Drivers are set to embark on up to 17 m leisure trips by car this Easter bank holiday, with Good Friday and Easter Sunday set to see the largest number of journeys made leading to long delays in parts of the South and west of the UK, new figures suggest.
New data suggests that drivers are expected to take up to 17 million leisure trips by car during the Easter bank holiday, with Good Friday and Easter Sunday likely to have the highest number of journeys made, leading to significant delays in parts of the south and west of the UK.
The RAC and transport analytics experts INRIX report that Good Friday could potentially be a ‘bad’ Friday for drivers this year, with an estimated 2.7 million ‘getaway’ trips expected that day.
Major roads in the south west of England and through some of the home counties are likely to experience the longest delays, with the A303 westbound near Stonehenge, M5 south between Bristol and Bridgewater, and M25 anticlockwise between Hertfordshire and Surrey predicted to see more than twice the normal amount of traffic.
Easter Sunday is also expected to see a similar number of leisure journeys being made by drivers, while Easter Saturday and Easter Monday will be slightly less busy with 2.3 million separate trips each.
However, with planned engineering work on the railway, including the closure of London Euston station over the whole weekend, more people are likely to be forced onto the roads.
National Highways will be temporarily lifting around 1,400 miles of roadworks from Thursday to help alleviate queues. However, We recommend that drivers make sure their vehicles are ‘road-ready’ before setting off, as separate research found that only 19% of drivers routinely check their cars before making an Easter trip, increasing the potential for breakdowns.
