Operation Stack M20

[Tigman]

Has anyone been caught up in this at all , we left Watford last Friday for a week down in Hythe near Folkestone , 2 hour journey at the most , no not my day 8 hours to get there , ive never seen so many lorries on the side of the road and on the way back this morning the Police were lining up the lorries again , I feel for the drivers , wouldnt like to sit on the motorway for hours on end , but its affecting the roads around the area badly , if your on your way down to Kent look at the internet for info and avoid the M20 if you can , didnt spoil our week though !

 

[skotl]

What's that for? Checking for illegal immigrants?

Edit: Ah - cos of French port strikes. Awesome

 

[ms08]

Yes twice alreay and the number of idiots and accidents on the M2 at present is something to be believed. Kent is chaos at present.

 

[wristpin]

This has been happening on and off for the last five years , useless Kent County Council, useless police, useless MPs and useless Government of any persuasion - all talk and no action . A few years back , at great expense a machine was bough that enabled a barrier to be moved out from the hard shoulder to fence off a lane but no one could agree who should pay for its operation so it was dumped.
If this were France the population of Kent would barricade parliament square or ten Downing Street but being England we just form a queue its costing the country and county millions.

 

[julianthegypsy]

I had what should have been a two hour drive down to Guildford on Wednesday morning. All went wel,, M25 a bit slugging as expected, then got to the A3 turn off and there was a mile long queue to get off. It eventually took 3 1/2 hours. Once I'd managed to get off the M25, the A3 was completely clear, I did see some signs about operation stack but don't quite understand what that had to do with it?

 

[Tigman]

they shut the m20 between junction 8 and 9 and park all the lorrys on it , if it gets bad they go for a bit more , its chaos as said

 

[Tigman]

but when we got there we went on this little beauty!

 

[ford34/2]

Possibly £3,000,000 a day in wasted food.

Shops are rejecting entire truckloads of deliveries over hygiene fears at a time when UK supermarkets are starting to run short of vital supplies.
Some drivers are taking detours of 100 miles into Holland to avoid gangs of would-be asylum seekers trying to sneak into the UK in the back of trucks.
Giving evidence at parliament today, the head of Britain's leading haulage group told MPs that the shocking scale of the migrant crisis means truckers are now having to dump £1billion worth of food a year.
Richard Burnett, chief executive of the Road Haulage Association, said stowaways often defecate inside lorries on the way to Britain meaning whole loads become completely unsalvageable.

He told the Home Affairs Select Committee: "The owners of goods have to take the drastic action of scrapping loads as they cannot take the risk that they have been contaminated or damaged.
"With something in the order of 10,000 loads moving every day across the Channel, even if only one per cent are tampered with or soiled, at a loss rate of about £30,000 per trailer, this equates to about £3million a day, equalling to £1billion a year.
"That’s a massive and unacceptable cost to our economy and many hauliers are having to absorb large parts of that cost.
"On top of that are the other enormous costs of vehicles unable to work as a result of being caught for days on end in Kent’s Operation stack and penalty payments for lack of delivery. In addition, the stress caused to drivers is incalculable."
Haulage experts had previously estimated that Britain was throwing away up to £10million a month in food.

However, since then the situation in Calais has deteriorated significantly, with French police having almost completely lost control of the port town.
Thousands of migrants now roam the streets unchecked trying to break into lorries and make their way to Britain, terrorising truckers and tourists.
Despite the dire situation, it was revealed this week that the European Union (EU) has authorised an enormous project to more than double the size of the port.
Britain could be expected to contribute €80million - or £57million - towards the enormous expansion, which will include a new ferry terminal and a rail link to the south of France.
The amount of traffic going through Calais and Dover has risen in recent years, with experts predicting it will boom by a further 40 per cent by 2030.
But French police are already overwhelmed by the migrant crisis in the French port town, with gangs of people traffickers running amok in the streets.
Thousands of migrants have tried to smuggle their way across the Channel in recent months, severely disrupting Britain's food supply chain and leaving truckers and coach drivers fearing for their lives.
The situation is now so bad that supermarkets are beginning to run short of supplies, with many European haulage companies considering pulling out of the UK market altogether.
British holidaymakers have also seen migrants stow themselves in their vehicles while passing through Calais.

Crazy aint it.
Stan
A search on You tube, you`ll see windscreen camera footage of the constant hassle drivers have to put up with on the French side.

 

[roofman]

the above makes for drastic reading

 

[optima21]

I always wondered if operation stack was named after this quote from Die Hard 2

 

[dunk]

answers simply really, tell the french strikers to stop acting like dicks heads and get back to work, or is this really what they wanted to happen

 

[cocker]

What's wrong with boycotting the French ports for a month ?
Slightly inconvenient to us for a while but it'll probably square up the frogs

 

[roofman]

What's wrong with boycotting the French ports for a month ?
Slightly inconvenient to us for a while but it'll probably square up the frogs

easier iff we build a mighty Navy and lets have another settler in the channel again

 

[ms08]

easier iff we build a mighty Navy and lets have another settler in the channel again

I am up for that ....lol...

 

[brightspark]

they should fumigate the trailers that would flush them out without having to search. a quick squirt in the back would stop em trying if it made them cough and eyes sting our countrys 2 soft with em

 

[CompoSimmonite]

they should fumigate the trailers that would flush them out without having to search. a quick squirt in the back would stop em trying if it made them cough and eyes sting our countrys 2 soft with em

I thought the original idea of shipping containers was to make transport easier so why not go back to them instead of curtainsiders for anything that crossed the Channel ? What about detachable external cages on outside of curtainsides out of weldmesh ?
I agree with some sort of "fumigation".
If you open the emergency exit on a bus or coach then a warning light / buzzer informs driver. Why not have something similar on trailer but a heat sensor / PIR type ?

 

[barracuda816]

I feel for the lorry drivers, not a particularly safe job at the moment. Not to mention the punishment they get if any manage to get in/under/on!

 

[brightspark]

I feel for the lorry drivers, not a particularly safe job at the moment. Not to mention the punishment they get if any manage to get in/under/on!

it p...sses me off them getting blamed and fined for it. there should be more security on the docks when they park up. poor sods even get coshed if they park up in lay by and load robbed if its owt decent

 

[ronan]

£5,000 fine if some lowlife breaks into your lorry and makes a mess of your load, if you don't let them on you get threatened with knives, if you blow your horn to warn a fellow driver, threatened or assaulted. There is only 4,000 of them, break up the camp and send them back to the dumps they come from in africa.

 

[brightspark]

£5,000 fine if some lowlife breaks into your lorry and makes a mess of your load, if you don't let them on you get threatened with knives, if you blow your horn to warn a fellow driver, threatened or assaulted. There is only 4,000 of them, break up the camp and send them back to the dumps they come from in africa.

they will be some doo gooders feeding them in france so there bound to hang around ,they should protect there borders before they enter france