'I made the stupid mistake of driving on this major Manchester road and experienced traffic hell'

All drivers will have made mistakes when they are behind the wheel, whether that is a little error like taking the wrong turn, or a bigger one like dinging your car while making a manoeuvre But on Monday (January 8), I made a worse mistake and took Mancunian Way during rush hour, which turned a fairly simple 30-minute journey into a 70-minute drive from hell.

Just to be clear, I am not bemoaning the essential roadworks being carried out on Manc Way, which involve inspecting sections of the road through the centre of the city for safety reasons. But, I do want to leave a warning to others who might otherwise make the same mistake as I did and find themselves stuck in long queues of crawling traffic.

For those unaware, or who have not driven through the centre of Manchester this week, for the next month, the road will see lane closures while this work is carried out, which means no end of merging with other slow-moving traffic, made worse at each stretch with an adjoining slip road. In short, you should probably avoid it at all costs.

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I learned this the hard way, returning from a police cordon near Bolton after a long day reporting in the cold. Not thinking of anything other than the end of a long day, I made the mistake of following my car's Sat Nav, which directed me along the A57 and over Manc Way on my way home.

Now, this would not have been a great idea during rush hour on a normal day of the week, but with one lane closed and many other drivers making the same mistake as I had, I was unwittingly driving onto the most chock-a-block road in the entire city. From the instant I came off the M60 and joined other cars heading