I drive on possibly the worst stretch of the M25 to work and back every day. Junction 11 near Woking (Start of the widening/Terminal 5 roadworks) to junction 15 turnoff for Heathrow (M4, End of the works). This stretch of the M25, along with a few other sections, is in a different class from all other motorways and no normal rules of driving work.
It's a nice idea that every one drives at a steady pace and makes progress, but when you see the volume of traffic on this stretch you can bin that notion. When you come down the on-ramp and see 4 lanes of solid traffic not moving an inch most mornings, you're never going to be able to do that kind of thing and this lasts the whole 10 miles or so, save for a few streches a couple hundred metres long.
The main problem is that this section has so many major junctions on it where people try to stay in the fast lane as long as possible when exiting and get into the fast lane as soon as possible when joining. Meaning they have to weave across all the lanes in a very short space of time, making everyone else have to brake and allow them.
It actually moved a lot quicker than normal when they had the clockwise contraflow of 2 lanes, because it stopped people being able to join those 2 lanes, so the kept a steady pace, apart from when there was an accident.
After almost 4 years of doing this journey I've evolved a certain set of habits/tactics/strategies, call them what you will, for doing this journey and they do take time off the journey when it's bad, but basically, if you can avoid this stretch at rush hour times, you should.
