Were you caught in yesterday's traffic chaos?

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Travel chaos? What travel chaos? I hopped on my bike and got home at exactly the same time as normal. Maybe if more people left their cars at home there wouldn't be so much travel 'misery'.
Michael, Belfast

It was a tragic accident and I firstly I would like to pass my condolences on to the bereaved family.

I left Newtownards at 6pm to travel into Belfast for work. This is normally a half hour journey. I met the tail back going into Belfast on the Newtownards Road at the junction with the Beersbridge Road.  I turned onto the Beersbridge Road and went along to My Lady’s Road and joined the queue there waiting to get onto the Ravenhill Road. I then joined the queue on the Ormeau embankment.

Unlike another motorist who couldn’t wait and decided to put on his hazard lights and drive up the inside of us to try an get further along, he did but by only three cars as he had to rejoin the queue to get passed a parked car, I waited in the line and at 7pm I was eventually crossing the Ormeau Bridge.

As others have already stated, including road officials, questions must be asked about this gridlock in Belfast. I do not remember such a gridlock when the lorry crashed on the M1!
Paul, Newtownards

People who say this is just a mere inconvenience are not living in the real world. My aunt missed a vital appointment with her consultant. The result? Months more of living in pain until her appointment can be rescheduled.

This is about real people and real lives.  I am sure the people who are complaining about this debate would be first to fire off angry emails if they missed their family holiday because of the traffic gridlock across the whole of Belfast caused by one accident, tragic as it was in itself.
Niall, Belfast

I am disgusted at the amount of people complaining about getting home late and the coverage they have been given. The police had a job to do and may I say they treated this person who died with a bit of respect. If they had kept the motorway opened there could have been many more accidents.

I think they did the right thing. My thoughts are with the family of this person and just imagine how they feel a full page about the chaos the accident caused, not a mention of their loved one. At least you all got home!
Disgusted, Carrickfergus

Good grief people just listen to yourselves! Having spent the last 24 years with the emergency services I can tell you there is always a good reason for the things that are done. Unfortunately these well proven operating procedures  are time consuming but well proven. So get off your hobby horses you may have been a few hours late big deal!
Robert, Ballymena

PSNI need to get a grip. Sad as the loss of a life is the world cannot stop. The old much maligned RUC coped with these terrible incidents with a bit of common sense, and still got the job done. I listened to their spokesperson justifying the way they do things. I cannot accept their position on these total closures of major routes. There was room for at least two lanes of the M5 and the Fortwilliam slip roads to be used to keep traffic moving. How many flights were missed with ongoing connections? This has cost an absolute fortune causing misery to thousands of taxpayers. Policy changes are needed to the way they "Police" traffic accidents.
Fed up motorist, Co Down

Blame, blame, blame. What sort of people are you? Hhow can anybody complain about this? So what about your jonoury how long it took trying to home, pickup kids etc. At least at in the end we got home. Tthat poor man's kids and wife would do anything I'm sure for him to be home with them. Dry your eyes and be thankful your got home. 
Kelly Fitzpatrick, Belfast

It is highly ironic that the subject is 'Death on M2' given that the Belfast Telegraph, like UTV last night, have reported this story in terms of traffic chaos.

Put simply, the commuters caught up in yesterdays "shambles" , to use your own words, actually managed to arrive home, albeit a little late; the unfortunate pedestrian however did not.

I simply fail to understand how sections of the Northern Ireland media have failed to notice or else have ignored the real tragedy of death.

The reporting indicates a lack of sympathy and respect for the deceased family and indicates that we as a society are rapidly loosing our moral compass.

Some people were late home - tough - get over it; a man is dead, and no one seems to care. As a fellow citizen I am ashamed to be associated with this reporting and this sad reflection of our nation.
Peter Morrow, Portadown


Three beautiful little girls have lost their father.  Can you imagine what the reports of this incident are doing to the family.  I just wish people would stop and think for a moment and perhaps they would put things into perspective.
Anonymous

I feel sickened by the complaints made in this article. Travellers have lost, at most, four hours by waiting in queues. This man has lost his life. His three daughters have lost their father, a wife her husband yet people are compalining about the four-hour disruption this caused in their lives. They should appreciate the fact that their journey will end eventually, not tat their journey will end them.
Anonymous, Ballymena

I abandoned my normal lift to Larne and realising buses were already running an hour late at 17:00 I decided to catch a train.  In the end I reached my home at 18:30, only an hour later than normal and only 55 minutes after leaving Central Station.  It got me thinking that really we ought to seriously invest in our rail network, lower prices and get people off the roads.
Gary Andrews, Larne

I am relieved to see that some common sense and values are prevailing in the comments that have been made on this topic – A man was tragically killed, leaving behind a family and children. Many people were inconvenienced by the congestion and tail backs yesterday. However, we should try to get things into perspective - A lengthy delay in driving home in comparison with a life lost.

I am disgusted that, the day following this tragic event, the opening page of the Belfast’s Telegraph news website is on a debate about the traffic congestion resulting from the accident. We need to get a grip and start to reassess our values. We all live pressured and time-stressed lived, but what is going on in our angry little minds!!!!    
Hilary, Belfast

Im just glad I got home yesterday to see my family. Caught in the traffic, big deal, I was also caught in the last traffic jam as a result of the fatal accident on the m1, but as now I was just glad to get home to my family. That’s twice I have been caught in this type of jam in 10 years driving, I think I can live with that, with the emphasis on the living bit.
Mark, Belfast

We left a meeting at a customers in Kilkeel at 3.30pm for a leisurly drive back to Belfast International for our flight at 7.10pm to Leeds Bradford Airport. Needless to say we missed the flight and ended up in a Hotel overnight. 3 rooms, additional airfares and 3 poeple missing an extra morning at work, this one incident has cost our company at least £700. 
Ian Isitt, Hull, East Yorkshire

I left work at 5.30pm from Stormont and going to west Belfast I didn’t get into 8pm. Normally I would have been fuming at this but due to the fact that someone had died I could understand this. Anyone who complains about this is wrong. Imagine it was a member of your family, your son, brother, husband father??? Would you feel the same people in northern Ireland have lost all of their values.
Angry woman, Belfast

I know that the chaos on the roads yesterday was undoubtedly a great source of frustration and annoyance to many commuters and it is easy to feel like this when you have no knowledge of those involved and when our plans and routines have been spoiled.   Spare a thought please for the grieving wife and children of the victim whose lives have been ripped apart by this terrible tragedy.  They deserve to know what happened and the police had to carry out their investigations.
Anon  (friend of the family), Ballymena

It is disappointing to hear so many complaints about police trying to do their job.  What if that poor man had been a member of your family and the police had opened the motorway early and it turned out that crucial evidence had been destroyed?  Exactly! You would be as annoyed as the thousands of people who were stuck in traffic yesterday. 

I was also stuck in the traffic yesterday having passed the accident city bound and seeing that poor man on the road so did it bother me? No not really knowing what had happened. 

The police had a job to do, the Roads Service is responsible for Traffic Management so blame them and how rubbish the Belfast network actually is when something like this happens. 
Robert, Belfast

Yes, it took me slighter longer to get home yesterday, big deal. It disgusts me that so many people are complaining about the length of time getting home. Unfortunately the man that was killed will never go home.
Claire, Belfast

I got caught in the traffic heading down the Falls road to take the slip road to the westlink and on to Bangor. A lot of disruption was caused by the normal inconsiderate and inept driving of people here. Why people insist on driving beyond traffic lights into a major intersection when it is obvious they will block the traffic that crosses that intersection is just beyond me. Of course, people will start jumping up and down demanding 'the Government' do something, when all it takes is a little consideration and a lot of personal responsibility a notion sadly lacking in this place.
Gillian, RVH, Belfast

My journey from work to the child minders normally takes 15-20mins on a really bad day. I was coming from Airport Road West, Knocknagoney direction and it took me from 3.50 until 18.55 to get to the child minders.

As we started to come towards the City Airport, the road was at a stand still with only making a very small distance in 2 hours. After looking on some media pictures today , we can see the incident was only spread over the hard shoulder and the left inside lane, it seems amazing that it was handled so dramatically.

It’s a terrible tragedy for something like this to happen but we need to take example of other countries that quickly deal with it and make sure that some traffic gets through. The disruption was on a mass scale and very badly organised, the infrastructure of our road net working needs to be seriously looked at.
Emma, Belfast

I think the way in which the situation was handled was absolutely ridiculous. For motorists the length & breadth of the entire city to be stuck in their cars for hours due to one incident beggars belief. Sort it out!
Jane, Belfast

I think it's important that we remember the family of this man who died yesterday instead of berating the police force for doing their job.
Pamela, Belfast

I wasn’t caught in the traffic but I find it awful that all the lanes were closed.  Also why was the M3 closed instead of just the exits before the incident and leave the further on exits open to assist the flow of traffic.  It took work colleagues of mine over3 hours to get home.
Lisa Martin, Belfast

I am deaf and I was unable to know what was going on. I knew it must be an accident and thought it was a huge one. Since seeing the pictures and believe they should have kept the motorway partly open and speed limit low for few miles and it would have made a big difference.
Michael, Kilrea

Looking at the photo, it seems that the 2 lanes of the M5 could have been kept open, with reduced speed passing the scene of the accident.  Also all open North of Fortwilliam onslip.I always use Shore Road to Greencastle on-slip anyway, as the M2 foreshore is frequently slow!
David, Belfast

If all five lanes had to be closed for four hours why didn't the police warn motorists to make long detours e.g. through Lisburn and avoid Belfast? Why weren't police officers on the roads directing traffic by less used routes to relieve some of the congestion?

I believe most police officers are equipped with radios which would have enabled them to communicate with one another. Police spokesmen avoid this by saying that they had to carry out a full investigation at the scene.

Fair enough but they need to explain why they simply shut the motorway and made no effort to deal with the consequences for the thousands of people who were stuck for many hours.
Peter, Belfast

I have no problem with the police having to investigate a fatal accident, that is obviously very necessary, but what does annoy me is the fact that no other police seemed to be available to manage the traffic chaos.  

Surely it would have been sensible to have had a traffic policeman at some of the major junctions to try and keep them clear.  My main delay in getting home last night (which took 2 hours from west to east Belfast) was the fact that people were blocking major junctions and parking on yellow boxes.  

I came across a lorry last night that was sitting across all four lanes at a crossroads even though he clearly hadn’t moved and wasn’t going to move for some time. It is people like that that caused the problem and not just the fact that the police had to close the road.
Dawn, Belfast

It took me 3 hours to get home yesterday.  I left work at 4 and didnt reach my house to 7.10.  I was stuck on the Newtownards road for and hour and a half, without moving, It was a nightmare.
Victoria,  Belfast

I was effected yesterday by the traffic, I live in Templepatrick and was home at 7.40pm and I left the city centre at 5pm! I think it is a disgrace that the motorway closes and causes that much chaos, the road service need to think about that.
Christine Quinn, Belfast