M5 closure

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Saw on the news last night that the M5 North was closed at Bristol causing a 20 mile tailback. Thought that must be some major accident. Wrong, according to todays paper the "incident" was a man threatening to jump off the Avonmouth bridge, and the knee jerk reaction of our wonderful Police was to cause major delays to thousands of people looking forward to a Bank Holiday break.
 
And your knee jerk reaction is to let the drivers through so they can be hit by his falling body, and run over the corpse?

might have been a pile up with people swerving to avoid the mess as well.
 
I would not be surprised if there isn't going to be even bigger hold ups come Monday when the masses return to whence they came,especially with the new school term do to start next week.
 
Without doubt the police do tend to over-react, they have little regard for the delays they cause the public.
Swift and decisive action to minimise delays, seems to be a thing of the past.
 
Stopped at an accident recently, on a bust T junction.
Car was a wreak, driver, and old chap, thankfully ok.

Three of us easily managed to keep traffic flowing.
Plod eventually turned up 20 minutes later.
Within minutes they managed to cause a grid lock that continued for about 45 minutes .

Thick To55ers.
 
JohnD, the Avonmouth bridge carries the motorway, not over it. He was going to jump off the motorway.
 
Saw on the news last night that the M5 North was closed at Bristol causing a 20 mile tailback. Thought that must be some major accident. Wrong, according to todays paper the "incident" was a man threatening to jump off the Avonmouth bridge, and the knee jerk reaction of our wonderful Police was to cause major delays to thousands of people looking forward to a Bank Holiday break.

This was a major incident, a man was threatening to end his life. The closure of the road would have been a difficult decision, but necessary to deal with the incident safely and to prevent secondary accidents by curious motorists.

The safety of a vulnerable man is far more important than people wanting to get their caravans!
 
Stopped at an accident recently, on a bust T junction.
Car was a wreak, driver, and old chap, thankfully ok.

Three of us easily managed to keep traffic flowing.
Plod eventually turned up 20 minutes later.
Within minutes they managed to cause a grid lock that continued for about 45 minutes .

Thick To55ers.

The build up of traffic over time would have caused the gridlock, and the presence of the police and curious motorists. It certainly wasnt your presence that kept the traffic moving!
 
The safety of a vulnerable man is far more important than people wanting to get their caravans!

Surely someone could have picked him off with a rifle.
 
The safety of a vulnerable man is far more important than people wanting to get their caravans!

Surely someone could have picked him off with a rifle.

it wasnt shooting him that was the prob, none of the police marksmen had been on the training course "How to lean on a wall to shoot someone safely" so they couldnt do it.
it is a shame when someone is so desperate but i dont think in this case the police could have done anything else other than shut the road, imagine the scenario if they had let the traffic run through and he did jump either under a car (his family would sue) or on a car (the driver would sue)
 
same thing happened here a couple of years ago, they shut the m1 south for about 6 hours in the end, people who were stuck got out their cars / wagons and started to shout jump or go home.
 
In a field near us, some contractors unearthed what they thought was an unexploded bomb, police evecuated all nearby office units, and closed the west coast railwayline for four hours.
Bomb? it was a demolition ball!
 
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