The Paris mayor wants Car-free Days once a month.

Also, new fine for dropping cigarette butts in the French capital as the government makes it easier to ban cars during pollution peaks. Two migrants killed in two days in Calais as train drivers say they have had enough.

.

PARIS CAR-FREE DAYS TO BECOME MONTHLY

More Car-Free days, fines for fag butts and easier car bans on pollution days.

Photo @DriveEurope

Last Sunday’s Car-free Day in Paris will become a monthly affair if the mayor has her way.

The French capital was one of many European towns and cities to ban private motorised transport from at least some streets on one day last week to mark ‘Mobility Week’.

Speaking on twitter on Tuesday, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said, ‘We might consider more frequent car free delivery days. A monthly basis could be imagined.’

There is no indication yet when the monthly car bans could be introduced – or what regulatory hoops she would have to jump through to make it happen – but Hidalgo did also confirm that the Car-free Day will definitely be held next year, possibly in the whole of Paris.

This year’s event was concentrated in the very centre of the city plus the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes park areas.

Traffic in the rest of the city was ‘strongly advised’ to keep to a 20kmh maximum speed.

Official figures published on Monday said pollution was cut by somewhere between 20% and 40% while traffic was down by a precise 42%.

.

It will be another month at least until the A75 in the south of France fully reopens according to local reports. A large section of the toll-free, government-operated autoroute between the Millau Bridge and Beziers, at Lodeve, washed away during sustained heavy rain last month. Two lanes on the northbound carriageway reopened within a couple of days but the southbound remains completely shut, albeit with a diversion.

.

roundup: PARIS. As of today (1 October) dropping cigarette butts in Paris will be punished by a €68 fine. Officials say 350 tonnes of ‘megots’ are dropped in the city each year. POLLUTION. Ecology minister Segolene Royal has reportedly ‘softened’ her stance on the so-called ‘alternating traffic’ during pollution peaks in Paris. Instead of waiting for the peak to occur, the measure – which bans around half of locally registered cars from the city depending on the odd or even number at the end of the registration plate – will be introduced ahead of forecasted peak days. The government had been accused to being too timid in introducing alternating traffic on previous occasions. MIGRANT CRISIS. A second migrant in two days has been found dead in Calais after attempting to reach the UK. An Eritrean man was found beside the Eurostar tracks early yesterday morning. Less than twenty four hours before, a 20 year old Iraqi man was crushed to death by pallets in the back of a UK-bound truck. Four migrants have now died in the past two weeks and thirteen since June according to reports. In a letter seen by AFP, Eurostar train drivers said today, ‘We do not want to, and above all cannot, continue to do our job in such conditions of stress, anxiety and stomach-clenching fear.’ Eurostar services were briefly suspended last night after it was feared another migrant had been killed though it later turned out to have been a wildboar on the tracks.

.

Quiet literally exhausted after a long summer of strike and migrant action – and holiday traffic – @DriveEurope is taking a break, to drive in Europe. See more about the plan here (basically the French Alps and Pyrenees, with the dog). Regular service resumes on Monday 27 September. In the meantime, see Traffic/Travel/Weather for what’s happening on the ground – or here for a closer look at France – or read on for what’s happening while we are away:

.

The third week of September is ‘European Mobility Week’ and many towns and cities mark the occasion with ‘Car-free Days’. Highest profile among them is Paris on 27 September though Brussels also holds its now-traditional event the Sunday beforehand. Otherwise Tuesday 22 September is the day when more than 1000 cities – in Austria, Hungary and Spain, particularly – rope off at least one street to cars, often considerably more. See more here, or the list of participants here. Photo @Paris

.

Traffic: there are famously no traffic warnings anywhere in France for the whole of September. Germany has also settled down after the summer with only regular weekend warnings until the end of the month. The worst is behind Switzerland too, even at the Gotthard Tunnel (see below), while Saturday 12 September is the final day of summer traffic in Austria, as is Saturday 19 September in Italy.

However, the Gotthard Tunnel is closed for overnight maintenance 19:30-05:00 every Monday-Thursday this month, up until Tuesday 29 September (see Sanierung des Gotthardstrassentunnels pdf).

The Mont Blanc Tunnel closes in both directions overnight – 22:00-06:00 – on Monday 14 September for maintenance and Monday 21 September for a safety exercise. Also overnight alternating traffic – 22:30-06:00 – Tuesday to Thursday, 15-17 September for maintenance.

Wednesday 16 September: taxi drivers will hold another demonstration against Uber in Brussels. Protestors from France, Spain, Portugal and Germany are also expected to attend. Starts 10:30 at the North Station and makes its way to the European quarter in the east, the same route as the recent farmer protest.

.

It’s easier to get to than the Schlumpf Collection in Mulhouse – and housed beside the spectacular Cinquantenaire arch in east Brussels – so, among British enthusiasts anyway, Autoworld is increasingly carving out a name for itself among the top rank of European motoring museums. Following a successful Jaguar retrospective, next up is an exhibition of 50 Years of the Porsche Targa (until 1 November), a highpoint of which is the ‘Targa and Coffee’ event on Sunday 27 September with a doubtless hugely photogenic display of owner’s cars outside.

.

Despite repeated requests, we failed to get an answer from the authorities on what was happening at the infamous frontier in Gibraltar since a new e-Border system was installed on the Spanish side recently. One haulier told us he’d been advised to use a local firm for the crossing since UK trucks were subject to particularly lengthy checks. For the record, our impression is that things have settled down again. However, from Friday 11 September there certainly will be disruption as the airport runway is resurfaced (for the first time in 23 years) says GBC News – vehicles cross the runway to get in and out of Gibraltar. It is being replaced fifty meters at a time overnight for the following six weeks with a sweep scheduled for 08:30-10:00 in the morning before it reopens to planes during the day. Drivers are warned of lengthy delays. Photo Gibrltar Government Flickr.

.

Dieppe gives itself over for three days over this weekend to mark sixty years of making Alpine sports cars in the town (see more, French only). It’s not clear yet whether owner Renault will use the occasion, as originally expected, to show the latest version of the new A120, due to go on sale next year. Meanwhile, the surprisingly pretty port gained another new lease of life recently when it was confirmed its four-hour ferry link to Newhaven will continue next year. Photo @DriveEurope.

.

More bumper results for cross-Channel operators despite – and because of – strikes and migrants in Calais. There are also potentially more strikes for them to look forward to.

Also, police seatbelt checks across Europe this week. Food trucks stopped heading into Italy. New tunnel for closed Grenoble-Briancon road. Good news for commuters during the next tractor protest, in Belgium anyway.

.

CALAIS CRISIS GREAT FOR BUSINESS

Brittany Ferries, Eurotunnel and P&O all see record results this summer.

Photo @UKinFrance

Who would have thought a long summer of strikes in Calais, and disruption from migrants, would be so good for business?

Many of the operators reported decent results last month but it seems the good times have continued right through the summer.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Brittany Ferries – which doesn’t sail between Dover and Calais – had it busiest summer ever. Passenger numbers were up eight percent over last year to more than half a million.

It says its main base in Portsmouth – from where it sails to western France, and Spain – is now seen as the most accessible alternative to Dover.

Meanwhile, despite an AA survey in late August which said more than 50% of those planning to go to France via Calais had changed plans due to the migrant crisis, Eurotunnel and P&O both saw bumper numbers of passengers too.

Interestingly however, neither put figures to their recent freight business.

The Channel Tunnel operator said it topped last year’s record by carrying 658,000 passenger vehicles in July and August.

It also had its best ever single day on Saturday 15 August with 17,000 vehicles, and its busiest weekend in 21 years on 29-31 August when 1000 vehicles per hour used the Le Shuttle service.

Similarly, P&O transported 1.117m people between Dover and Calais in August on its 58 sailings per day. That’s up 2.5% on last year and the highest monthly figure since 2003, it says.

In light of all this, the operators must be keeping everything crossed the strikers make good on the threats they made earlier this week.

Union boss Eric Vercoutre told the BBC that if the workers do not receive the redundancy packages as promised on 1 October (Thursday) they will blockade the port again.

.

It’s TISPOL Seatbelt week, when police forces across Europe are on the lookout for drivers who aren’t strapped in. Police say unbelted drivers are twice as likely to die in a collision. The campaign runs from today until Sunday (13 September). Photo @DGTes

.

roundup: ITALY. Farmers have stopped trucks on the A22 Brennero autostrada south of the Austrian border. Rolling road blocks were set up overnight according to Trasporto Europa with farmers looking particularly for milk tankers and vehicles carrying refrigerated meat. Farmers are concerned that imported ingredients are being re-labelled ‘Made in Italy’. However, there have been no significant delays so far today on the a22 southbound. FRANCE. A new tunnel will be dug at Lake Chambon to replace the one damaged by a landslide in April and which has closed the Grenoble-Briancon road at that point ever since. The new tunnel is expected to open to traffic in late 2016 and cost up to €25m says AutorouteInfo. Meanwhile, work continues on a new bypass road around the lake, due to open in late October. In the meantime, the detours are all long-winded and/or expensive: on the N85/N84 via Gap, the A43 via the Frejus Tunnel, or a succession of the Alps’ highest mountain roads. See more. BELGIUM. Protesting farmers from around the Continent who clogged roads into Brussels from Sunday night – and rioted in the city centre on Monday afternoon – will be prosecuted for driving on the motorways. Police had agreed beforehand that tractors would be escorted on main roads but they took to the motorways instead, especially east of the capital. They will now all be issued with fines reports Deredactie.de. Exactly as in Paris last Thursday, the demonstration came to a premature end after the authorities, the European Commission in this case, rushed out an emergency aid package, totalling €500m on this occasion.

.

Iceland, Italy, Portugal, Germany and even Spain all record rises in road deaths this year.

It seems the French were right and there is a Continent-wide problem.

.

‘Inexperience with Icelandic conditions’ saw the number of foreign tourists injured in car accidents jump 40% last year to a record 143. Half of them ran off the road reports Iceland Review, with many were not wearing seatbelts. It’s not clear whether the blizzard-hit, incident packed international launch of the Land Rover Discovery Sport, above, has anything to do with it. Photo Land Rover.

It’s true – France is not the only country struggling with road safety this year.

Earlier this month – when French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve revealed road deaths in July rose by 19.2% – about the only factor in his favour was the claim that fatalities across the Continent has also risen, by 7% he said.

Figures now emerging from around Europe show he is likely correct. Portugal, Italy and Iceland have all shown substantial rises in road deaths while they have also risen in Spain and Germany, and apparently ‘stagnated’ in Belgium.

Road safety is a big deal in Spain these days with high-profile MP grillings of road boss María Seguí Gómez followed by TV press conferences.

Spain is steadily closing on Europe’s leaders – the UK, Sweden, Netherlands and Denmark – so a rise in fatalities this summer, albeit by just 2.3%, is a big deal, especially since it is the first rise since 2006.

Gomez pointed to a 3.4% increase in the amount of traffic on the road, but also an increase in the average age of vehicles involved in fatal accidents – from 10.4 years to 11.7 years – plus an ‘unbelievable’ thirty deaths where seatbelts were not used.

More than a quarter of deaths were on sections of road already identified as dangerous says El Pais.

However, it is the Italian figures which bolster Cazeneuve’s case the best. Fatal accidents to and from the summer holidays this July and August were up 15.7% compared to last year reports ANSA.it.

Over in Portugal, road deaths have risen by 10% in the first eight months of the year says The Portugal News, in some places by just under 80% compared to last year.

The news is better in Germany where the number of people who died in traffic accidents in the first half of this year was up 1.4% on the same period in 2014 according to the federal statistics office.

Meanwhile, a rise of 0.7% in the number of deaths on Belgian roads is hailed as a good result.

Deaths in Flanders, in the north, fell by 3% but rose by 5.1% in Wallonia in the south and remained stable in Brussels.

After calling 2014’s results ‘disastrous’, Flemish Minister for Mobility Ben Weyts told Deredactie, ’The good results of 2015 should be the beginning of the turnaround. There will a Flemish traffic safety plan with far-reaching measures in the areas of prevention and enforcement.’

While each country has its own reasons for declining road safety, it is telling the problem seems to be Europe-wide, particularly in the context of a long term trend of sharply reducing fatal road accidents.

The typically thoroughly-analysed Spanish situation seems to provide the best clues: increasing traffic as the economy starts to grow again combined with a still-aged car fleet, and roads lacking investment in recent years.

See more about 2014’s road safety statistics across Europe.

Update 8 September: the promised ‘Inter-Ministerial Road Safety Council’ meeting in France – the first meeting in four years, this one chaired by Prime Minister Manuel Valls – will be held on Friday 2 October. According to Autoroutes the figures for August, to be released in the next few days, are also ‘not good’.

Our prediction for this important meeting is that otherwise-effective Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve – he also of the Calais Migrant Crisis – will lose responsibility for road safety. Meanwhile, he has promised to respond to the on-going situation on French roads ‘with firmness’.

Update 9 September: road deaths rose by 9.5% in August according to Securite Routiere. Full details to be published at a later date.

.

More than 1500 tractors descend on Paris. In general however, the protest has not been that disruptive which – perhaps – bodes well for a repeat demonstration in Brussels on Monday.

Also, F1 racer Daniel Ricciardo recreates a classic Targa Florio.

.

PARIS TRACTORS HEAD TO BRUSSELS NEXT

Roads out of Paris likely clogged after 16:00 local time ahead of similar Brussels protest next week.

Tractors head into Paris this morning, and will head out again this evening. Photo @FNSEA

The organisers claim 1733 tractors assembled in the Place de la Nation in Paris today.

Police put the figure at 1365 tractors and 49 buses (later updated to 1580 tractors, 91 buses and 4500 farmers).

Either way that is a considerable number of – slow-moving – vehicles to return to the provinces tonight and tomorrow.

The demonstration was expected to last until 20:00 this evening – with vehicles heading out tonight or tomorrow – but motorway operators told motorists this afternoon to leave the city before 16:00 to avoid convoys of tractors on the way home (update 18:00BST – the tractors have started to leave Place de la Nation it doesn’t seem that many have taken to the major roads as yet).

The protest is over low prices for farm produce and is a continuation of road blocks carried out around the country over the past month.

One thousand tractors were originally expected to attend but that had swollen to more than 1500 by yesterday as farmers made their way to the capital.

According to Sanef Autoroutes, a 165-strong convoy approached the capital on the A4 east of the city this morning with another 250 on the A13 to the west and 350 on the A1 in the north.

More vehicles entered Ile de France from the south west on the A11 and A28 from Le Mans, and from the south on the A10 from Orleans and A6/A77 from Nevers though operator Vinci Autoroutes did not say how many.

Despite this considerable number of vehicles – apart from first thing this morning as tractors poured into the city from all directions – the protest has not, overall, been that disruptive to traffic.

The farmers in general have been quite respectful of other road users and have stayed in the outside lane on autoroutes mostly. There certainly haven’t been the massive queues, or blockades, seen on previous farmer demonstrations.

This – might – bode well for two similar protests due to be held in Brussels on Monday (7 September), from 10:00.

Around 1500 dairy farmers, and ‘hundreds’ of tractors, from around the EU will protest at the Schuman roundabout in the European quarter to the east of the city centre.

Another group of 3000 European farmers – and ‘several hundreds’ of tractors – will demonstrate between the North Station to the Schuman rounabout.

Quite how that many tractors are going to get to the Belgian capital in the first place, and where they are coming from, is not completely clear yet (@TRAFnord warns of disruption through Lille on Monday).

Meanwhile, Brussels Police warn about heavy traffic congestion in the city centre, the small R20 ‘pentagon’ ring road and the European quarter. See more at Brussels.be.

.

F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo has recreated the Targa Florio scenes from classic sportscar documentary Speed Merchant. His Red Bull boss Helmut Marko was actually at the wheel of the Alfa Romeo T33 during the making of the original film in 1972, and set the course record. The 72km circuit starts on the coast, east of Palermo then winds through the Madonie Mountains. See more on the Targa Florio, or more on Ricciardo’s trip at Red Bulletin.

.

Slovenia catches up with neighbouring Austria with a new website for its Solcava Panoramic Road.

Would make a great day trip between Klagenfurt and Trieste.

.

The Logar Valley on Slovenia’s Solcava Panoramic Road. More photos and map below.

Slovenia has taken a leaf out of Austria’s book with the new website and branding for its Solcava Panoramic Road.

Exactly like Silvretta, Grossglockner and Nockalmstrasse, the site pulls together all the attractions and info on the surrounding area into one slick – English-language – package.

Unlike those other alpine passes however, there isn’t a road toll.

Tight up against the Austrian border, in the Kamnik-Savinja Alps – part of the Southern Limestone Alps Slovenia shares with its northern neighbour and Italy – Solcava winds 37km in total, 21km for the main route plus three off-shoots.

High points include the alpine village Solcava itself, several of Slovenia’s characteristic B&B tourist farms and the Logar Valley, above, called ‘the most beautiful alpine valley in Slovenia’.

Otherwise, it could be part of an awesome day trip from the southern Austrian city of Klagenfurt, just fifty miles away.

The route would include the 1218m B82 Seeburgsattel and 1338m Pavlic Passes and, on the way back, the infamous Loibl Pass, star of the 1913 Alpine Trial where Rolls-Royce first earned the title ‘The Best Car in the World’.

Meanwhile, Slovenia’s castle-dominated capital Ljubljana is just forty five miles south, and the storied Italian coastal city of Trieste is only sixty miles further west (drivers using Slovenia’s motorways need to buy the vignette).

We of course are yet to have the pleasure of driving Solcava but, having driven in Slovenia a few times now, we won’t hesitate the next time we are in the area.

For more information see Solcavska-Panoramska-Cesta.si

.

Solcava village.

A (usually closed) section of the original Loibl Pass, as used on the 2013 centenary re-enactment of the 1913 Alpine Trial. Photo courtesy of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.

.

An end could be in sight to the summer-long MyFerryLink strike in Calais.

Also, new sculpture, and 911, for Porscheplatz in Stuttgart. Farmers mobilise in France ahead of big demo in Paris on Thursday.

.

AN END TO MYFERRYLINK DISPUTE?

Most workers re-employed and ships handed to DFDS on Wednesday.

Photo @DriveEurope

Peace has finally broken out, it seems, between the players involved in the MyFerryLink dispute which has plagued ferry services all summer.

After the second meeting in a week at the French ministry of Transport in Paris, DFDS, Eurotunnel and the SCOP-Sea France union agreed a package of measures to end the dispute.

In a statement, the minister for Transport Alain Vidalies said 402 workers out of the 487 employed by MyFerryLink would get new jobs with either DFDS or Eurotunnel. The remainder will be compensated if still unemployed by next January.

However, as the BBC points out, none of those jobs will be for the British workers.

Meanwhile, the two former-MFL ferries, occupied in Calais harbour since June, will be handed over to DFDS on Wednesday morning (2 September) at 09:00.

DFDS says, ‘Contingent on the time of delivery from Eurotunnel, the ferries are expected to be deployed during Q4 2015 on Dover-Calais together with Calais Seaways and the route will therefore be operated by three ferries compared to two ferries today.’

The deal comes a day after yet another wildcat strike by MyFerryLink workers which closed Calais port for six hours overnight on one of the busiest return days of the year.

Aside from whether the terms of the deal are observed by all the parties, much might depend on the attitude of the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) which previously barred Eurotunnel from operating ferries from Dover.

The CMA is yet to respond to a request for comment.

.

Porsche unveiled a new sculpture on Porscheplatz outside the factory and museum in Stuttgart last night, and with it the new facelifted version of the 911.

.

roundup: FRANCE. After some quiet weeks, attention shifts back to the farmer protests ahead of a huge demonstration in Paris on Thursday. ‘1000 tractors and thousands of farmers will be mobilized in Paris on 3 September. The French Agriculture will be at the rendezvous of its future,’ says union leader Xavier Beulin this morning. The tractors are already on their way; columns of slow moving vehicles have been seen already today on the N12 in Brittany, heading east on the N12 at Morlaix and Saint-Brieuc. They are expected on the A84 and A13 later according to TransportOnline.nl with tractors from other parts of the country – particularly the A1 from Lille, A4 from Strasbourg and A10/A11 from Bordeaux – clogging roads over the next few days. They will all head home, of course, on Friday.

According to France24, the plan on Thursday is to hold a go-slow on the Paris peripherique before assembling at the Place de la Nation to the east of the cty centre.

.

Austria’s gruelling migrant operation could last ‘indefinitely’, and target any road.

Also, a quick look at Italy’s isolated Colle del Nivolet. And, MyFerryLink workers strike again ahead of French PM visit.

.

MIGRANT DELAYS HUNGARY-AUSTRIA

Large scale police searches trigger massive tailbacks on Budapest-Vienna motorway.

The Austrian border on the M1-A4 motorway from Budapest. Photo @DriveEurope

Queues topped thirty miles this morning, and delays more than three hours, as Austria introduced security checks on vehicles entering the country on the M1-A4 motorway from Hungary.

The moves comes after 71 migrants were found dead in the back of a truck on the A4 last week.

Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said, ‘It involves no border controls but targeted police controls and investigation measures to be carried out indefinitely.’

Not just trucks but any vehicles capable of hiding stowaways are being pulled over for searches.

Within the first few hours, police say they apprehended five traffickers and discovered two hundred migrants.

Today’s operation targets the M1-A4 but similar controls could be carried out on other cross-border routes, and other transit roads towards Germany, in the coming days.

Mikl-Leitner said the operation was being carried out with the co-operation of Hungary and neighbouring Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

Meanwhile, national network manager ASFINAG is setting up new LED information boards mounted on trailers to warn drivers about migrants on the roads.

Traffickers are known to dump migrants soon after crossing the border, even on motorways in the middle of the night.

The boards will appear alongside the northbound A4 to Vienna, and A6 to the capital from Slovakia, activated by 24 hour patrols by road staff.

.

It didn’t do the car much good but, ever since the launch of the ‘disappointing’ Alfa Romeo 4C in October 2013, Colle del Nivolet has been near the top of our mountain road bucket list. It is however quite difficult to get to. The dead-end pass, which tops out at 2641m, and weaves its way between several storage lakes, right on the border of Aosta and Piedmont in north east Italy, is only accessible from the Turin side, just over 80km from the Mont Blanc A5 autostrada at Ivrea, via SP222, SP460 and the pass road itself SP50. In the meantime we content ourselves with this webcam view from the Rifugio Savoia hostel beside Lago Nivolet, right at the very, very top.

.

roundup: CROSSING THE CHANNEL. Ahead of a visit to Calais and Eurotunnel today by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls – and another meeting between DFDS, Eurotunnel and the MyFerryLink union in Paris this afternoon – strikers blockaded Calais port for six hours overnight, stranding passengers on one of the biggest return days of the year. During his visit, Valls announced a new migrant centre with 1500 beds – three times the size of the notorious Sangatte camp closed in 2002 – using €5m from the EU. Eurotunnel welcomed the visit saying, ‘The French and British governments have provided a practical and immediately effective response to the security needs of the terminal at Coquelles.’ It added that a ‘long term solution’ is now in place to secure the SNCF-Reseau freight yard at Calais-Frethun, the source of last week’s renewed attempts by migrants to access the Channel Tunnel.

.

More unexpectedly light traffic in France for the ‘great return’, even as an angry mob blocks the major A1 Paris-Lille.

Also, Fiat debuts a go-anywhere campervan concept using already-available all-drive hardware.

.

‘ANGRY GYPSIES’ BLOCK A1 PARIS-LILLE

But major delays on otherwise quiet ‘great return’ day.

Repairing the A1 carriageway, via @sanef_autoroute

A mob of what was described as ‘angry gypsies’ blocked the A1 between Paris and Lille in both directions last night (Friday).

Trees were felled across access roads and tyres and pallets burned right across the carriageway south of the A29 Amiens-Saint Quentin motorway.

Drivers were stranded for several hours as diversion routes quickly became jammed.

The blockades were lifted late this morning (Saturday) but repairs to the carriageway meant the road only reopened in stages, starting southbound, from mid-afternoon.

Full circulation was finally restored at 20:00 local time since when the road has operated normally.

The protest comes in the wake of a tragic shooting incident at the traveller camp in Roye on Tuesday.

A baby, a policeman and two others were killed.

Demonstrators want the son of one of the victims released from prison to attend the funeral, planned for Monday (31 August).

Drivers had been warned to expect more trouble in the area until then but a court in Amiens granted the protestor’s request this afternoon.

Meanwhile, even the substantial jams around the A1 failed to lift what had been billed as the ‘great return’, beyond the distinctly average.

The last weekend before the schools go back had been expected to see very busy roads but in the event combined queues totalled 470km at midday today, less even than the 550km recorded on Friday afternoon.

With the roads noticeably busy from Thursday onwards, it seems – as on so many other heavily hyped summer Saturdays this year especially – drivers took notice of warnings and changed their travel plans.

.

Fiat is showing an off-road concept version of its Ducato motorhome at Caravan Salon, kicking off today in Dusseldorf. Called the Ducato 4×4 Expedition, it is based on the 6.45m model and comes with two bedrooms and four seats and is powered by a 150bhp 2.3 diesel engine with 350Nm of torque. The black gloss and aluminium interior was built by Tecnoform while the mechanical conversion was carried out by Dangel. Such a camper is unlikely ever to go on sale – at least in such outlandish form – but Dangel is already capable of installing the four wheel drive system. Count on six weeks and up to €9000 to do the work.

.

A truck containing the bodies of ‘dozens’ of migrants is found on the A4 to Vienna.

Also, in an up and down week for Belgium, a parking-eye view of the amazing Atomium in Brussels.

.

AUSTRIA MIGRANT TRUCK TRAGEDY

Dozens of migrants dead inside truck parked on A4 to Vienna.

Photo Burgenland Politzei

The truck containing the bodies of dozens of migrants found beside the A4 in Austria today may have been there for several days.

Police were alerted at 11:30 this morning to the 7.5 tonne refrigerated Volvo, parked in an emergency layby off the A4 towards Vienna near Parndorf.

The vehicle was first spotted by staff from national roads manager ASFINAG yesterday.

Channel 4 Lindsey Hilsum journalist drove past just afterwards and said there was a ‘terrible smell of death in the air’.

Police are still not sure exactly how many bodies are inside but say it could be as many as fifty, all believed suffocated.

With ‘putrefaction liquid’ having leaked from the rear door, according to the police statement, the migrants are likely to have died long before the vehicle was parked.

The truck remained in place until late afternoon with traffic allowed to pass on the outer lane.

The 7.5 tonne refrigerated Volvo is Hungarian registered but has the livery of Slovakian chicken processor Hyza.

A statement on Hyza’s Facebook page denied the firm has anything to do with the incident.

It says the company trucks are equipped with GPS and are all currently in Slovakia. The vehicle in question was one of a batch of twenty sold in 2013-14 to seven other Slovak firms it says.

Meanwhile, the driver fled the scene and is still at large. Austrian and Hungarian police have launched a joint manhunt.

.

It’s been Belgium week, one way and another, what with the farmer protests, Grand Prix and new truck safety study/Highway Code (and congestion rankings), so Throw Back Thursday is this from December 2013, parked underneath the Atomium in north Brussels, just inside the ring road. Built for the 1958 Word Fair, the 335ft high model of an iron crystal is a museum day to day. Each of the aluminium-clad spheres are connected by escalators with a panoramic restaurant at the top. Photo @DriveEurope

.