Category Archives: Road transport

At least three people drown over bank holiday weekend as UK sees hottest day

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Two men in their 20s were pulled from the sea near Torbay as boy who died in Carlisle named as Lewis Michael Kirkpatrick, 15

At least three people have drowned over the bank holiday weekend as the UK experienced the hottest day of the year so far on Sunday.

Two men in their 20s died after being pulled from the sea off the coast of Torbay, Devon and Cornwall police said. Officers were called to assist the coastguard at about 9am on Saturday after reports of concern for two people off Oddicombe beach.

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Busy roads and airports expected over late-May UK bank holiday weekend

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More than 3,000 planes scheduled to take off on Friday, with road traffic peaking as leisure trips coincide with commuting

The start of the May half-term holiday for many schools will see “hectic” roads and the most flights departing the UK since before the pandemic, according to industry estimates.

About 19m leisure journeys by car are expected on Britain’s roads over the next four days, and more than 3,000 planes are scheduled to take off on Friday.

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The Hague introduces €50 flat fee for parking to deter drivers

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Scheme on certain streets including near beach makes it as costly to park for 10 minutes as for whole day

Whether for 10 minutes or a whole day, it now costs a flat fee of €50 (£43) to park in certain streets in The Hague, including roads around the popular Scheveningen beach.

The pilot scheme in the Dutch city on the North Sea coast, which will last a year, aims to discourage tourists and visitors from blocking up the historic centre and seaside roads, particularly on sunny days.

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Rishi Sunak scraps plans for new smart motorways in England

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Fourteen smart motorways removed from government road-building plans over cost and safety fears

The building of new smart motorways is being cancelled as Rishi Sunak acknowledged concerns about safety and cost.

Fourteen planned smart motorways – including 11 that are already paused and three earmarked for construction – will be removed from government road-building plans, given financial pressures and in recognition of the lack of public trust.

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Cheap flights, Brexit, now Dover chaos – is this the end of the road for continental coach tours?

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While many operators still ply the cross-Channel route, some businesses are focusing instead on domestic trips

It was once the staple for group travel abroad, favoured by school trips and touring retirees alike, but it now looks like Britain could be falling out of love with the continental coach journey.

Many are likely to have been put off for life by chaos at Dover, as people try to get away for the Easter holiday. An estimated 20,000 people got caught up in gridlock last weekend alone after delays in border processing that forced vehicles to queue for up to 14 hours.

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Parisians vote on banning e-scooters from French capital

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Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo supports ban after three people died and 459 were injured in accidents during 2022

Parisians are voting on Sunday on whether to rid the streets of the French capital of electric scooters, although some say the city’s leaders ought to be focusing on more pressing issues.

Paris was a pioneer when it introduced e-scooters, or trottinettes, in 2018 as the city’s authorities sought to promote non-polluting forms of urban transport.

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Port of Dover adds overnight sailings to help clear severe coach backlog

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School holiday delays of up to 14 hours blamed on ‘French border processes and sheer volume’

Extra sailings are to run overnight at the Port of Dover to try to clear a backlog that left passengers stuck in Easter school-holiday traffic for hours on Saturday.

A spokesperson for the port, which declared a critical incident on Friday, said it was hoping to clear the backlog by lunchtime on Sunday as some travellers said they had been held up for 14 hours.

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Italian man, 80, owes €4,000 in fines after dodging motorway tolls

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‘Nonno Sprint’ avoided paying by nipping in behind prepaid Telepass customers before barrier descended

An 80-year-old Italian man nicknamed “Nonno Sprint” (Granddad Sprint) risks going on trial after he brazenly dodged paying €4,000 (£3,514) worth of motorway tolls using a technique more frequently reserved for metro fare hoppers.

In his Fiat Punto, the man, whose real name is Mario, “travelled far and wide” on Italy’s motorways for two years without paying a single euro, arguing that the charges were too pricey and not worth it for the poor service, according to Corriere della Sera.

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Dieselgate: millions of ‘extremely’ polluting cars still on Europe’s roads, says report

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The research group that first exposed the scandal say ‘it’s not over’ and that governments must act

Thirteen million diesel cars producing “extreme” levels of toxic air pollution are still on the roads in Europe and the UK, according to a report, seven years after the Dieselgate scandal first exploded.

The non-profit research group, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), revealed in 2015 that many diesel cars were highly polluting, emitting far more nitrogen oxides on the road than in official testing. The scandal led to a more rigorous test being introduced in the EU in 2019.

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Australian drivers facing heavy new fines for parking in electric vehicle charging spots

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Experts liken act known as ‘ICEing’ to parking at a fuel bowser, and say high penalties are necessary to encourage EV uptake

Drivers could be fined as much as $3,200 for parking in spaces for electric vehicles as part of little-known penalties introduced in four states and territories.

The fines, some of them added to road rules late last year, range from $3,200 in the Australian Capital Territory to $369 in Victoria.

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UK weather: Tuesday night could be coldest of year so far, Met Office warns

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Temperatures could plummet to -15c in some sheltered Scottish areas with snow cutting off some rural areas

Tuesday night could be the coldest this year so far, the Met Office has warned, with fears that Arctic air could cut off some rural communities and cause power and transport chaos.

Temperatures could fall as low as -15c in some sheltered Scottish areas, with locations that have seen snowfall especially vulnerable.

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Carbon emissions from global SUV fleet outweighs most countries

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Popularity of sport utility vehicles driving higher oil demand and climate crisis, say experts

The continued global rise in the sale of SUVs pushed their climate-heating emissions to almost a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.

The 330m sport utility vehicles on the roads produced emissions equivalent to the combined national emissions of the UK and Germany last year. If SUVs were a country, they would rank as the sixth most polluting in the world.

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Row growing after third historic rail bridge filled in with concrete

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National Highways faces third intervention by a local authority over infilling, after burying Congham bridge in Norfolk in tonnes of concrete

A controversial practice by the government’s roads agency of burying historic railway bridges in concrete has been dealt a fresh blow after a third council intervened over another infilled structure.

King’s Lynn and West Norfolk council has told National Highways it must apply for retrospective planning permission if it wants to retain hundreds of tonnes of aggregate and concrete it used to submerge Congham bridge, a few miles east of King’s Lynn.

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Almost one in 10 local bus services axed over last year in Great Britain

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Exclusive: cuts come despite government’s levelling up promise to improve transport connectivity

Almost one in 10 local bus services were axed in Great Britain in the last year despite government promises to improve local transport connectivity being a key pillar of its levelling up agenda.

The reductions – equivalent to more than 1,000 registered routes – follow the publication of a national bus strategy for England in 2021, aimed at improving routes and service frequencies. The figures suggest the “bus back better” strategy, conceived under the then prime minister Boris Johnson, has failed to halt the decline in local bus services.

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Dob in ‘dodgy’ taxi drivers this New Year’s Eve, minister urges Sydney residents

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Passengers should use a 24-hour hotline to report cabbies who refuse to turn on meters, David Elliott says

Passengers should dob in “dodgy” cabbies who don’t use their meters for rides over the holiday period, the New South Wales transport minister says.

David Elliott sent a warning shot over the unethical practice of taxi drivers negotiating prices for passengers in a hurry without turning on their meter.

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Thai police offer cash prizes for videos of worst road violations

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Effort to reduce new year collisions has been criticised for encouraging drivers to film others or stage violations

Thai police are taking an alternative approach to their annual road safety campaign by offering cash prizes of 10,000 baht (£240) for the best – or worst – videos of traffic violations.

About 22,000 people die each year in Thailand in road traffic accidents, one of the worst death rates in the world. The week over the new year, known locally as the “seven dangerous days”, has the biggest spike as people speed around the country.

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Photos permitted as evidence of parking offences, Bavarian court rules

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Ansbach court rules in favour of two cycling activists who had been fined €100 for breaching data protection regulation

People who notify the police of parked cars blocking pavements and bike paths will in future be able to submit photographs as evidence of offences, a court in Bavaria has ruled.

An administrative court in Ansbach has ruled in favour of two cycling activists who had been fined €100 (£87) each for breaching data protection regulation for photographing apparently illegally parked cars and emailing the images to the police.

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UK drivers for Bolt ride-hailing app pursue worker benefits claim

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Lawyers acting for more than 1,600 drivers say they have been wrongly classed as self-employed

More than 1,600 UK drivers working for the ride-hailing app Bolt are seeking compensation for missed holiday and minimum wage payments as they argue they have been wrongly classed as self-employed contractors.

Lawyers for the drivers have written to the government-backed workplace conciliation service Acas, in the first stage of lodging the claim against Bolt.

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EU biometric entry system could multiply delays at Dover

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Additional requirements would be time-consuming and threaten capacity, Dover port boss says

Post-Brexit Channel border delays could multiply from next May, with a five-person vehicle being held for up to 10 minutes if the EU goes ahead with a planned biometric entry system, the Port of Dover has said.

The entry-exit system (EES), which is due to start in May 2023, will require all non-EU nationals to register their fingerprints and be photographed before entering the bloc.

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