'Rat run' roadmaps help beat the jams

A GUIDE on how to avoid traffic jams on some of the most congested motorways in Britain will be launched next week amid claims by motoring organisations it was a "rat- runners' charter".

The Birmingham Jambuster Guide details routes for skirting clogged-up stretches of the M5, M6 and M42 - which can be congested with traffic for more than five hours a day.

It ran into immediate opposition from motoring organisations. The AA said it would endanger lives by creating dangerous rat-runs through quiet residential areas.

"These roads are basically inappropriate for the levels of traffic that could be sent there," said a spokesman for the AA. "What you could see is a lot of high-speed traffic zooming though quiet urban areas."

Give Way, the company which is producing the guide, denied it would result in speeding traffic on residential roads.

Caroline Oliver, marketing manager, said: "We have extensively researched the routes and most of the roads are used by the police as diversions."