PLANNING to load up the car this Easter weekend?

Around 15 million leisure car journeys are expected to be taken in the run-up to Good Friday, with a further 12 million across the bank holiday weekend itself, new figures from the RAC show. 

On Good Friday alone around 4.4m journeys are expected to be taken by road and with the forecast for blue skies and sunshine, you don't want to be stuck in trafffic.

Data from mobility analytics provider INRIX indicates that jams will peak on Good Friday, with major routes clogging up between 11am and 4.30pm.

While the worst delays are not expected in the immediate area, if you're travelling further afield this weekend to visit family there are plenty of routes to avoid.

The worst delays on Good Friday are expected on the M5 southbound, passing west of Bristol (J16 to J19) – part of the popular holiday route towards Devon and Cornwall – the M25 anticlockwise from Bromley (J4) through the Dartford Tunnel to the A13 (J30), the M6 north between Preston (J31) and Lancaster (J34), and the M62 west between Leeds (J27) and Manchester (J18) where delays of around an hour are expected.

Runcorn and Widnes World:

Credit: RAC

Dan Croft, Incident Group Operations Manager at INRIX, said: “Drivers in the UK are all too familiar with traffic jams. In fact, the average UK driver lost more than 170 hours to congestion last year. During peak hours over Easter, journeys could take UK drivers three times longer than usual.

"We are predicting Good Friday will be the worst for traffic from late morning into the afternoon. For drivers looking to avoid the worst congestion, the best options are to travel on Saturday, set off early in the morning and keep updated with real-time traffic data.”

Runcorn and Widnes World:

Runcorn and Widnes World:

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