Hammersmith & Shepherd's Bush
The Hammersmith gyratory and flyover carry a very large volume of traffic through a small space, and Shepherd's Bush adds Westfield's car parks and its own roundabout on top.
On the ground
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The gyratory is multi-lane, one-way and continuously busy, which has two consequences. A stopped vehicle causes disruption almost immediately, and a recovery vehicle that approaches from the wrong side has to go all the way round again.
The flyover above it has no hard shoulder. As with Chiswick, if you are stopped on it the priority is getting away from the carriageway, not staying with the car.
Westfield's car parks are large, multi-level and height restricted, and the internal circulation is not designed with recovery vehicles in mind. Recovering from inside almost always means a van.
The roads around White City and the A40 junction are heavy with both through-traffic and shoppers, which makes a straightforward job slower than the distance suggests.
Brook Green, Olympia and the streets between Hammersmith and Kensington are dense, narrow and almost entirely permit-parked. Long vehicles struggle and there is rarely anywhere to stage.
It is also an area where leaving a damaged car outside is a poor option — controlled bays, high footfall and no off-street parking. Storage tends to be the sensible answer here more often than not.
Questions
Related
West London funnels an enormous amount of traffic between central London and the M4. Hanger Lane, the Chiswick roundabout and the Hammersmith gyratory are among the busiest junctions in the country, and they are where a great deal of this work happens.
Chiswick carries an unusual concentration of difficult junctions in a small area — the Chiswick roundabout and flyover, the Hogarth roundabout, and the A4 running straight through the middle of it.
In most of the country, a damaged car can sit on a driveway for a fortnight. In London, a lot of people do not have a driveway — and that turns storage from an afterthought into the immediate problem.
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Tell us where you are and what has happened. We will confirm what we can arrange and get recovery moving.
