Traffic jam record in France killed by mass exodus

Many Belgians are going on vacation this weekend, due to the start of construction leave in large parts of the country. There were long traffic jams on the A7, Autoroute du Soleil, between Lyon and Orange and on the A10 between Paris and Bordeaux. So much so that the traffic record was broken. At the busiest time of the day, at 12.05 pm, there were at least 1142 km of traffic jams.

The previous record goes back to Saturday 11 July 2020, an exceptional day with a lot of accidents. Then there was a traffic jam with a length of 1.002 km. Before that, the traffic congestion record was 994 km, on Black Saturday, August 2, 2014.

It is very extraordinary that there were such long traffic jams in France so early in the summer holidays, but also elsewhere in Europe there were long traffic jams on the main traffic hubs this morning. On the border road between Luxembourg, Lyon and Spain there was already about 2.5 hours of delay. On the routes Paris – Narbonne via Clermont-Ferrand, Lille – Paris – Bordeaux – Spain and Paris – Narbonne via Limoges, the fluctuation of additional travel time is about two hours.

Anyone driving to Spain through the Rhone Valley had to count up to 5 extra hours to reach their final destination.

In Germany, delays occurred mainly in the south of the country towards Austria and Switzerland. But the biggest delay was in the return of vacationers from Switzerland: they must take into account the additional 1 hour and 20 minutes between Basel and Karlsruhe.

In Austria, you had to take into account the 40 minute loss of time in Karawankentunnel towards Slovenia at Villach (A11). There was a 20-minute delay on the B179 Fernpass near Innsbruck towards Italy.

In Switzerland on the Basel-Como road through the Gotthard Tunnel, there was a delay of more than one hour. In Italy on the Como – Florence via Milan I lost an hour and a half.