M5 motorway
Template: Infobox trunk road / Maintenance / GB -M
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The M5 motorway (English for, M5 motorway ') is a motorway in England. It runs from the M6 at Great Barr on the outskirts of Birmingham to Exeter in Devon and largely replaced the A- road A38. At the end of the motorway at Exeter, the highway divides into A30 to Okehampton and Cornwall and A38 to Plymouth and Torquay. The M5 is the main traffic artery in Southwest England and is therefore highly charged, especially in summer.
History
The first section was opened on 20 July 1962, is located between junctions 4 ( Lydiate Ash, southwest of Birmingham) and 8, where the motorway to the M50 Motorway finished already joined on a trumpet triangle. This section was created as the first part of the original highway from Birmingham to Bristol. Three Jähre later it was extended to junction 3. In 1970 they built the section to the junction with the M6 , where the highway runs mostly on elevated roads. 1971, ultimately reaching the node with the M4 ( Almondsbury Interchange, a Maltese cross, northwest of Bristol ), where the short distance from the M4 node to Avonmouth ( AS 15 to 18) in 1969 was opened to traffic.
In 1970, the first distance south of the River Avon in the Gordano Valley (between the No. 19 and 20), where the tracks run at different heights. By 1973, the routes originated south of Bridgwater to, but they were only in 1974 joined by the Avonmouth Bridge with the rest of the highway. The construction continued unabated with further series of bypasses until the last part of Exeter (including the bridge over the Exe ) was opened to traffic in 1977. A short, opened already in 1969 section of the A38 to Cullompton in 1975 converted to M5.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, the original section between AS 3 and 8 had to be extended costly due to high traffic density from four to six lanes in a parallel extension; north and south of the highway was already three lanes. Here, the trumpet triangle at Strensham was converted into a roundabout node. In this process, in addition to the existing highway was a new road; after their completion, a direction was moved there. After that, the old road was expanded and released after the construction is completed for the other direction. Parts of the " third ", now unused road were mined and budded and planted the strip again. All this was done without significant restriction of traffic, although many overpasses had to be demolished. Some other but remain untouched until today, without a hard shoulder under the overpass.
Pile-up at Taunton 2011
On November 4, 2011, just north of junction 25 around 20:30 clock a massive rear-end collision occurred on the M5 at Taunton, with a total of 34 vehicles, of which some trucks were involved. According to eyewitnesses in the result of the impact resulted in a large fireball that burned some vehicles. According to police, seven dead and 51 injured were reported. The cause has been interpreted as unclear: according to several sources, it can act to dense fog, drizzle and consequently inappropriate driving or even smoke from a fireworks event of a local rugby club, which reduced visibility to a few meters. A 60 meter long, damaged by the fire track piece had to be notinstandgesetzt before the highway in the evening of November 6 was reopened in both directions.