How can we trust the Highways Agency, who are currently deliberately reducing the traffic lanes northbound at junction 4a to just one, to manage and control traffic to M5 roadworks at West Bromwich, when they are redirecting traffic away from this area into a much more serious incident - and onto a closed motorway.

Earlier today I contacted them to advise them that their advance signage on the approach to junction 4A was directing M5 traffic via the M42 onto the M6 northbound which, at the time, was totally closed north of Birmingham due to an accident.

If we as drivers are having to show them what they are doing wrong, who is really in control of this man-made chaos which is already affecting all of the roads around Bromsgrove and Droitwich and will only get worse when the school holidays finish.

It is only after my own suggestion that they have recently started to show timings on the screens approaching junction 4 to help drivers identify which route to go. Even then they show a false impression by offering long journey timings to the top of the M5 with an alternative (not surprisingly) shorter timing only to junction 4 of the M6 - some 20 miles south of the M5/M6 junction.

Bryan Bannister

Via email