finally set the traffic lights up so more vehicles could leave the square than enter. Last week the lights were letting 20 vehicles in and 3 out. If you have a degree in rocket science you should be able to work out what would happen. Brixham Town Square is fairly small and can hold only about 25 vehicle, less if two or three of them are buses. But clear for me which meant I didn't spent the rest of my shift running late.

Then at about 4 pm I was at the Grand Hotel in Torquay heading again for Brixham when a driver reported a crash on the Newton Rd heading for Newton Abbot. A motor bike and white van had come into contact and the motor cyclist was in the middle of the road injured and the road was blocked in both directions. It would be two hours before I reached that point in my journey. For the next two hours the controller was talking to drivers trying to find out how long the road would be closed for and then when it open trying to get the service back to some sort of normality. There was a road closing accident at almost the same place last Friday so he had plenty of practice. It is one of the problems in this area, close the road and that is it. There isn't any other road we can take. Anyway I carried on to Brixham, waited my time and headed to Newton. By the time I got to Paignton the road had just been opened and buses were starting to run again but with a big gap. Traffic going my way was running normally but if you wanted to go from Torquay to Paignton or Brixham you would have had a bit of a wait. Sorry about that but I know spare drivers were used to plug some of the gaps but we only have so many spare drivers.

By the time I was heading up towards the scene of the crash I was concerned that traffic would still be heavy. But when I got there all was clear and I drove through at 40 mph no problem.