The M25 during the Coronavirus Crisis, 2020

Recordings of the traffic on the M25 motorway, made from the overbridge which takes the driveway from Crown Hill, Upshire, to Copped Hall: one of the westbound traffic, one of eastbound traffic.  Recorded using a crossed pair of Rode M5 microphones feeding into a Zoom H6 digital recorder.

Although the amount of traffic is much reduced, the noise is still present and intrusive, perhaps because people are driving faster. There seems to be a greater proportion of heavy vehicles on the road.

I recorded this because it’s a significant moment and because, in any case, road traffic is likely to sound very different in a few years with the move towards electric transport.