Motorists describe night on the M74
0 Vehicles on the move again on the M74 at Abington Many motorists spent the night on the M74 in Lanarkshire after heavy snowfall, relying on Twitter and radio reports for updates.
Among them were Danielle Harvey travelling from Newcastle and Craig Stapleford from Leicestershire.
Ms Harvey, a sales director for Cake Decor in Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, left work at 4:30pm on Tuesday to head home, but ended up being trapped in her car through the night. She said Traffic Scotland’s Twitter updates were “vague”.
“I thought I was heading off early from work and had heard on the radio the M74 was ‘not brilliant, but not shut’.
“But we stopped moving seven miles from Abington services and I was in the car until traffic started moving at 4:30am in a blizzard, which was dangerous when people hadn’t been sleeping.
“Traffic Scotland was saying, ‘We’re getting you moving’ but didn’t say when, so I didn’t know if it was OK to sleep.
“I relied on Five Live who interviewed the RAC, the mountain rescue, and read what other Twitter users said.
“It was dark and although I had a half bottle of water, a cereal bar and a satsuma, noone came to check on us.
“I arrived home at 7:30am after a 15-hour journey.”
Mr Stapleford, 30, and his girlfriend Chloe Beardmore, 29, left Hinkley, Leicestershire, at 3am on Tuesday to deliver computer products to Aberdeen and Edinburgh and were returning home.
They arrived at Abington services at around 1am yesterday morning, where they spent five hours overnight in their van. “The main trouble was lorries being unable to climb the incline before Abington,” said Mr Stapleford.
“We came to a standstill and sat at Abington for about six hours. There had been an accident which held up the traffic.
“What did surprise me was there seemed to be no snow ploughs trying to get the lorries and cars out that were stuck, or clearing the way.
“We had packed our own food so we had crisps and chocolate and we had sleeping bags, though we got a bit cold.
“In the end we got home at mid-day.”