Living in the North East I had a business appointment in South West Midlands for 2.00.pm. Driving down the M18 I saw the sign saying that the M1 was closed from junction 26 to 27. I knew a service station nearby, so I stopped looked at the map (as the sat nav had no other suggestions but the M1) and so decide to go off junction 28 and do a detour. Another 10 minutes and I am back on the road to find myself coming to a dead stop. It seems the info on the signs were wrong, the local radio is now saying road closed from junction 28 to 26.

Here I sat for 1.5 hours until I slowly moved forward to be taken off at Junction 28. When I get there the road is coned off, but behind the cones was a huge breakdown recovery truck, with driver sitting there, lights flashing. I remember thinking, why is he there and not say a police car? I wasn’t aware that breakdown recovery gents would be paid to sit in one place and as it was behind the cones, I had to assume he was there by request.

I eventually got to my meeting 1 hour late and so left the meeting in the dark into Wolverhampton, with sat nav. These are great things, but in rush hour do not give you instructions quick enough as by the time they tell you to take the 3rd exit and the next roundabout, it is already to late to get into lane, as the locals know what they are doing.

But here is where the real problems started, as I go round in circles, even with sat nav, I notice the temp gauge on my car getting very high. At this point I think, do I stop and ring my breakdown cover service? As I put my foot down to move away from the round about I notice, the temp gauge goes to normal. Very quickly i notice that with high revs the car seems to get back to normal.

I now start looking for somewhere to stop, but inner cities at rush hour, do not accommodate car breakdowns, so i decided to keep going until I got away from traffic and then decide what to do,
Getting out of traffic was 190 miles away and by now I am on the motorway, driving in 4th gear at 65mph to ensure revs are above 3250. Should I ring the breakdown cover service, once again went through my brain. But the point of this post, was to discuss why I chose not too and just keep on going until I could go no further so for now, I decided lets keep going. So no phone call for now!

Part 2 coming soon.