DD has been stuck on the M5 for 6 hours

[GinForBreakfast]

I know there's been a serious incident but you can't leave people stuck on a motorway for 6 hours. That will include elderly people and tiny children. In other countries they manage to clear the roads far quicker.

No sign of anything moving and even once she does she's still 4 hours from home.

@Kmward36 and @Showerflowers - much sympathy, you are the reason why I think it's dangerous to just accept an indeterminate delay stuck on a motorway.

People who work in emergency services in the UK acknowledge that the cooperation between different services could be better, and could provide better outcomes for everyone.

I saw one news report this morning which gave very scant details (appropriate). The speculation on this thread alone was far, far more gruesome, insensitive and inappropriate. Some posters were super keen to use the tragedy to abuse me. That, in my opinion, makes them ghouls.

The only options are not dont investigate and leave travellers stranded for 8 hours

I don't know why this thread is full of such black and white opinions

Agreed. It's just a lazy attempt by people to feel virtuous by kicking someone asking a quite reasonable question

To be fair to the OP, she did post this last night about her DD getting a lift (so not being alone).

To those suggesting that everyone should have a huge survival kit in the car - yes, it's a great idea - but please don't feel that it makes you invincible.

Also, please don't be smug about it. There are many reasons why someone might not have that with them. For example, if you have rented a car at an airport to drive home in after a flight. Where will your four seasons sleeping bag be then, when you break down in the snow?

It is simply not possible to do anything other than mitigate risk - and it's most likely the completely unexpected that will catch you out.

Be careful out there.

Quite. In over 25 years of driving, I’ve never even had a flat tyre. Never been in any situation that would require all this survival shit so absolutely no chance that I would be filling my car up with all that just on the off-chance. I have a big car but I don’t have space for loads of stuff. I need my boot for my dog’s travel crate and the back seats need to be clear for passengers.

Sometimes I drive up to Durham for lunch. It’s 2 hours on the motorways. Should I be packing spare food, drinks, survival gear? Give over. I have water and medication and that’s it.

Thanks @VegTrug for accurate reading of my posts and for your nice wishes.

"they" will open a lane in this country if at all possible as well. Nobody is keeping a large section of a major motorway closed for hours for shits and giggles.

In this particular case, if the reports of someone threatening suicide are accurate, it wouldn't be possible. What would you suggest, someone with a loudspeaker saying "Don't jump love, you've got so much to live for....but if you do jump can you do it over lane 1 and 2 and not lane 3 because we're going to reopen that one?" 🙄

Same with the suggestions like having access gates to the other side of the motorway to send people that way - great but then you will still have to stop all the traffic coming in the other direction for several hours while you get that set up. Which means tens of thousands of cars being rerouted through areas not set up to handle that much traffic, leading to equal delays and possibly more accidents, just in the other direction. Same with turning people around - again you still have to stop oncoming traffic and manage it safely.

All of these solutions take a lot of manpower and anyone who is on MN or ever watches the news should be aware that we don't even have enough emergency personnel to attend 'normal' day to day incidents. Everyone complaining that there wasn't an ambulance to send for their cousin's stroke or their burglary shouldn't be surprised that we don't have tens of police officers available to deploy to re route a major motorway within minutes.

I'd love to know if all the "they don't put up with this malarkey in other countries" can explain exactly what first hand experience they have and what these "other countries" do better?

In most cases it's not that the omnipotent "they" are just sitting back shrugging and not giving a fuck about people stuck in their cars, it's that, in a country so overpopulated where the roads are so busy, there are no quick and easy solutions.

If you read the whole thing sge said then journey was supposed to be a lift of 3 hours to where she would pick her up, but 20 minutes into the journey it turned into hours of sitting in the motorway.

People with medical conditions who needed medical evacuation would call an ambulance, which would reach them by driving down the hard shoulder. Their registrations could be noted down and their cars exempt from crushing.

100% @VegTrug - well said. The bullying of the op on this thread for the alleged crime of omitting various details comes across as unhinged.

She was talking about immigrants, who are by definition foreigners.

The police have one chance to examine an area of road that may be a crime scene. They take their time to get it right.

That food that’s been in there three years has going to have gone off, isn’t it?! Drinks might be a bit cold. Kids might have just about grown out of any extra warm
clothing… as I say, you must have lots of time on your hands to regularly update said bag. I’d also recommend a hearty pat on the back for your supreme competence and organisation.

Wow your DD wasn't even on her own and not even the driver. Wtaf! All this concern over what then? Blimey what happened to people being more resilient.

OP didn't come on here looking for sympathy for her DD! She came on here to start a discussion about the UK vs Europe when it comes to clearing highways. She only mentioned her DD for wider context.
You all have turned it into a 'who's worse off and most in need of sympathy' competition.

Good grief

Wwll then perhaps start a thread with a more appropriate title but it starts off about her DD.

Also it's pretty common sense to realise that things do take hours after an an accident has happened from dealing with it, clearing the road, potentially have to make repairs, investigations to ensure all the evidence is captured. Its not like all the people involved are just swooped in the instance it happens, it can take time for the right resources to travel to the incident.

And if OP wanted to have that discussion where wwre her points about why other countries clear it quicker, the methods they use etc. ...no she just wanted to rant cos her poor DD was stuck for 6hrs.

I'm wondering if those countries that manage it better have as much motorway traffic as we do? I can certainly see Germany, for example, being more efficient but a lot of Europe just doesn't have half the traffic that the M25/M6/M5 etc does.

Also, best way to take a wee is by opening the front and rear doors and squatting in between so they shield you from both sides. Obv as a last resort.

OP’s first post literally references vulnerable people being stuck and her own dd’s predicament is, as others have pointed out, purely for context.

Australia, USA and Japan to name 3 manage this sort of situation far better than the UK.

But people have extremely low reading comprehension, don’t they? As well as completely black and white opinions. It’s almost as if they’re as incapable of critical thinking as they are, understanding basic English…

It's quite obvious that she didn't really care about them though...

Food? It's a tin of boiled travel sweets in the glove box. It hasn't gone off because a) it's a tin of boiled travel sweets, and b) I sometimes eat them when it isn't even an emergency and then get a new tin when I buy petrol.

Water is just with me all the time anyway. My kids take their water bottles literally everywhere. I don't take hot drinks, although you can buy little gadgets that plug into your cigarette lighter to warm drinks up (I haven't).

Clothing? Well my kids are adults so I would be rather surprised if they grew out of anything these days (and alarmed if it was my 6'3" son). But it's just a few old fleece jumpers of my husband's and some old waterproof coats of his and mine in the bag. So they would fit all of us, even if they would have been more like a dress on my DD when she was younger. The idea is to keep warm in the car/on the side of the road. We're not taking part in a fashion show!

Blankets don't go off or get grown out of, Similarly umbrellas, phone chargers, wind up torches, travel potty in the days when I needed that, gloves, hats, etc..

It's not as complicated as you think.

Your point is??