“Jenny Ansett turned back for home in Dunfermline in Fife after hitting traffic as she headed for the Forth Road Bridge. She told John Beattie it took her 28 minutes to drive a mile-and-a-half.
"Every time this happens it seems bonkers that great swathes of central Scotland grind to a halt because of one road. So we can only hope when this new bridge opens it will be a bit of an improvement.”
Of course the new bridge, at nearly half a mile upstream from the old bridge at its southern end and almost adjacent on the northern shore, will be fully insulated from the howling westerly gales that tear down the Forth estuary.
“…with the consequent costs in time and fuel.”
Well it’s going to cost them (or more probably their insurers) quite a bit more now. I understand that around 40 metres of the central reservation were destroyed.
“I am sure there are mitigating circumstances which will be taken into account.”
Well I don’t quite know what they might be. If, as we are told, the bridge was closed to HGVs at the time, the driver deliberately ignored a traffic order. There’s not much to mitigate that. Furthermore, if the bridge was open to smaller vehicles at the time (as it seems it was) the results of this stupidity (being blown across the central reservation into oncoming traffic) could have been absolutely horrendous. Perhaps it was the fact that it was 2am that meant carnage was avoided. This driver deserves the book to be thrown at him. Excuses about employer pressure should be cast aside.