Bank Holiday Monday mayhem: 2.6m motorists warned of chaos
Britons were today warned of roads chaos on ‘Mayhem Monday’ as 2.6million drivers.
More than 2.6 million motorists are going to be stuck on motorways for hours due to heavy traffic and bad weather.
The Met Office has also forecast a glum day in much of England with rain, clouds, and cold weather.
Meanwhile the RAC is warning drivers to avoid making journeys from 10am to 3pm because the motorways such as the M5 will be at their busiest then.
The RAC is encouraging families to plan their journeys in the early morning or evening as they warn of the busiest Bank Holiday since the end of the pandemic.
Traffic is brought to a standstill on the Great West Road in West London over the Bank Holiday
The M4 East Bound in Berkshire where the speed limit was down to 40mph with heavy traffic.
A102M Blackwall Tunnel approach in Greenwich jammed with traffic in the build up to the Bank Holiday
A spokesman for the MET Office warned: ‘It is going to be a bit of a mixed bag across the UK. In the Southeast it is going to be fairly cold and wet especially across Kent and Sussex.
‘Across the rest of the UK, in the Midlands, Wales and Southwest, you will start off fairly bright but as the day goes on you will see a series of showers. There are not going to be many places completely dry.’
It is thought the West Midlands will have the best of the weather on Monday reaching the highs of 19 degrees.
The bad weather and heavy traffic coincides with an overtime ban a railways stations across Britain organised by various trade unions.
Train drivers who are members of the Aslef union will stage three one-day strikes across different operators between May 7 and 9, meaning some parts of the country will have no rail services on those days.
The union has also announced an overtime ban from May 6-11, which is expected to cause short-notice cancellations.
Aslef is embroiled in a near two-year dispute over pay, with no talks held for more than a year.
On Sunday there were no trains will run between London Euston and Milton Keynes or between Glasgow and England due to work on the West Coast Main Line at Crewe, Wigan, and other locations.
There was also disruption over the weekend in Cambridge, Coventry, and Liverpool.
Alice Simpson from the RAC said she believed the roads will be busy because of the end of COVID travel restrictions and predicts a ‘crescendo’ of cars.
She said: ‘With Covid travel restrictions a thing of the past, catching up with friends and family is still the first priority for nearly half of drivers making leisure trips over the bank holiday.
‘Since 2022 – the first full year since mobility restrictions lifted – drivers appear to be much more eager to make the most of the May Day weekend, with the total number of getaway trips this year far exceeding the average since 2017.
‘We’re anticipating a crescendo of cars on the road over the weekend with as many as three million motorists making leisure trips on Saturday alone.’
The RAC said that since coronavirus travel restrictions ended the number of drivers planning leisure trips during Early May Bank Holiday weekends is “well above” the previous average of 14 million.
It commissioned a survey of more than 3,000 UK motorists which suggested 39% of those driving over the long weekend will spend a day with family and friends, 14% intend to go shopping and 8% have planned a short break with loved ones.
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