And then, the magic happens. The convoy finally takes a slip road off the motorway. The road opens up like the Red Sea. The air feels fresher. Your foot twitches on the accelerator. It’s like being released from a very slow, bureaucratic hostage situation.
I always feel a strange mix of anger and gratitude. Anger at the lost time, but gratitude that I wasn’t the one driving the load. Imagine trying to parallel park that thing. You’d need a satellite and a prayer. And probably a small army with walkie-talkies.
A27: National Grid on 'crucial' need to transport abnormal loads across
Then you speed past the lorry, and you look over. The load is usually wrapped in blue tarpaulin, hiding its mystery. It could be a giant wind turbine blade. It could be a tunnel boring machine. Or it could be a very, very large novelty pencil for a school display. We’ll never know.
Turning a Nightmare into a Story
So, next time you see that National Highways alert, take a deep breath. Accept your fate. You’re not just stuck in traffic. You are a participant in a slow, majestic parade of industrial might. You are part of the show.
I’ve learned to embrace it. I roll down the window, turn up the radio, and treat it as enforced relaxation time. It’s like a free, boring meditation session. “The load is on its journey,” they say. Well, so are you. Just slower. Much, much slower.
When you finally get home, tell your family about it. Exaggerate. Say the load was the size of a house. Say you saw an actual dinosaur on the back. They’ll nod, because they’ve been there. Everyone has a ‘massive abnormal load’ story. It’s a shared, slightly annoying, rite of passage. And at least now you know: Gerald the Giant is probably just trying to get to his new home, too.
