What's the traffic usually like on Christmas day?

[MackerelOfFact]

Trying to make a vague plan for Christmas, and to keep everyone happy were planning to perhaps spend the morning with one set of parents, and afternoon/evening with the other.

I've never really driven on Christmas day before, so what's the traffic generally like at sort of midday-ish? Rush-hour mad? Relatively quiet?

We would be driving from SE London to SW London, journey usually takes about 45 mins on the South Circular. Don't want to do it if it's likely to take up half the day and leave everyone bored, deflated and stressed!

Round our way there is hardly any traffic at all. We did a journey to the in laws which normally takes around 45 minutes in 20 one year. It's great.

That's what I was hoping!

We've often travelled on Christmas day, very quiet early on and just light local traffic mid morning, never any holdups or traffic jams.

DH and I drove from SE London to West London and then round the north circular to go north a few years ago. (Think we left 10/11am) It was incredibly quiet and quick!

We drove 100 miles on Christmas day last year, including round the M25. Was great, barely any traffic! There are no commerical drivers about of course, so no sales rep types, vans, lorries, buses...

I've found W.London to be a ghost town on christmas day. Driven Hammersmith to Brentford in about fifteen minutes :)

I drove up north from London in 3 hours when it would normally take 5 hours. I had to fill up with petrol the day beforehand & check on the web which service stations were open. I packed lots of snacks, warm clothes, torches & cash on case of a breakdown. I also made sure my car was serviced & had breakdown cover because recovery times on Xmas day was sporadic.

Absolutely dead. I was 4 days off having dd last year and my dpil drove down to keep us company on Christmas Day. Even with a stop, a journey that normally takes 4 ish hours they did in just under 3.

I think they were rather naughty on the speed limit, though.

This is what I wanted to hear! Unfortunately the South Circular is quite traffic-light heavy so I doubt we'll shave much off the usual time, but at least it shouldn't be horrendous.

Marvellous. I shall put forth this plan as a suggestion.

I used the South Circular on Christmas Day, a 30 minute journey took just eight minutes! Which was bloody lucky as my waters broke in the car and DD was born 18 minutes after we arrived, on a normal weekday I'd have had her in the car

Do traffic lights adjust their timing according to volume of traffic?

Aww, that's a lovely story Nivet! :)

absolutely dead, best day of the year to travel .

Super quiet. I always used to drive from canary wharf to bexley Xmas morning and barely saw another car on the a2, which is usually jammers.