Saturday 29 May 2010

Trago Mills and the M5

Trago Mills. I have been there a few times but never really had a good look round. Normally I drop the passengers off and go into the office and get a meal ticket. Then I have a meal and return to the coach and read a book. Next time I go I shall have a look round and see what's what. I should be there again on Wednesday.

Last few days I seem to have been up and down the M5 to Gordano's Service station on at Bristol. A couple of things about motorway driving that still make me wonder, first is you are coming onto a motorway down a slip road please don't drive at 40 mph. I only means I or some HGV driver will have either to pull out into the path of cars in the centre lane (all doing 100 mph) or brake hard to avoid running it the back of you. Accelerate to 65 mph then just slip on in front of me ( and the HGV). We are only doing 60 so if you are doing 65 we won't crash into you. And to the driver of the horse box that pulled in to Sedgemoor services (north bound) at 10:30 on Thursday morning please note that the exit slip road is where you should slow down, please don't slow down to 15 mph whilst still on the motorway. It doesn't do your horses any good if a coach comes in through the back of their nice cosy horse box doing 60 mph, especially if the driver is swearing as loudly as I was.

An lastly, why do people slow down on motorways to look at accidents? I came on to the M5 at Gordano having just told my passengers it would take about 2 hours to get to Torquay depending on the traffic. Down the slip road at 5 mph and joined a road full of traffic all going the same speed. We continue for about 8 miles until we got to the accident. Two cars were on the hard shoulder one had a big dent in the front and the other had a big, matching dent in the back. No police, no ambulances, no fire brigade, no wreckage strewn across the motorway, no priest crawling through said wreckage to administer the last rites, just a breakdown truck winching one of the cars onto a flat bed truck. On the other side of the motorway there was a 5 mile tail back. Just to look at a couple of damaged cars and gloat.

If you want to look at wrecked cars go to a breakers yard.

2 comments:

Lord Hutton said...

I went to Trago today (I was on my own: I gave myself permission). It was hell.

Cabbie J said...

Most places in the south west were particularly busy this weekend from what I gather. I got stuck whilst a long wheelbase coach attempted a 56 point turn to make a left hand turn at the bottom of Shedden Hill in Torquay - despite the 10-foot wide sign saying 'no left turn for over 20 foot vehicles'. I should have recorded it, would have been amusing if I weren't pressed for time.