As no-deal Brexit risk rises, so do odds of monster traffic jams

From the concrete overpass, Mike Taylor watches the traffic that trundles through the bucolic countryside, bypassing villages like his own. Nearly all the trucks on this four-lane highway, the M26, are headed to and from the southeastern ports that are Britain’s gateways to Europe and beyond.

The roar from below is unceasing. “It’s like this day and night,” says Mr. Taylor, a local councilor.

To the east, the highway curves towards a junction where it joins an arterial road to the coast. Just out of sight are the “gates” recently installed in the road’s central barrier so that thousands of trucks can be diverted and held back. In the event of a major backlog at the Port of Dover, 50 miles away, this stretch of highway would become a temporary truck park.

What kind of calamity might cause such a monstrous snarl-up?