Today marks the beginning of the August Bank Holiday weekend, and with all the recent holiday travel chaos plus, of course, the lockdown of the last few months, it’s natural to assume that lots of people are going to have a little getaway.
Well, according to an RAC survey which has been nicely extrapolated based on the results, and correlated with other years, we’re going to see the busiest weekend for traffic of the year on Britain’s roads. Apparently 18,000,000 of us are going to head down the motorway, which is 1.8m more than this time last year.
The busiest day will be today (Friday 28 August) with an estimated 5.6m trips, followed by Saturday with 4.7m then Sunday with 3.7m. These estimates could be wrong, of course, but it does make sense that the traffic will be heavier than last year, when the world was normal and plenty of people were either on holiday abroad, or had just come back from one.
The survey itself asked 1835 RAC members what they were up to over this weekend – journey wise, that is…we assume – and also a bit about their driving plans for August. It turns out that the majority have already driven a lot more in August than they’d ordinarily be inclined to, and plenty are planning a Bank Holiday getaway that they wouldn’t ordinarily make.
The RAC’s Rod Dennis said: “It’s been anything but a normal summer for so many reasons, but our research indicates that millions of us are still desperate to eke out the last of the summer and enjoy time away, whether that’s a day trip to see friends or family or a long weekend in a caravan or camping. Both official Government statistics and our own data from insurance customers show that weekend traffic is now back to pre-lockdown levels. The numbers of people breaking down are also around where we would expect them to be for late August.”
And because he’s from the RAC, a breakdown service, Rod went on to say that “our teams will be working incredibly hard to rescue drivers who run into trouble, but in so many cases breakdowns can be avoided. A quick check of a car’s ‘vitals’ – tyre pressure and tread, oil and coolant levels – can make the difference between a smooth trip or one blighted by a breakdown. It’s also very important those towing caravans and trailers complete a range of checks, too.”
Happy travelling, people.
Keyword: Brace yourselves: this Bank Holiday will be the busiest of the year for traffic