# A75 french motorway chaos



## waddy (Apr 21, 2006)

Never Again the day after the latest 4 day french holiday the route over the grand massif to millau was reduced to 2 lanes then 1 lane it was carnage no other word for it overheated motorhomes car/caravans and cars stranded on the roadside my niesman 8001 and smart on trailer in amongst them the result for me burnt out clutch and a recovery bill of 1300 euros 700 of which i have had to pay all because they wanted to do maintainance work in the tunnel at the top of the massif so my advice is before you set of on this route check the road conditions before leaving personally i think when they do this there should be free recovery laid on as is often the case in the UK no i will not be trying it again i will stick to the route de soliel in future even with the problems that Lyon poses any one else out there affected on the 25th ?


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## teemyob (Nov 22, 2005)

*Road*

Hello,

Never had a Problem on the A75.

Could you have come off onto N road?

Trev


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## derek500 (Oct 31, 2005)

Hard going reading that OP without pausing for breath!!


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## teensvan (May 9, 2005)

Hi.

The last time we used this route it wes empty, but there was snow on the side of the road

steve & ann ----------- teensvan.


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## kennyboy (Oct 25, 2005)

We came back that way from our H-D rallye in St Tropez a couple of weekends ago. We had no problems apart from the thick fog over the Millau bridge. It was definitively very nippy on the bike!
Ken


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## pippin (Nov 15, 2007)

i also have got one of those cheap keyboards you know the ones that dont have a caps lock shift or any punctuation keys on them i find it makes typing stuff on mhf so much easier with two fingers it means i can do it easier without looking do you get my drift

Give the guy a break - he was probably typing it out on a tiny mobile phone keyboard!


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## lebesset (May 24, 2009)

I live in the area , so know the A75 well ...and I don't understand your post ;
to begin with this is a 2 lane motorway with some crawler lanes in addition 

the grand massif must mean the massif central but as there are no tunnels at the top I don't know where you are or in which direction you were travelling ...at a guess you were coming north up the escalade onto the larzac which is a fair old climb 

anywhere in europe you are asking for trouble travelling on a holiday like this one ...why not just pull off and wait until the morrow ? the french had to be back to work today so they have no alternative 

personally I have never known any real problem on this road , except for a few holiday weekends it is the quietest and easiest motorway in europe!

as coincidence would have it ,I was in lyon ! absolute chaos ...you can be sure I went nowhere!


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## waddy (Apr 21, 2006)

*A75 in my own defence*

OKAY here we go,At the time wnen i wrote the post i was both physically and mentally exhausted so i typed a post without punctuation ,the post was a genuine one to find out if anyone else had been affected , not a report from the form teacher on the quality of my writing skills . Yes had i known what was happening on the ascent i most certainly would have come off and used another route but once you are on the 6 kilometre ascent there are no junctions and it is to late to change your mind if i had the benefit of having come from the affected area i might perhaps have had the benefit of forethought to have travelled a day later . yes there is a tunnel at the top i approached the ascent from Lodeve on the A75 it is i am told 6k to the top there was no advanced warning of what lay ahead . the crawler lane was coned of and in parts the outside lane was also coned off leaving one lane to deal with all the traffic , so help me god i did not expect sympathy but the comments in reply where in part derogratry and in part demeaning if this is the attitude of fellow motorhomers we might as well close the forum altogether god help us if we do not care about each other lifes pretty meaningless . For the benifit of any one who is interested the recovery fee was 1300 euros 700 of which i have to pay plus 1200 euros for putting in a new clutch hopefully it willbe ready on the 3rd of june so on top of the other expenses one must facture in hotels and food . so perhaps you can see why i disliked the flippancy of the comments on punctuation .


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## BJandPete (Jul 8, 2008)

My writing skills are very limited thats why i try not to post. But hey some people just like to remind me others like me every chance they get on this forum very sad


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## pippin (Nov 15, 2007)

Waddy, I hope you did not take my comments too much to heart - 
I did actually suggest a probable reason for the way you posted.

However, it is a fact that if a post is difficult to read then a lot of people will give up before the end of the first line.

I would have expected a lot more responses to your original post.

I for one was interested because we may well be travelling that route next week.

My credit card is blanching at the thought of the costs you have incurred - ouch!

Hang on in here.


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## Sandy_Saunders (Nov 17, 2008)

Hi Waddy

We too were stuck on the stretch where it goes down to a single lane as we travelled north three days ago. A lorry in front of us could only do 20 mph on the uphill bits and there are a few off them on this road! So I understand your frustration and am sorry to hear of your large bill to fix the clutch. We gave up trying to follow the lorry and pulled into an aire to have lunch. When we came out the road was pretty clear. 

The work seemed to involve a complete resurface of the southbound carriageway and thus all traffic was on the northbound. 

We didn't have any damage and I saw no broken down vehicles, but 20 mph doesn't do much for the fuel consumption.

Sandy


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