The bank holiday forecast: gridlock and downpours

With depressing predictability, experts were forecasting dire weather and traffic jams for this bank holiday as 18 million people attempt to cross the country in heavy rain.

A brief, sunny respite today was expected to turn into a wash-out from tomorrow, with forecasters warning of "grim" conditions just around the corner.

As a new poll revealed that drivers waste two weeks of their lives in jams, the AA anticipated that the bad weather was unlikely to deter the eternally optimistic seasonal traveller heading to popular seaside resorts such as Brighton, Great Yarmouth, Bournemouth, Blackpool and Newquay.

Nearly 2 million Britons were set to escape the gloom by flying abroad, the Association of British Travel Agents (Abta) said, with Paris, Amsterdam, Dublin, Rome and Prague dominating the top five slots for city-breaks. The rest of the country, however, will have to contend with heavy rain and strong winds.

"I'm afraid the rest of the weekend is going to be something of a wash out," said Jeremy Plester of the private weather forecasters MeteoGroup UK, explaining that wet conditions were expected to sweep in from the west tonight, meeting strong winds from the north.

"It's going to be grim, with just about everywhere in England and Wales getting heavy rain pretty much throughout Sunday.

"It may be drier and brighter for some northern areas on bank holiday Monday, but elsewhere there will be heavy rain again. We could see some temperatures over the holiday weekend struggling to reach even 10C (50F)."

While the AA predicted that many people would set off early yesterday, it still expected traffic to be 25 per cent worse today than on a normal Saturday.

Jams are expected on the M25, the M1 northbound, the M4 westbound, the M6 through the West Midlands and north of Manchester, and the M5 in the Midlands and southbound around Bristol.

Although suspending roadworks at a number of locations, the Highways Agency was keeping them in place at some busy spots, including a section of the M1 around Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, recently found to be the country's worst place for jams.

Meanwhile, the agency warned road users that more than 1,000 people were killed or injured using the hard shoulder between 2000 and 2004. Stopping by the side is even more lethal than driving on the motorway, with 32 per cent of accidents proving fatal or serious compared to 13 per cent on the move.

In a campaign launched yesterday, the agency reminded drivers that stopping is only for emergencies. Hard shoulder accidents claimed the lives of 67 people in the five years from 2000 to 2004, and a further 950 were injured.

Drivers still put themselves at risk by pulling over to make phone calls, check maps or take a toilet break. The agency said it had even come across people stopping to swap Christmas presents or release racing pigeons.

"Every day people put their lives at risk on the hard shoulder, where they are just inches away from high-speed traffic. I was amazed at some of the stories I heard from the traffic officers. I cannot stress too strongly that the hard shoulder is for people to use only in a real emergency," said the TV presenter and journalist, Quentin Willson.