RAC Warns of Britain’s Busiest Getaway Weekend in Four Years

Around 14.1 million drivers will take to Britain’s roads between Friday and Sunday for what the RAC says will be the busiest summer getaway weekend in four years, as families favour a UK staycation over a foreign holiday this year. Saturday is expected to be the single worst day, with 3.8 million leisure trips creating what the RAC has dubbed a “summer scramble” on major routes.

The Busiest Weekend in Four Years

According to RAC data, this weekend’s getaway traffic will be the second-highest total the organisation has recorded in ten years of tracking the figures, behind only the 18.8 million trips recorded in 2022 when coronavirus restrictions lifted and pent-up demand for travel exploded. Friday and Sunday are each expected to see 3.4 million trips, with a further 6.8 million spread across the rest of the weekend and an additional 16.2 million staycations already underway between now and Friday.

Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset are drawing the largest share of getaway traffic, with 9 per cent of drivers heading to the South West or the North West of England. A further 8 per cent are travelling to Kent, Sussex or Scotland. The pattern points to a summer dominated by domestic breaks rather than trips abroad.

RAC breakdown spokesperson Harriet Hernando said the shift toward staying in the UK reflects both confidence in the weather and lingering frustration with air travel. “The great British summer staycation is about to get off to a flying start, with many opting to stay in the UK instead of travelling abroad,” she said. “This could be down to people having more confidence in the weather, and concerns over cancelled flights, higher air fares and EU border delays, which are no fun with a family in tow.”

Why Drivers Are Choosing the UK This Year

Money is doing at least as much to shape travel plans as the weather. Hernando pointed to squeezed household budgets as a second factor behind the staycation surge, driven in large part by fuel costs that remain well above last summer’s levels amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. “Household budgets have also been squeezed thanks to high fuel costs caused by the Iran war, meaning many are opting to spend their summer holidays here rather than battle with the expense of going abroad,” she said.

The numbers back that up. Filling a 55-litre family car with petrol now costs £8.90 more than it did last summer, while diesel drivers are paying an extra £12.20 per tank. Both fuels have fallen sharply from their spring peaks as the immediate shock of the conflict has eased, but prices remain well above where they stood before disruption first pushed pump prices to a two-year high earlier this year. For a family driving to Cornwall and back, that difference adds up to a noticeable dent in the holiday budget before a single ice cream has been bought.

The Breakdown Risk That Comes With Hot Weather

Heavy traffic isn’t the only hazard facing drivers this weekend. Hot weather puts real strain on vehicles, and the RAC has already seen the consequences this year: patrols recorded a 20 per cent spike in callouts in June’s heatwave, with tyre blowouts, failing batteries and overheating engines the most common faults. Similar conditions are forecast for the getaway weekend, and stationary traffic in high temperatures is precisely the combination that tends to catch drivers out.

Batteries are especially vulnerable in heat, as high temperatures speed up the chemical degradation that eventually causes a battery to fail, and a battery already weakened by age or short trips is more likely to give out when an engine idles for long periods in slow-moving traffic. Tyres face a different problem: underinflated tyres flex more as they roll, generating heat that raises the risk of a blowout, and that risk climbs further when a tyre is already carrying a heavier-than-usual load of holiday luggage.

What To Do Before You Set Off

Hernando’s advice for anyone travelling this weekend starts with preparation rather than departure time. “Drivers should be ready for the Saturday summer scramble and plan their trips, thinking about setting off earlier or later in the day to avoid traffic jams,” she said. “People should prepare for delays and getting stuck in a jam in potentially very hot weather. This means ensuring your car is ‘summer-ready,’ checking that oil and coolant are topped up and making sure that tyres have plenty of tread and are pumped up to the correct pressures.”

A few checks before setting off can prevent most of the common summer breakdowns. Tyre pressure and tread should be checked when tyres are cold, ideally the night before a long trip, and adjusted for the extra load of a fully packed boot. Coolant and oil levels are worth a quick look under the bonnet, as an engine running low on either is far more likely to overheat in stop-start traffic. A battery more than four or five years old is worth testing at a garage beforehand, especially if it has already struggled to start the car on a cold morning this year.

For the trip itself, carrying water, sun cream and something to provide shade for children or pets in a stationary car is sensible given the forecast heat. A phone charger and a portable battery pack are also worth throwing in the boot, as a flat phone battery is the last thing anyone needs while waiting for breakdown assistance in a queue on the M5 or A303.

Leaving earlier or later than the core 10am to 4pm getaway window is the single most effective way to dodge the worst of Saturday’s congestion. Drivers with flexibility in their plans should also check live traffic updates before setting off rather than relying on satnav alone, as routes that are quickest on paper can back up quickly once the Saturday scramble is underway.

Where the Worst Delays Are Likely

The routes feeding the South West are expected to bear the brunt of Saturday’s traffic, with Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset drawing the largest single share of getaway trips. That points to sustained queues on the M5 past Bristol and through Somerset, with the A303 past Stonehenge, a long-standing bottleneck on the route west, likely to see some of the worst delays of the entire summer. National Highways and local police forces typically increase visible patrols on these corridors on peak getaway weekends, both to manage incidents quickly and to discourage the kind of lane-changing that turns a slow queue into a stationary one.

Drivers heading to Kent, Sussex or Scotland face a different set of pressure points. The M25 remains the most congested stretch of motorway in the country on any getaway weekend, and traffic heading for Dover and the Channel crossings can back up significantly if ferry or Eurotunnel services experience any disruption, a knock-on risk that has become more familiar now that new EU entry checks are affecting processing times at the border. Anyone travelling north toward Scotland should expect the M6 through the Midlands to be busiest in the same Saturday window as the South West routes.

For drivers in electric cars, the getaway weekend carries an additional planning consideration: busy public charging points along popular routes. Motorway service areas on the M5 and A303 corridor are likely to see higher demand for rapid chargers than on a typical weekend, so EV drivers making a long trip are better off charging to a comfortable margin before setting off and building in extra time for a possible queue at a charging bay, rather than assuming a charger will be free and available the moment they need one.

Sources:

• RAC: RAC predicts highest number of getaway trips in four years as schools out for summer
• Bodyshop Magazine: Summer getaway set for busy start, warns RAC
• Fleet World: Gridlock warning for coming weekend as summer getaway hits four-year high