Thousands of motorists were stuck in five-mile tailbacks at both the morning and evening rush hour yesterday after a freak accident brought chaos to one of Britain's busiest roads.
The rear of a tipper truck became wedged under an gantry, which spans all three lanes of the northbound carriageway on the M80. The road is the main route between Glasgow and Stirling and also provides a major link to Fife, via the Kincardine Bridge.
The incident caused major tailbacks during the morning rush hour and even greater problems during the evening as many fans going to the Uefa Cup match between Rangers and Hapoel Tel Aviv were caught up in the delays.
The accident occurred between Haggs at junction four and Bankhead at junction five early yesterday when the truck ran into the overhead gantry and part of it became embedded. The truck driver and the male elderly driver of a Vauxhall Corsa which was in collision with the back of the tipper truck escaped injury.
Traffic was diverted on to the A803 as cranes were transported to the site to recover the vehicle and to make safe the gantry. At one stage in the afternoon one crane was trying to manoeuvre the rear of the tipper truck to safety while another crane was holding the gantry together to make sure it did not come crashing to the ground.
The delicate operation was completed soon after 7pm. A spokesman for Central Scotland said that the gantry had been dismantled and the trailer taken away by a local garage.
Diversions were in place but motorists suffered severe delays as traffic was tailed back for up to five miles to the A80/M73.
Central Scotland Police last night said the accident happened when the road was quiet but because of the danger caused by the position of the tipper truck they had no alternative but to close the northbound section of the road for most of yesterday.
Traffic heading for Glasgow was busier than usual yesterday morning and the situation was not helped by drivers slowing down as they passed the accident on the other side of the motorway.
A Central Scotland police spokesman said: "We had to wait for engineers to assess the damage to the overhead sign and could not reopen the road until it was safe to do so. Motorists were asked to take alternative routes home including the M8 corridor or via the Erskine Bridge if heading towards Stirling or the north."
Last week drivers were caught up in seven-mile tailbacks when safety fears over pylons closed a three-mile stretch of the M74 on the outskirts of Glasgow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article