This coming bank holiday is expected to be a lot quieter on the roads than usual, thanks to unsettled weather predicted and fuel costing 20p more a litre than last year, many people are expected to be leaving their cars at home. Various motoring organisations however are predicting different things, while the RAC believes that the roads will be a lot quieter, the AA suggests that there will be about 16m out and about in their cars.
Meanwhile, esure is predicting what it is describing as a Bank horror day on British roads and estimates that there will be just short of 27m cars out in the roads, a figure ridiculed by the AA and RAC. Those who do venture out will find that there are 22 sets of road works throughout the UK, 10 less than they had to contend with last year.
365 schemes will be completed by the weekend according to the Highways Agency, compared with the 280 that were completed by the bank holiday weekend in 2010. They will also be suspending a further 95, up from 65 in 2010.
There will still be some hot spots however, these include stretches of the M25 orbital, roads in the West Country including the M5 and A303 and the A64 Scarborough to York road. The road works that will remain in place include the M1 between the junctions of 10-13 near Luton and on the A1 near Northallerton.
Heavy traffic is also expected on the roads leading to the Reading and Leeds music festivals, as well as the weekends major sporting fixtures like the Rugby League cup final taking place at Wembley. Disruption to the rail network has thankfully been minimized this year with over 1700 more trains running than there was during the 2010 August Bank Holiday weekend.
