After last week we hesitate to call panic stations, but – while they might not be record breaking – the roads will be very busy this weekend. The good news is that the season is almost over.

Also, catching up with last week’s Ennstal Classic. Swiftly developing anti-terror measures for cross-Channel ferries – in French waters, anyway. Jenson Button speeding in Monaco not. Germany favours roads over rail while Spain does not.

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BLACK SATURDAY 2: FRANCE AND ITALY

Extra busy roads this weekend again, but season nearly over.

Traffic starts early on Black Saturday and can last until late.

After last week’s damp squib, drivers could be forgiven for thinking the hype over Black Saturdays was overdone.

Make no mistake however – 688km of jams is still an exceptional level of traffic in France, albeit substantially down on the record 994km set in 2014.

Bear in mind too that the second summer Black Saturday is traditionally the busier. And whereas last week’s return traffic was only ‘red’ it is ‘black’ this weekend – especially from the south east coast towards Paris.

Anyone driving on the major routes this weekend, south or north, should be ready for major delays.

Having said that, the pattern so far this year – and last – suggests drivers are avoiding the worst days.

The misery has been spread over the long weekend making for busy Mondays the past couple of weeks (though Sundays have been pretty quiet).

Meanwhile, there is only a narrow black band at the Mont Blanc Tunnel from France to Italy, early to mid-afternoon Saturday, but traffic is starting to build in the other direction, to a peak in late August.

The situation in France might be uncertain but Italy Is likely to deliver a classic Black Saturday this weekend, its sole super-busy day of the year.

The three roads to watch are the A1 Milan-Bologna, the A14 Bologna-Rimini and – particularly – the A4 Venice-Trieste, plus the A22 Brennero Innsbruck-Verona in both directions and the A10 and A12 either side of Genoa.

Like in France, the action in Italy starts early but goes on much later.

It will be another bad weekend on German roads too, but the good news is that it is the last one of the summer.

In theory anyway, from next weekend the roads should start to markedly improve. But beware, last year German holiday traffic also dragged on for longer than expected.

Peak traffic in Austria was last weekend – and was also much quieter than expected – but there are still another couple of busy ones ahead before the end of the season.

Traffic will be heaviest cross-border with Germany and Slovenia as drivers head home.

As ever, delays at the Switzerland’s Gotthard Tunnel will be hours long in both directions Friday to Monday.

Unlike most other European countries, holiday queues are set to continue for a fair few weeks yet… 

Information: keep abreast of the latest situation in France on 107.7fm which has regular traffic news roundups in English, or see real time info at the Bison Fute website (or its new app). Invaluable on the major roads in the south is Vinci Autoroutes’ delay graphic, tweeted hourly on Black Saturday. See also @SANEF_1077 for the situation in the north and west. @DriveEurope also updates traffic info every 90 minutes from 05:00, plus breaking news. Also see the latest FCO travel advice @BritishinFrance. Trucks are banned from French roads on Saturday (from 07:00-19:00) – as is ‘collective transport of children’ in vehicles with 9+ seats. See more truck bans at Trafficban.com.

Catch up with what happened on Europe’s roads last weekend plus likely hotspots in France, and elsewhere in Europe.

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What with everything going on recently, last week’s Ennstal Classic seems to have slipped through the net. The best-of-the-best-of-the-best classic car rally was run, as ever, on the roads around Grobming and Schladming in central Austria. Most of the 30 stages are secret, and take in the narrowest, most remote roads, but headline passes this year included Stoderzinken, Nockalm and Tauplitzalm. Priceless participants included a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, Mark Webber in a 1960 Porsche RS 60 Spyder and, our favourite, this 1957 BMW 507. See more photos at Ennstal-Classic.at, or find the mountain roads at PassFinder. Photo Martin Huber for Ennstal Classic.

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roundup: from rumours at the weekend that special police units had been moved to Channel ports in France, to yesterday’s – apparently – live exercise on board a Brittany Ferries boat, now confirmation overnight that armed ‘sea marshals’ are about to be deployed on board cross-Channel ferries. ‘A permanent unit has been deployed for passenger ferries since August 1,’ Lieutenant Pierre-Joachim Antona told AFP. ‘The marine gendarmes will carry out patrols, which will be random but regular, with the aim of securing these vessels against the terrorist threat’. He says the armed patrols would be similar to those in train stations. France and the UK are apparently in talks about expanding the patrols’ beyond French territorial waters, in which case there could be a permanent security presence on board… reports that Jenson Button was stopped for speeding in Monaco are unfounded says @McLarenF1. ‘Monaco police do random checks,’ tweeted the Formula One team. ‘JB showed his licence & that was the end of it.’ The Daily Mirror printed pictures of Button at the wheel of a black Mercedes C63 estate ‘looking stern’. You wonder why McLaren would bother to rebut it – Button’s £500 fine for driving at 144mph near Montpellier in a BMW 330d in 2000 – worth just £780 now according to This Is Money – was widely regarded as a boon to the then fledgling driver’s career. Were he to be caught at that speed these days his licence and car would be taken away and the on-the-spot €1500 fine would be a deposit pending a court appearance… public consultation on Germany’s new 2030 infrastructure plan has added €5.1 billion to the total bill, mainly for rail, transport minister Alexander Dobrindt announced today. Spending for the next fifteen years now comes to €269.6 billion on 1000 projects – 49.3 percent of which will go to roads (compared to 41.6 percent to rail), split 69:31 maintenance: new build, on the principle ‘preservation before construction’; 75:25 goes to national: local projects. Around 2000km of bottlenecks will be eliminated. The plan goes before Cabinet in August. See more at BVWP2030.de. Meanwhile in Spain, roads spending has dropped to the lowest level in three decades reports El Pais as rail spending is preserved. Road funding fell to 0.45 percent of GDP in 2013 and further since then. Road building got 85 percent less cash last year than in 2008 while maintenance was down 59 percent. Another €600 million was cut from the €2.1 billion budget in April. The money is taken from roads to protect the rail budget says the paper quoting an economics professor saying, ‘It is powerfully striking how they’ve tried to protect the railroad system from the cuts.’

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Koenigsegg hasn’t made very many cars, so the 16 which turned out for the very first owners’ event – a loop of southern Sweden via Copenhagen and the Bjare Peninsula – made up a significant proportion of its lifetime production.

Also, call for Calais to close overnight after latest port road incidents. Sea Marshals dropped onto Brittany Ferries boat in security exercise. Plan to improve traffic flow on Brussels ring road. Mercedes rolls out downloadable tour plans.

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ON TOUR WITH KOENIGSEGG IN SOUTHERN SWEDEN

First ever owner’s tour takes in the scenic and otherwise peaceful Bjare Peninsula.

Photo @Koenigsegg – see more photos.

Just over 10 percent of Koenigsegg’s lifetime production assembled in downtown Copenhagen last month for the megacar manufacturer’s first ever owners’ gathering, a tour of southern Sweden and Denmark’s Zeeland island.

Ten percent of Koenigsegg production is sixteen cars.

It is always interesting to see the roads car makers use to show off their products.

In this case, after a night at Copenhagen’s Hotel d’Angleterre, the party crossed over to nearby southern Sweden on the always spectacular Oresund Link – including a ‘minor delay’ at the enduring border controls – before a country drive through rolling Skane, Sweden’s breadbasket, and landscapes familiar to Wallander fans, including the signature vast fields of sunflowers.

Rather than east to the TV detective’s hometown Ystad, the drivers went north to the scenic and otherwise peaceful Bjare Peninsula, home of the Koenigsegg factory at Angelholm Airport, and something of a millionaire’s playground.

Fifteen of the cars then enjoyed a session on Koenigsegg’s own test track.

After a back-road drive to the sports resort Bastad, owners assembled for the night at the Torekov Hotel and Spa.

This place must be really special if it was preferred it to the Skansen Hotel, on the beach in Bastad.

It’s one of the best hotels we’ve ever stayed in, also host of the Swedish Open tennis tournament with the sea view centre court incorporated into the hotel complex.

Torekov is at the westernmost end of Bjare looking out to Hallands Vadero island, the base for British sailors during the 1807 Battle of Copenhagen.

The bodies of those who died are buried outside the church walls because their religion was aid to be unknown.

Next day the Koenigsegg owners’ tour returned to Denmark by the alternative way across the Oresund, the Helsingborg-Helsingor ferry (Helsingor as in Elsinore from Shakespeare’s Hamlet).

They then turned south back towards Copenhagen, stopping at Kokkedal Castle for the final night, including dinner, dancing, singing, and polo.

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Porsche might have something to say but arguably Mercedes leads on driver services with its ‘experience centres’, ‘travel experiences‘ and classic car hire. It has now gone a step further with downloadable tour itineraries. There are 21 in total, fourteen of which are in Europe (and three, strangely, around Frankfurt – Spessart, Taunus and Wisper valley). Otherwise all the major road trip destinations are included from the Alps, Cote d’Azur, Tuscany, Spain (Malaga, pictured), Corsica, Portugal and Slovenia. The full download service which updates the vehicle’s satnav via a SIM card is only available to drivers with the Mercedes’ COMMAND infotainment system – but the maps and details are on the website for anyone keen to locate the best roads.

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roundup: a Belgian driver was threatened with a chainsaw as he tried to reach Calais port says the FTA Freight Transport Association. The man’s boss apparently begged authorities, ‘Please do something, there will be deaths. Our drivers are threatened every night.’ The FTA’s Chris Yarsley says, ‘Attacks like this are unacceptable and more needs to be done to protect drivers as they go about their work.’ Truck driver @Gromit came back through Calais early on Saturday morning and saw hay bales thrown on the road. He said police were dealing with the incident but that, ‘Unfortunately they were simply outnumbered. Calais port should be closed at night until safe passage assured…’ Such incidents are indeed almost nightly (as this report from France24 makes clear). Another horrifying recent incident included a Spanish trucker held at knifepoint for 90 minutes by migrants trying to stowaway. The advice continues to be to avoid the N216/A216 Calais port road ‘rocade’ overnight… Three armed French sea marshals were landed on a Brittany Ferries boat by helicopter in a security exercise as it crossed from Portsmouth to Caen. Passengers were alerted by tannoy. It comes after reports at the weekend security was being stepped up at the Channel in the face of a perceived terrorist threat. A Brittany Ferries spokesman told the Plymouth Herald, ‘Access to outside decks was not allowed at the time of the helicopter’s arrival. The security crew travelled with passengers to France, where they left the ship on foot. Security exercises like today’s on board Mont St Michel give Brittany Ferries an opportunity to practise its incident response in partnership with other agencies…’ Ahead of its full scale redevelopment starting in 2019, the Brussels R0 ring road is to have revamped lane marking at its major junctions E40, E19 and A12 to improve traffic flow reports Flanders Today. However, no time scale is mentioned.

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It was an IT failure which did it for for Dover passengers this weekend, after last week’s border queue chaos.

Also, Chris Meeke literally flies over Finland’s legendary Ouninpohja stage. And, it was a bad weekend for ports, coaches, and ports and coaches. 

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IT TROUBLE SPARKS MAJOR DOVER DELAY OVERNIGHT

Ironically, the big weekend getaway goes without a hitch after last week’s chaos.

Photo @Port_of_Dover

There was a beautiful sunrise over Dover this morning but it had been a torrid night for passengers.

A check-in system failure at DFDS late yesterday afternoon was only fixed at midnight.

DFDS said this morning, ‘Sincere apologies to all caught in traffic in and around Dover last night. IT issue meant it took longer than normal to check customers in.’

Queues built up on the A20 and A2 throughout the evening, topping out at five hours and 90 minutes respectively in the early hours.

Though the roads into the port cleared relatively quickly, drivers still faced a two hour delay in the port itself first thing – though that dropped to 90 minutes at 09:00.

Delays were completely gone by 10:30, and A20 TAP freight traffic management was lifted.

The big fear ahead of the weekend had been a repeat of last weekend’s border chaos in Dover which, ironically, passed off without major delay despite this weekend being one of the year’s busiest.

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British rally driver Chris Meeke was a incredible 13.8 seconds faster than his nearest rival on the legendary Ouninpohja stage on this weekend’s Rally Finland. Photo @FIA

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roundup: Dover wasn’t the only European port having a torrid time yesterday – 77 passengers were ‘forced to flee’ after WW2 ammunition exploded as they boarded a Corsica Line ferry to Sardinia in Marseille yesterday morning. The incident was first reported by Emergenza24 with the details fleshed out later by the Daily Mail. It comes after it emerged ‘dozens of reinforcements’ – police and soldiers – have been sent to Calais to prevent a possible ISIS terror outrage on board a UK-bound ferry. ‘An attack at sea on a ferry is something twisted terrorists want to do because they know the rescue would be slower than on dry land,’ a counter terror source told the Sunday Mirror. Photos last year showed British special forces training for a ferry hijack in Scotland. Meanwhile, it was also a bad weekend for coaches. A bus carrying Ukrainian tourists crashed and overturned on its way to Norway’s Trollstigen road on Saturday night. One man was killed and fourteen hospitalised says Kyiv Post. The incident occurred after the vehicle collided with a passenger car – driven by an off-duty police officer says The Local Norway – on the route 63 in Valldal valley 550km from Oslo, which leads to Trollstigen. Also on Saturday, Italian state police published a 3D video reconstruction of the 2013 Avellino coach disaster in which 40 people died. After crashing into a number of cars, the bus plunged 30m off a viaduct, apparently after a component failure. The day before, a Dutch coach driver got himself fired after being filmed playing Pokemon behind the wheel. The footage was downloaded more than 50 million times reports The Irish Times. Finally, a group of Asian tourists combined the weekend’s port and coach trouble. Their bus in Turku harbour, Finland, was target of a violent robbery on Sunday morning reports YLE News. The tour leader had €8000 cash stolen.

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LIVE BLOG AS FRANCE – AND THE REST OF EUROPE – HEADS OFF ON HOLIDAY: blow by blow on the quietest Black Saturday for five years.

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07:00BST: healthy amounts of traffic but no jams so far this morning on the A75 Millau Viaduct in the South of France – though queues are building on the A71/A75 past Clermont Ferrand 225km north. See the webcam at LeViacducDeMillau.com

16:00BST: with jams in France down now to 313km – and easily fitting into one tweet – that concludes our coverage of this disturbing Black Saturday – what was the problem? Security? The weather? Because so many people set off early? Whatever has affected France affected Austria too.  

14:30BST: it’s still quite busy in north Germnay, especially from Hamburg to Denmark on the A7. Otherwise, our traffic roundups are almost fitting on one tweet – unheard of on mid-afternoon on Black Saturday. In other news, Vladimir Putin has finally arrived on the Vrsic Pass in Slovenia – aka The Russian Road – where 100 Russian POWs died one hundred years ago in an avalanche. As soon as the Kremlin puts up the photos we’ll use them in a feature on this intriguing road.

13:00BST: official figures show a maximum of 670km of traffic jams in France today. While that is a lot, it is well down on the 880km of jams seen on the same day last year, and miles off the 994km set in 2014. Barring a last minute surge this is by far the quietest Black Saturday – summer or winter – in the three years we have been covering them. Dutch traffic monitor @VID says it is the quietest for five years. Let the post-mortem begin.

11:30BST: while we wait for the cumulative jam total in France, Austria roads manager ASFINAG announces ‘queues lengths are significantly lower than expected’. That said, there is a two hour delay southbound on the cross-border B179 Fernpass. Meanwhile, Putin is an hour late at the Vrsic Pass meaning the Karawanke Tunnel probably won’t open before 19:00CEST.

10:00BST: the flop sweat, see below, is hard to shake even as substantial delays build A10 Paris-Bordeaux-Spain and queues on the A20 at Limoges and A9 also to Spain join the party. The delay A7 to Avignon has edged back up to 2h30. It’s either a flop or drivers have set off much later this year.. (no, not that, please!). Meanwhile, even the queue southbound to the Gotthard Tunnel has dipped from its earlier high of 14km to 12km now, see picture below. The delay fell, to 1h45, at the Mont Blanc Tunnel too. Lastly a word on Italy – the A4 jam eastbound to Trieste (Slovenia and Croatia) is now 2h30 while there are proper delays at Bologna now; it’s been busy all day so far but only now are drivers waiting for more than 45mins after an accident at Imola.

08:30BST: after yesterday afternoon and evening was much quieter than expected, the feeling persists that this Black Saturday will be a flop, especially since delays A7 to Avignon have now pegged back slightly. Queues have built the whole length of A10 Paris-Bordeaux however, and on the A71>A75 past Clermont, the toll-free autoroute that proved so popular last year in barely post-recessionary France. A3 Wurzburg-Nuremberg has eased a bit too. Vinci Autoroutes’ drone views of traffic at strategic points on the network are proving to be a handy diversion as we wait to see how they day develops, see below.

07:00BST: half an hour has been added to the bell weather A7 Lyon>Avignon delay but queues have subsided slightly at the A10 Paris>Bordeaux Niort bottleneck south of Poitiers. Road works slow drivers on the A63 down to the Spanish border. The A3 Wurzburg>Nuremberg in Germany continues to take a hammering as the total delay on this strategic west-east stretch tops 2h45. A8 Munich-Salzburg has calmed at bit but the queue southbound to the Gotthard Tunnel is 14km – a two hour delay – while drivers wait 2h15 at the France side of the Mont Blanc Tunnel.

05:30BST: as expected, there were already substantial delays on the A7 Lyon>Avignon first thing this morning. Dutch traffic monitor @VID reported 60km of queues even before sun rise. By 05:30BST the total delay was two hours according to TomTom, mainly to Valence. Meanwhile, there was already at 60min queue at the A10 Paris-Bordeaux peage bottleneck at Niort and traffic was building on the A71/A75 past Clermont Ferrand. In Germany, the cross-country A3 was busy past Wurzburg and, particularly, at the road works out of Nuremberg, plus, as ever, the A8 eastbound Munich-Salzburg. Drivers waited for an hour southbound at the Karawanke Tunnel, Austria-Slovenia, hoping to get through before it shuts at 09:00CEST ahead of Vladimir Putin’s visit to Vrsic Pass.

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09:00BST: Vinci Autoroutes’ drone views of traffic around the network are fascinating. This is Peage de Virsac just north of Bordeaux on the A10, the southbound lanes on the left hand side. Note the much quieter queue on the far left for the free-flow auto toll tag lanes (see more at SANEF Tolling UK). 

10:00BST: there was a substantial queue southbound to Switzerland’s Gotthard Tunnel overnight, edging up to 14km mid-morning, a delay of more than two hours. Since then however, it has fallen to a mere 12km. Northbound currently stands at 7km, 1h50. Drivers are still advised however to divert via A13 San Bernardino. Keep an eye on Gotthard queues at the TCS website, or see @TCSGotthard on twitter.

11:30BST: queues in Austria might be significantly lower than expected but vignette-dodgers have still clogged the B179 Fernpass southbound causing delays of more than 2h00. Drivers do not need the motorway vignette on the single-lane cross-border road between Germany’s fairytale Neuschwanstein Castle to just to the west of Innsbruck. Photo Tirol Webcams.

14:30BST: the peage on the A8 towards Aix en Provence says it all.

16:00BST: Putin caught mid-wave as he departs Slovenia’s Vrsic Pass following the commemoration service. More on this later.

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France may be stealing all the headlines with its Black Saturday, but traffic is set to be intense this weekend in most other Western European countries.

Also, a new twofer offer from the Mercedes and Porsche museums. Huge hike in Crimea traffic accidents. ‘Unaffordable’ Albania road tolls. Stockholm crash band release posthumous album. New Italian pro-driver minimum wage rule.

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INTENSE WEEKEND TRAFFIC NOT JUST IN FRANCE

‘Strong nerves’ needed in Germany as Austria reaches a climax.

ADAC is known for its choice words to describe the amount of holiday traffic on German roads.

Even so, ‘drivers will need strong nerves’, and ‘the whole of the country is on the move’ should strike particular terror into the hearts of anyone intending to drive in Germany this weekend.

It will be almost as bad as France’s Black Saturday though they don’t go in for such showy titles across the border.

Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg start the holidays while states in the north and east and thr Netherlands start the second wave of departures.

Scandinavia heads home ahead of the imminent new school term (yes, really).

The good news is that there is just one more bad weekend to go before the summer rush is over.

No such luck in Switzerland unfortunately where the traffic season is barely half way finished.

The Gotthard Tunnel will be especially busy – southbound from Friday morning until late, and on Saturday from early morning until about 17:00 says TCS. Then northbound on Sunday from 11 to 21 hours.

Meanwhile, traffic reaches a climax in Austria says motoring club OEAMTC as drivers head to and from the Adriatic.

Even worse, Putin’s visit to Slovenia on Saturday closes the A11 Villach-Ljubljana cross-border Karawanke Tunnel 09:00-18:00 meaning more traffic on alternative routes.

Vignette dodgers will also clog B179 Fernpass in both directions and, likely, motorway border queues with Germany.

Italy is not quite there yet – next weekend is Black Saturday – but roads to coastal resorts will be charged on Saturday and, particularly, A22 Brennero Innsbruck-Verona in both directions.

The jam calendar in Spain also shows this is one of the busiest weekends of the summer.

Starting late Friday, drivers leave the cities heading for the coasts with similar all day Saturday plus returns starting to creep in. It all culminates late Sunday with heavy traffic heading every which way, to and from the cities, and the coasts.

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Until 30 December, visitors to both the Mercedes-Benz and Porsche museums in Stuttgart get 25 percent off the entrance price of the second museum, on presentation of their ticket from the first. This reduces the ticket price from €8 to €6. ‘Many visitors tell us that the museums are the only reason they travel to Stuttgart. We are honouring this with a joint campaign,’ says Christian Boucke, Head of Mercedes-Benz Classic and Customer Centre. A 1966 Mercedes-Benz W111 230S is on display in front of the Porsche Museum in Zuffenhausen and a 1975 Porsche 911 Carrera 2.7 is outside the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Bad Cannstatt to promote the deal. See more at Porsche Newsroom

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roundup: the number of road accidents in Crimea is up by 40 percent for the first six months of the year – compared to the same period last year – with road deaths increasing by 15 percent reports Crimea News Agency. It doesn’t say why, but last week Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev visited the newly acquired territory and promised RUB100 billion (£1.15 billion) for a new road between ferry port Kerch on the east coast and capital Simferopol, a distance of 130 miles. One Russian MP noted that was a quarter of the national healthcare budget. Kerch is also on the Crimea end of the in-build road and rail Kerch Bridge, what will be the only physical connection to the Russian mainland… over in Albania suspicions have been raised by an ‘unaffordable’ new toll on a stretch of the Nation’s Road between Tirana and Kosovo capital Pristina. The 114km section between Milot, 50km north of Tirana, and Morina near the Kosovo border is €5.20 (3.63c per km, about half that in France). A return journey would be a significant proportion of the country’s monthly minimum wage of €160 says the Independent Balkan News Agency. However, the government says the charge was recommended by the World Bank despite initially suggesting it would be up to €4 each way. The Nation Road toll is a pilot road charging project – several previous tenders for the new road apparently failed… police are apparently no closer to finding out how the accident happened, but an album from the band who were all killed when their car drove into a canal in Stockholm in February has been released posthumously reports France24. Five members of Viola Beach died plus their manager. The album is called Viola Beach. Coldplay played one of the songs at Glastonbury in June… Italy has now joined many other Continental countries with a new minimum wage law for truck drivers. Unlike the others however, the rule will only apply to cabotage work, i.e. jobs wholly within Italy. There is no general minimum wage in Italy but transport and logistics workers must be paid at least €11 per hour. The new law entered force on 21 July says Cadena de Suministro.

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Brace for Black Saturday on French roads this weekend as geeks wonder if records will be broken.

Also, massive boulders smash Norway’s major east-west E16 to pieces, as driver massacres 19 reindeer. Foreign drivers claim majority of Iceland speeding fines. Tape cut on A9 to Spain widening. Stuttgart autobahn drivers warned off satnav.

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EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BLACK SATURDAY

Leave late and expect major delays.

The first anxiety for drivers heading to France this weekend will be a repeat of passport queues at Dover.

Thankfully, having spoken to the British and French authorities this week, Port of Dover was able to say yesterday it does not expect severe queues again – though it does warn this is the busiest time of the year and drivers should prepare for some delays.

Being prepared for delays will be the weekend’s watch words as France experiences the first of two summer ‘Black Saturdays’, the busiest days of the year on the roads (the next one is next weekend).

Basically, traffic radiates from Paris – to the west coast, on the A13 and A11 but also the A29 via Amiens; towards Bordeaux on the A10; and to Lyon and Avignon on the A6 and A7 then down to Spain on the A9 – supplemented by almost-as-bad traffic heading back in the other direction, on all the same roads, plus the A8 Nice-Avignon.

Not forgetting the Mont Blanc Tunnel of course where three hour delays are possible towards Italy late morning on Saturday.

Broadly speaking, the worst affected roads are south of a line drawn across the country through Lyon.

Geeks are excitedly wondering just how bad it will get. The record was set on Saturday 2 August 2014 at a combined 994km of jams.

Last year’s peak was 980km (set on Saturday 8 August).

Evidence so far indicates the record could be under threat. Last weekend, Red Saturday, saw 559km of jams – when return traffic was not so heavy – compared to 510km on the same day last year.

As per the established pattern, peak traffic last week was seen at 12:07. On the busiest days, jams start to subside from the early afternoon (though there can still be substantial queues in the evening).

In practical terms, it means anyone crossing the Channel on Saturday morning should only start to hit the worst parts as they begin to improve.

Dutch motoring club ANWB advises its members not to set off for the south of France until 10:00.

Leaving extra early is not a good idea. As national traffic monitor traffic Bison Fute says, the first major queues start to accumulate from 04:00.

Bear in mind that the first waves of traffic leave Paris from late morning Friday and build throughout the rest of the day.

Sunday will be quieter but still busy on the major routes.

Trying to dodge jams by using alternative routes can be more trouble than it is worth.

By all means head south on the A20 via Limoges or A71/A75 via Clermont Ferrand, if it suits you, but last year they were both almost as busy as A10 and A7 while the A61 Toulouse-Narbonne is always delayed.

However, we would recommend N10 Poitiers-Angouleme-Bordeaux to avoid the notorious A10 Poitiers-Bordeaux stretch.

We would not recommend N7 as an alternative to the A7 Lyon-Avignon unless you were desperate to save the road toll.

You might though dodge central Lyon from Dijon on the A39-A40-A42.

If we were lucky/unlucky enough to be driving to the Cote d’Azur on Black Saturday we would seriously consider N85 Route Napoleon Grenoble-Grasse.

Keep abreast of the latest situation on 107.7fm which has regular traffic news roundups in English, or see real time info at the Bison Fute website (or its new app). Invaluable on the major roads in the south is Vinci Autoroutes’ delay graphic, tweeted hourly on Black Saturday. See also @SANEF_1077 for the situation in the north and west. @DriveEurope also updates traffic info every 90 minutes from 05:00, plus breaking news. Also see the latest FCO travel advice @BritishinFrance. Trucks are banned from French roads on Saturday (from 07:00-19:00) – as is ‘collective transport of children’ in vehicles with 9+ seats.

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The major east-west E16 route between Bergen and Oslo was shut between Voss and Gudvangen on Tuesday afternoon following a massive rock fall (see more pictures). Work since then has established the area is now stable and the huge boulders are being removed. Unbelievably, considering the damage, it is expected to reopen within 2-3 days roads agency Vegvesen tells us. In the meantime, detours are in place – see a map, marked in blue – but drivers are warned to ‘take it easy’, and allow extra time as some alternative routes include ferries. Photo via @Vegvesen

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roundup: speeding fines in Iceland were up 20 percent in the first six months of the year reports Iceland Magazine, the majority of them foreign tourists. Last year, 60 percent of speeding tickets were given to visitors. Meanwhile, the number of traffic injuries and accidents involving foreigners grew by 140 percent 2014-2015. See all Iceland road info in English at Road.is… a driver in northern Norway killed a shocking nineteen reindeer in a collision late on Tuesday night says The Local Norway. The man hit the animals on the E6 motorway between Hammerfest and Alta. He immediately alerted the farmer. Tragically more reindeer may have been seriously injured but fled the scene… President Francois Hollande cut the tape this morning on a rejig of the A9 autoroute down to the Spanish border on the Mediterranean coast. The 9km stretch from Le Boulou to the border at Le Perthus will be widened from two lanes to three, including three 50m+ high viaducts, in a €180 million project expected to last four years. It’s part of the Plan de Relance Autoroutier, a stimulus project where motorway operators – in this case Vinci – agree to invest a total of €3.2 billion in the network over the next five years in exchange for contract extensions. The widening is also part of a wider redevelopment of A9, France’s biggest motorway project and busiest road in the summer, which includes splitting it in two at Montpellier, for through and local traffic, which should open at the end of next year… new signs on the A8 eastbound into Stuttgart warn drivers to ignore their satnav devices. Road works at the Leonberg junction have seen the left lane painted with a solid white line – i.e. do not cross – but drivers have been ignoring the line in favour of instructions from their satnavs, resulting in eighty accidents in the past two months, and regular long delays, reports ADAC. The road works should finish at the end of September.

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Drivers heading to southern Italy can look forward to a completely renovated, now at-least-dual-carriageway A3, Naples to Reggio Calabria. 

Also, Mercedes reveals world’s first heavy duty electric truck. Another migrant killed on Calais port road. ‘Inadequate’ road signs in Geneva. Beware weekends in Ireland. Germany kick starts completion of A94 Munich-Austria.

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NEW A3 OPENS UP MEZZOGIORNO AND SICILY

Now at least dual carriageway and fresh tarmac from Naples to the toe of Italy.

Photo @StradeANAS

This summer, for the first time, not only is A3 Salerno – Reggio Calabria without diversions or construction sites but the entire 443km (275 mile) length is at least two lanes in each direction.

A major accident last year, and poor quality construction and repairs in places, had seen trucks on a long coastal detour, and dogged journeys for everyone else.

It was also single lane in several places.

But a complete upgrade, opened yesterday by Prime Minister Mateo Renzi, opens up ‘largely tourist free’ southern Italy, known as ‘Mezzogiorno’ (and Sicily too of course).

More reliable travel might give the region the tourist boost it so desperately needs (and deserves).

Renzi, who has presided over a packed programme of major road openings told ANSA news agency, ‘Italy is greater than those who want to stop it and the Salerno-Reggio Calabria motorway is a symbol of the fact that, if we work in the same direction, the results speak for themselves.

The time when people laughed at Italy is over.’

Just the 600m Laria Tunnel at Laino Borgo remains to be completed, expected by the end of the year, but this should not interfere with summer traffic.

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Operators will have to wait until the IAA show in Hannover in September to see Mercedes’ new Urban eTruck in all its glory. What we know so far from its reveal in Stuttgart this morning is it has a range of 200km and will be available to buy at the beginning of the next decade. Mercedes says it is the first full electric truck for heavy distribution operations at a total weight of 26 tonnes (including a 12.8t payload). ‘Electric drive systems previously only saw extremely limited use in trucks. Nowadays costs, performance and charging times develop further so rapidly that now there is a trend reversal in the distribution sector: the time is ripe for the electric truck,’ says Dr Wolfgang Bernhard, responsible for Daimler Trucks & Buses at the Board of Management. eTruck is based on a heavy-duty, three-axle short-radius Mercedes-Benz distribution truck with a new electrically driven rear axle with electric motors at the wheel hubs. A two-axle version will also be available with other variants likely. Power is supplied by three lithium-ion battery modules housed in a crash-proof location inside the frame. On potential road safety issues due to silent running in busy cities, the firm told journalists it will reveal more at IAA, but the vehicle is likely to include a pedestrian and cyclist radar detection system. Read more. Photo Mercedes-Benz Trucks.

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roundup: another migrant was killed overnight on the Calais port road, the seventh so far this year reports La Voix du Nord. The 28 year old from Sudan was hit by an unidentified vehicle. Migrant reportedly lay blocks almost nightly on the port road in their attempts to stop trucks and stowaway to the UK… road signs in Geneva are inadequate say driving instructors according to WRS Radio Geneva. Drivers are not warned about one way streets and the end of 30 zones are not signed, for instance, among twenty complaints in total. Geneva can be intimidating to drive around, with separate lanes for buses, trams, cyclists and cars. Watch out… almost half of road deaths in Ireland occur at the weekends say new figures reported by RTE News. There is also a 20 percent increase between midnight and 06:00. Despite being among the EU’s most improved on road safety last year, fatalities have increased by 8 percent so far this year… transport minister Alexander Dobrindt snipped the tape yesterday on the next section of A94, the autobahn east-west between Munich and the Austrian border at Pocking. The controversial autobahn, subject of on-going disputes over the route, is in operation for only 84km of the proposed total 150km. However, along with a new stretch started in February to complete the road west of Burghausen, 40km is currently under construction. Another 13km stretch in the east is currently in plan. The overloaded B12 currently takes most of the strain…

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Finland’s Ouninpohja is rally’s ‘biggest test of bravery and commitment’ – and is normally open to the public.

Also, Norway’s plans the world’s first floating tunnel. Pokémon fines in France and Italy. Fifteen second flash charging for Geneva buses. Major road works restart E40 Gent. Michelin raises tyre prices to tackle Brexit black market.

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A QUICK LOOK AT FINLAND’S ICONIC OUNINPOHJA

Seventy five jumps and no straights rally star.

Photo @World

Just off E63 between Tampere and Jyvaskyla in south central Finland is a road regarded as the WRC World Rally Championship’s ‘biggest test of bravery and commitment’.

Ouninpohja runs 33km from west of Ouninpohja town via Kakaristo over more than 75 jumps with very few straights (see a map).

Pronounce it Au-Nin-Po-Yeah.

Current champion Sebastien Ogier holds the stage record at an average 130.75kmh.

Spectators measure the length of the jumps.

The longest, 6km from the start, next to the landmark ‘yellow house’, was set by Markko Martin in 2003 at 57m (187ft).

Due to safety fears, Ouninpohja has been on and off the schedule since 2004.

However it returned in 2012 and will be the star attraction on Saturday during this weekend’s WRC Neste Oil Rally Finland. 

An apologetic note on the rally website says Ouninpohja will be closed from 05:00 until 18:30 – otherwise it is fully open to the public, if you dare.

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After revealing plans for a floating bridge across Bjornafjord back in March, the NPRA Norwegian Public Roads Administration has now unveiled plans for a 4km floating tunnel across Sognefjord between Lavik and Oppedal. Both structures would replace ferries on E39, reducing the driving time from 21 hours to ‘just’ 10.5 hours over the 815km between Kristiansand and Trondheim. At 1310m, Sognafjord is too deep for a conventional bridge which would otherwise spoil the pristine landscape. The twin-tube tunnel would hang 30m below the surface from pontoons and probably be anchored to the fjord-bed by cables. Challenges remain, not least potential collisions with submarines, and the weather. However, the idea is ‘not actually that crazy’ Arianna Moretti, senior NPRA engineer tells Wired. The €23 billion project could be in place by 2035.

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roundup: a scooter rider was fined €81 – the same penalty as for using a mobile phone – after being caught playing Pokemon Go in Turin reports ANSA.it. Meanwhile, the penalty in France for a similar offence would be €135 says the Interior Ministry today… after Mercedes unveiled its first (prototype) self-driving bus last week, Swedish power tech firm ABB reveals a €16 million order for ‘flash chargers’ on Geneva buses. Thirteen chargers will be installed along a route form the airport, each allowing a 15 second burst of 600kW electricity, supplemented by a five minute charge at the terminus. The vehicles go into service in 2018, transporting 10,000 passengers each day… the second phase of the road works on E40 at Gent starts on Thursday (28 July). Phase one, including 15km of contraflow as the coastbound carriageway is overhauled between Aalst and Gent, saw regular delays of up to 60mins in both directions. In addition this time, the truck parking at Wetteren is closed too. The work lasts until Sunday 14 August. Consider the E42 route via Lille and Charleroi to get between the Channel ports and east Belgium… Michelin has raised prices in the UK to avoid creating a blackmarket for its tyres as sterling falls against the euro reports Expatica.com. The French firm did not go into details about the size of the increase…

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Drivers face huge delays into Dover amid heightened security at apparently understaffed French passport controls.

Also, nearly 5000km in a Porsche 911 SC via Stuttgart, the Alps, Italian Lakes and Monaco. A call for more Belgian box junctions. UK coach crash in eastern France.

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UNDERSTAFFED BORDER BEHIND MAJOR DOVER DELAYS 

Drivers wait up to fourteen hours to board ferries.

Photo via @VID

Even by the standards of recent weeks, queues into Port of Dover overnight and today have been unprecedented.

Drivers have waited fourteen hours to board ferries, a combination of queues on the A20 and A2, and through the port overflow ‘buffer zone’, as French officials conducted stringent passport checks in the wake of the Nice Attack.

Around 09:00BST, Port of Dover reported that passport checks had been relaxed and that traffic was moving faster, though drivers still faced a five hour delay on the A20 according to P&O.

By 10:00BST, Port of Dover said the total delay was six hours including 30 minutes in the buffer zone.

Estimated delays on the A20 then stood at five hours and three hours on the A2. 

Kent Police have advised passengers to pack food and water and expect delays. Kent County Council said it was delivering 11,000 bottles of water to drivers stuck on the road.

At 13:00BST Port of Dover said delays varied from 300 to 600 minutes with a 110 minute wait in the buffer zone.

As they have done throughout recent border queues in Dover, ferry operators said delayed passengers would be accommodated on the next ‘available’ service.

DFDS said it was putting on extra services tonight and early tomorrow morning.

The mystery is why Dover is so affected while most other borders with France are free-flowing (with the exception of Belgium>France).

As commenter ‘German Girl’ says on our article this week about border delays with France, ‘As usual the French are causing havoc at the start of the summer holidays. This time it is horrendous passport checks because of the “increased” terrorist threat, despite the fact that most attacks have been carried out by home-grown citizens. Why then aren’t there such rigorous controls on the French-Spanish, Belgium or German borders where traffic is flowing freely??’

However, a statement from Port of Dover says the problem is down to understaffing: ‘French border control booths have been seriously understaffed overnight with only three booths available for tourists out of a potential seven,’ it says.

‘At one stage, only one French officer was available to check passengers on hundreds of coaches, resulting in each coach taking 40 minutes to process.’

It says the issue was raised with the British government earlier this week.

Drivers waited for more than two hours to pass through controls on Wednesday though the situation calmed from then until Friday evening.

Eurotunnel has escaped relatively unscathed. It told us on Wednesday it had invested in extra traffic lanes at its UK terminal to improve traffic flow – though an accident on the M20 on Friday evening saw drivers then waiting for 90 minutes. Delays before check-in have been a consistent 90 minutes today.

Meanwhile, the pattern of border delays in northern France in the wake of the Nice Attack has continued.

Most affected is still the Belgian border, both ways, east of Dunkirk on the A16; the E17 southbound into Lille and the E19 towards Valenciennes. Delays of 60 minutes are not unusual. E42 to Lille continues to be clear.

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Northern Scotsman Russell Shand piloted his special edition Porsche 911 SC Sports Classic on a 4700km European road trip, all featured in Porsche Newsroom. Three members of the family headed out on the overnight DFDS Newcastle-Amsterdam ferry, then to Stuttgart and the Porsche Museum before turning south to Stelvio, Davos, Lake Maggiore, Monaco and Cannes – then back via Milan, Lucerne and Cologne.

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roundup: six out of ten of the busiest junction are blocked by impatient drivers reports FIA quoting a study by motoring association TCB Touring Club Belgium. The survey looked at fifteen busy intersections in five cities in fifteen minute intervals – one was blocked every time the lights changed. TCB recommends the roll out of yellow-hatched box junctions, the first of which were unveiled in Brussels last year… two pupils were seriously injured and thirteen people hut in a British coach crash on the A39 southbound towards Bourg in eastern France this afternoon says the BBC. The vehicle was on its way from Cheltenham to Dora Baltea in northwest Italy. No other vehicle was involved in the incident near Lons. The coach went into a ditch and overturned.

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Significant return traffic adds to the load on Europe’s roads for the first time this summer at the weekend, particularly in Germany, as France builds towards Black Saturday.

Also, international truck drivers profiled as France minimum wage amnesty ends. Call for free autobahn loos. British border to stay in Calais. Scandal setback for Spanish traffic agency.

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GERMANY WEEKEND TRAFFIC : ‘CLOGGED HIGHWAYS WHEREVER YOU LOOK’

Busy weekend on the roads, especially Germany, Gotthard, from Vienna, and Brenner.

Ahead of next weekend’s Black Saturday, a typical summer weekend on the roads in France: heavy outbound from Paris on Friday afternoon; heavy to the west, south west and south east on Saturday – from first thing in the morning, declining from mid-afternoon – with the first returns starting to creep in and much quieter on Sunday.

However, the Mont Blanc Tunnel from France to Italy will be exceptionally busy on Friday afternoon – likely three hour delays – though the situation improves steadily over the rest of the weekend.

Meanwhile there will be ‘clogged highways wherever you look’ over in Germany according to ADAC, on Friday and Saturday, again with return traffic starting to make an impression, but calmer on Sunday.

Jams start later than in France with the regular exception of A8-A1 Munich-Salzburg.

Switzerland is in the middle of its six week super-busy weekends run with multi-hour delays expected at the Gotthard Tunnel, in both directions, and at least crowded on the A1 Zurich-Bern, especially around Solothurn, and where it intersects with the A2 Basel-Lucerne at Egerkingen/Oftringen.

It will be another busy Saturday in Austria too, particularly on the A4-M1 Vienna-Budapest for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Drivers should watch out for motorway delays at the border with Germany too.

Holiday traffic continues to build in Italy generally – on Friday afternoon and Saturday night this weekend, to the resorts – but overall is not likely to be overly crowded.

The exception is the A22 Brennero Innsbruck-Verona which will be super-busy in both directions, all day on Saturday.

See an overview of European summer traffic.

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Insightful interviews with international truck drivers by Vice.com, detailing declining pay, conditions and prestige, all without mentioning Calais. Meanwhile, today is the final day of amnesty on the new minimum wage law for all professional drivers in France which entered force on 1 July. 

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roundup: autobahn toilets should be free to use says Die Linke Partei (The Left Party) ahead of the general election next year reports The Local Germany. Restaurants and airports are obliged to offer free toilets but train stations and motorway services are not. Users typically pay 70c to use service station loos, 50c of which is refunded for subsequent purchases, excluding fuel and tobacco products… the RHA Road Haulage Association welcomes today’s news that British border controls will remain on the French side of the English Channel. The possible collapse of the Le Touquet Agreement – where the UK and France have border controls on each other’s territory – has been a hot issue since Brexit due to the Calais migrant camp which continues to dog drivers overnight in the area. However, new Prime Minister Theresa May and French president Francois Hollande agreed in Paris today that the current arrangement should continue – though Hollande is up for election next year and is widely expected not to win… the Director General of Spain’s traffic agency DGT has resigned amid – firmly denied – accusations of improper payments to her husband’s university. Despite stagnating road safety statistics recently, Maria Segui was widely considered to be effective in the role. The scandal is bound to be a setback as Spain continues so far successful attempts to claw its way among Europe’s safest roads.

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