Traffic standstill as cow ventures on to M8

Jan 31 2013 by Alison Rennie, Paisley Daily Express

Cow on M8

Rush-hour traffic came to a standstill yesterday morning as a COW wandered on to the busy M8 near Glasgow Airport.

Police started receiving calls just after 8am from worried motorists who spotted the confused beast on the motorway close to junction 29 at St James interchange.

Officers attended soon afterwards and directed traffic around the worried animal.

By this time, traffic had tailed back in every direction from the St James interchange into Paisley, along the A737 and back along the M8 as far as Hillington.

Police managed to get the cow behind the motorway barrier at around 9.30am and by 10am, the farmer had appeared to help move the animal on to a trailer.

Brian McGuire, who runs the Paisley.org.uk website, was one of the hundreds stuck in traffic trying to get to work.

He said: “I got stuck just at Asda at the Phoenix Business Park. I wondered what was wrong and heard it over Radio Clyde with George Bowie having a laugh but saying this is serious.

“I started my journey at 9.05 am and it took me 35 minutes to reach the cut off for St James.

“Fortunately, I didn’t see the cow as it was all happening away down at the Erskine Bridge cut-off whilst I was heading to Hillington.

“I was just in the affected traffic and not in the main bulk of traffic, which tailed back to well after Hillington, so it must have been a nightmare waiting to go down towards Greenock or the Erskine Bridge.

“It was nose-to-tail, with emergency services flying past us.”

Despite the tailbacks, motorists stuck in the traffic managed to maintain their sense of humour, with lots of cow-related jokes appearing on social networking site Twitter.

St Mirren defender Lee Mair joined in the fun, posting: “There’s a cow on the M8. I bet its causing udder mayhem. All the commuters will be milking it cos they’ll be late until someone moooooves it!”

He also added: “Why do cows wear bells? ... Cos their horns don’t work!”

Meanwhile Lorraine Fraser had this message for the bovine: “Cow loose on m8 #Mooo’ve over”

Chris Murphy posted this topical tweet: “So there’s a cow protesting on the M8 that horses are stealing their Tesco jobs. Hahaha”

Traffic tailbacks cleared by 11am and the lost cow was returned to its natural habitat in the farmer’s field after its morning adventure .