Daily Brief. Last updated 20:00BST:

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CHANNEL DELAYS: no delays currently. Earlier warnings of potential delays at UK Border control in Calais. Passengers advised to arrive early though traffic currently free-flowing.

WEATHER ALERT: Amber alerts heavy rain south Portugal this evening.

WEATHER: Becoming warmer across Europe. Rain Central Europe and Iberia.

MAJOR TRAFFIC DELAYS: A2 northbound to Gotthard Tunnel, Switzerland, queue down to 3km, 30min delay.

See Travel/Traffic/Weather for more.

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Random from Norway today: ‘Over fartsgrensen?’ (Over the speed limit?) What else did you think it meant?! Photo via Norway Roads Admin, vegvesen.no, @Presserom.

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The Spain trip’s off! So we’re going to The Baltic instead. Tomorrow. ‘Tour Auto’ draws to a close. Dutch truckers announce the next dates of their motorway go-slows. Truly draconian measures are on their way for texting Irish drivers. Parents of the Sierre Tunnel coach crash disaster victims are still searching for answers. Tesla Model S is possibly coming to somewhere near you this month, and next. Intriguing plans announced at Calais for a new ‘rail motorway’ to the South of France.

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WE’RE OFF: ON A BALTIC EXPRESS

Last minute change of plan means Spain is off in favour of The Baltic.

This is why you should never book holidays. Something immovable comes up at the last minute and suddenly everything’s ruined!

Happily with driving trips you still have options.

This is exactly what just happened to us. Disaster struck Wednesday afternoon meaning we couldn’t make the Friday sailing we’d booked Portsmouth-Santander. The problem is Spain ferries only go every few days and we couldn’t make the alternatives work. We could drive down through France, whizz through Spain and make our return sailing on Friday but that would make an already rushed trip completely crazy.

So we binned the Spain ferries losing £675 in the process. Ouch.

Actually we’re secretly pleased. Eyeballing the reality of the Gibraltar frontier and checking out Lisbon’s Low Emission Zone would be worthy enough but weren’t lighting any fires.

Meanwhile casting its spell for a considerable time has been The Baltic. Don’t know why – other than that we haven’t been to Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland yet – but surely this trip will answer that in comprehensive fashion.

Beyond a piece on the right to roam rules in Finland, wild camping (might come in useful now we’re completely skint) and a plan for a tunnel/bridge between Helsinki and Tallinn – and an earlier idea to drive round the Gulf of Bothnia – we haven’t done any planning at all and certainly haven’t booked anything.

So, a no-plan plan. Excellent. On the other hand we might get to the Polish border, chicken out and spend the week on Rugen Island instead. Let’s see.

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Tour Auto: the Ferrari 250 GT SWB Breadvan – aka 250 GTO Drogo – departs from Valence this morning on the final leg of the 2014 Tour Auto Optic 2000 rally. The – really amazing – five day, 2,500km event finishes this evening in Marseilles. Catch up with all the action at @Tour_Auto, and/or see Tuesday’s @DriveEurope for an overview.

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roundup: NETHERLANDS. The 1 and 19 May will see the next motorway go-slow protests by trucker’s groups according to widespread reports. See more here. IRELAND. Drivers caught texting behind the wheel face fines of up to €1,000 – and even a three month prison sentence for persistent offenders – from 1 May. Either way, all who are found breaking the rules will end up in court. Not clear how this affects foreign drivers. The country is fighting back after a large increase in road deaths last year. BELGIUM. Parents of the children killed in the Sierre Tunnel coach crash in Switzerland in 2012 are pressing for further forensic tests. The local Public Prosecutor ruled the case was effectively closed despite the cause remaining unknown. Meanwhile, a Spanish registered car crashed into the back of a coach carrying British schoolchildren on the E42 near Charleroi last night. One of the car passengers died. TESLA. A Model S road test road show hits towns across the UK – from Edinburgh to Maidstone – from 15 April to 19 May, and in Norway, Netherlands and Switzerland from 11 April to 7 May. DOVER-CALAIS. A new deal between the two ports will see the development of a 600 mile Calais-Perpignan ‘rail motorway’ with new transhipment facilities at Calais. Exciting plans. Presumably for freight only. More soon.

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Motorists angry at plans to reduce speed limits threaten a nationwide go-slo protest in France this weekend while Dutch protestors block the Afsluitdijk causeway motorway today. The Serb president’s armoured €1m GL500 has been written off – and an end date for the west Serbia Corridor XI motorway announced – there’s a new touring app for the east Baltic, read a complete crib sheet on the upcoming trucks and car tolls in Germany, there are no tolls of visas for the Ice Hockey championships in Belarus, the EU votes on eCall and new truck regs, Spain’s roads maintenance is ‘deficient’, and busy evening follows a quiet day at the Gibraltar frontier.

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FRANCE: WIDESPREAD MAIN ROAD GO-SLOW PROTESTS

‘Ruban Blanc’ protest at plans to reduce the national speed limit

Motorists upset at plans to reduce the national speed limit to 80kmh will stage a go-slow protest on roads in France tomorrow, the first day of the Easter holidays.

Nearly 90 separate locations all around the country have organised meeting points though it is not clear at this stage how many drivers will take part.

Most will take place on Saturday 12 April with a small minority on Sunday. The times vary, from 09:00 but most commonly from 14:00.

The demonstration is expected to take the form of slow moving convoys along main and local roads, i.e. not the autoroute motorway network.

Paris police are warning of a demonstration between Place de la Republique and Place de la Nation along Boulevard Voltaire in the north west of the city centre, 11th Arrondisement, between 14:00-19:00, and that traffic disruption could spread to surrounding streets.

All drivers have been asked to tie a white ribbon – ‘ruban blanc’ – around their left (offside) wing mirror to show support.

The protest is being co-ordinated by the Union des Usagers de la Route with input from biker’s group Federation Francaise des Motards en Colere and driver’s group ’40 Million d’Automobilistes’. The event has its own website, www.ruban-blanc.com.

The government says the speed limit reduction is just a proposal at this stage though former Interior Minister Manuel Valls, now Prime Minister, signalled last month the idea should be adopted. According to The Connexion, 66% of road accidents happen on secondary roads.

See a list of protest locations or Bison Fute for real time traffic information on French roads.

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Afsluitdijk: protestors blocked the A7 causeway motorway this afternoon in a row over new windmills being erected on Ijsselmeer. Built in 1933, Afsluitdijk stretches over 20 miles between Den Oever and Zurich in north west Netherlands, damming off Ijsselmeer – Europe’s largest freshwater lake – from the North Sea. The protest finished at 16:00. Photo @DriveEurope.

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roundup: SERBIA. Uproar after a mechanic wrote off the €1m, armoured, presidential Mercedes GL 500 during a test drive yesterday. The car was a gift from the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi last year. Meanwhile, the Corridor XI motorway between Belgrade and the Montenegrin border at Boljare will be finished by the end of 2017 it has been announced. Work is also due to start on the first part of the Montenegro section, eventually to the Adriatic at Bar. GERMANY. Read the complete ins and outs of the expanding truck and car road tolls system from @RoadPricing. EAST BALTIC. A new mobile app (and website) – Via Hanseatica – plots a 600km route through the historic highlights between St Petersburg and Riga, through Latvia, Estonia and Russia. BELARUS. Reminder: free road tolls and no visas needed for visitors to next month’s Ice Hockey Word Championships in Minsk. EU. The European Parliament votes Tuesday 15 April on standards for alternative fuels infrastructure; the emergency, automatic 112 eCall system for road accidents; and on ‘greener and safer’ weights and dimensions regs for trucks. SPAIN. 330,000 signs need replacing, 52,000km of markings need repainting and 82% of lights need reviewing on the national/local road network says the president of the Spanish Road Association (AEC) in a call for investment of €6.2bn. GIBRALTAR QUEUE WATCH: delays topped 2h30 during the evening rush after being – almost, unusually – free-flowing all day.

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Dutch truckers make their point with a low key motorway go-slo this morning. Parking is surreal at the Estonian National Opera. Brittany Ferries’ cheap ferry to Spain finally makes its debut. It’s been quite quiet at the Gibraltar border, Irish truckers want exemptions from the new HGV Levy, and Spain blots its copybook after last week’s stellar road safety results.

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DUTCH TRUCKERS MOTORWAY GO-SLOW, PART TWO

Concerns over salaries and ‘social dumping’.

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Dutch truckers held a go-slow motorway protest this morning.

Protesters assembled at five sites around the country at 09:00BST – at Beverwijk near Amsterdam, Nunspeet near Zwolle, Rotterdam, Arnhem and Gilze near Tilburg – and rallied in Utrecht at 13:00BST.

As of 10:00BST there were signs of slow moving columns of traffic heading towards Utrecht but no major disruption.

(update 12:00BST: reports say up to 400 drivers took part in the protest driving at no more than 60kmh towards Utrecht in columns of cars and trucks, accompanied by police. The rally began at 11:30BST, after which the trucks dispersed).

Protestors’ precise plans were only made public at the last minute though notice was given at the end of last week.

Upset at the collapse of collective-bargaining wage negotiations last month, and concerned about ‘social dumping’ where firms use cheap labour from Eastern Europe, the protest follows a similar demonstration last month.

Protesters have promised a ‘warm spring and hot summer’ unless their demands are met.

Logistics is a major industry in the Netherlands. The country of just 16.8m people accounts for 14% of international road transport in the EU.

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Random: the car park gates of the Estonian National Opera in Tallinn. Pic from @HLintu, Hannu Lintu, Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (via @Nordic_News).

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roundup: UK-SPAIN FERRY. After a false start last weekend, the Brittany Ferries economie service from Portsmouth-Santander finally departed for the first time on Saturday. The first review has also been posted after the BF Enthusiasts Club crossed Portsmouth-Le Havre on the economie ship, Etretat. It seems pretty much as expected: nothing horrendous, but you get what you pay for. GIBRALTAR QUEUE WATCH: longest queues over the weekend, 1h45 Saturday lunchtime, two hours late Sunday evening. HGV LEVY. Irish hauliers are calling for exemptions from the new HGV Levy on the A5/N2 which crosses Northern Ireland from the north west Republic, and which the Irish govt is paying to upgrade. SPAIN. Despite well above average road safety stats published last week, it was a bloody weekend on the roads with a reported twenty fatalities.

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$60bn has been spent on new roads in Poland since 2007. In that time the major road network has tripled in size to over 3,000km. There’s much more to do – from 2015 ‘the entire country will be a building site’ we hear – but, to mark the end of this first wave of construction, we see how far they have already come using some great pictures from the National Roads Directorate, www.GDDKiA.gov.pl, @GDDKiA.

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Nothing perhaps better illustrates the destructive force of new roads ploughing through the countryside than this shot of the S17 at Lublin, 170km south east of Warsaw. On the other hand, before Romania joined in 2007, isolated Lublin was the poorest city in the EU.

The A4 Korczowa border crossing with Ukraine. There are only a few incomplete sections of A4, all in the east, otherwise it stretches across the south of Poland via Krakow and Wroclaw to the German border, Dresden and hence to Western Europe.

A2 Berlin-Warsaw-Belarus is incomplete only between Warsaw and the Belarus border, at Terespol. 79 heads 120 miles south off the Warsaw ring. Sandomierz is a modestly sized town but a major tourist attraction because of its old town.

A bridge on the all-important A1 motorway which will run north-south from Gdansk on the Baltic coast to Vienna, via Brno. The section north of Warsaw should be complete this year. Construction on the 275km section south from there to the Czech Republic starts in 2015.

A work in progress… in the meantime, watch this short trailer of colour footage from the Warsaw Uprising spliced with new film of the survivors in the city today. Makes a powerful point about where Poland came from, and the optimism with which it faces the future:

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Weekend pictures: an insight into Bosnian car culture, the all-important first fuel economy figures from our new Evoque and a former Soviet Bloc motorway/runway in action. 

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‘Safe to say the Volkswagen Golf 2 automobile is very popular in Bosnia-Herzegovina,’ says @BH_Dragons, the English language football/sports channel (might come in handy as Bosnia contests its first World Cup this summer).

In its first week, and nearly 700 miles, our nine speed automatic Range Rover Evoque achieved an indicated average 38.1mpg on a mix of roads but mainly motorway. (Incidentally, we were told the engine was already run-in at the factory though apparently it settles down completely at around 4,500 miles). The mileage is the final piece in the jigsaw: if we can look forward to 40mpg+ then we will be very happy indeed. The neighbours have been complaining because the Evoque is so ‘big’. They must mean tall because actually it’s the shortest car on the street.

A Ukraine Airforce Sukhoi SU27 ‘Flanker’ – the Russian-built equivalent of the F15 Eagle – lands on the Mykolayiv Highway near the Crimea border in southern Ukraine. Major roads in former Soviet Bloc countries often double as ad hoc landing strips, Bulgaria has twelve, one of which featured in the recent Autocar trip to Istanbul by new Nissan Qashqai. The M14 Mykolayiv Highway runs dead straight for two nearly 20 mile stretches between Mykolayiv and Melitopol.

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