The M5 is a road that is used by thousands of people every day, be it in trucks, coaches, caravans, old bangers, flashing Ferraris, vintage wonders and even in one or the other limousine.
But that’s not all commuters have discovered on this 162.9-mile stretch of road that connects the Southwest with the Midlands.
In fact, in the 58 years since it opened, the M5 has seen both the good and the bad.
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There’s plenty to make the average passenger smile on a trip too – from a wicker man near Bridgwater to those super posh service near Gloucester.
But what are the strangest things to discover on this iconic stretch of road? Here are just a few of the last few years …
Broad loads
Probably not the craziest things on a street, but definitely an experience when you’re on the road at the same time.
With wide loads, it may often be necessary to drive in more than one lane.
Motorists are usually given timely notice before a wide load hits the road, but when you aren’t expecting one, it’s definitely weird.
Take, for example, the large load that went to the Ribena / Lucozade plant in the Forest of Dean last year.
It was decided that the cargo would have to be delivered during the day as it was so large and unwieldy that it was simply not safe to transport on such roads at night.
The cargo, which was a box-shaped white tarpaulin, was five meters wide and had to travel through Gloucester, being escorted by Gloucestershire Police along the M5 in June 2019 shortly after morning rush hour.
Other oddly wide cargoes to cross the M5 are two jumbo jet hulls traveling from Cotswold Airport to Staffordshire.
The 60-ton, 22-foot-wide, 5.3-meter-tall and 137-foot-long aircraft caused traffic chaos in 2015.
UFO
While many people were staring at the stretch of road ahead of them or the sights passing by, a Royal Navy aircraft engineer was looking up at the sky when he saw a UFO over the M5 in 2008.
He said the disc flew over exit 21 near Weston-super-Mare for up to three minutes.
The engineer said, “I work with airplanes and I grew up next to Manchester Airport, so I know exactly what an airplane looks and sounds like.
“It was definitely not an airplane. It was a circular disk that glowed brightly and floated hundreds of meters in the air. Other people must have noticed. “
Ghosts
On an island off the M5 motorway near West Bromwich, reports from drivers and passengers have described seeing a hooded figure who normally crosses the road before disappearing.
The apparition or ghostly sighting is believed to be associated with Sandwell Priory, which was nearby.
Another figure hanging around the island is a lady dressed in white.
She is usually spotted in the early hours of the morning and is often mistaken for a hitchhiker.
However, when drivers stop to offer them a lift, they quickly discover that it is not what it seems – it disappears almost instantly.
On the island itself are the remains of an old building that is part of the old lodge at Sandwell Hall, which was demolished many years ago.
animals
In 2018, motorists reported seeing a “dead wallaby” on the edge of the freeway near Worcester.
After spotting the creature and filming it on the hard shoulder just before the junction at Junction 5, they speculated that it might have been a dead kangaroo, although it was more of a smaller wallaby due to its size.
Many also speculated that it might have been a deer.
At the time, The Independent reported, “Although it is believed that there are rare, small populations of wallaby in rural England.
According to Scientific American magazine, a Tasmanian subspecies called Bennet’s Wallaby was introduced to the Channel Islands, the Weald in southeast England, northern England, and Scotland.
The largest colony lives on the grounds of Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire, about 80 miles southeast of where the dead creature was sighted.
There have been a lot more animal sightings along the M5, including the time ducks blocked the road near Exeter last year, which resulted in speed limits being put in place.
Drivers drive the wrong way
Yeah, that doesn’t just happen in movies. It happens in real life and recently happened even along the M5 near Bristol and Somerset.
Trucks and cars have been caught in front of the camera turning around and driving back on the wrong side of the road to avoid traffic jams.
As early as November 2019, after an accident, and although the cars involved had been brought onto the hard shoulder, Highways England announced that “the traffic on J18 in Avonmouth is going in the wrong direction”.
They shared photos on Twitter showing a fair amount of traffic on the busy stretch of road and said the drivers in question put themselves, other road users and Highways England workers at great risk.