It was a typical winter day on the M6: dark, wet and packed with traffic.

It appeared so dark that the sun seemed as if it had abandoned the dawn. The waves of spray seemed taller than the new Queen Mary and it was so packed with traffic it was hard not to go up the back axle of an Eddie Stobart.

The plan was to test the M6 Toll, which runs for 27 miles from Cannock, Staffordshire to Coleshill, Warwickshire, bypassing the M6's worst excesses where it hits Birmingham.

We wanted to see how much time and stress could be saved by paying £2 at a smart toll booth where, in the road's first empty days before Christmas, staff were so pleased to see drivers they would take your money, clean your windscreen, give your car a 10,000-mile service and tell your fortune.

So the photographer Don McPhee, the journalist Louise Tickle and I met at Gailey on the A5 just west of junction 12 on the M6. The rain was still pelting down and we abandoned the planned Le Mans start.

We set off at 8.08am and headed to the motorway in the gloom. Tickle was to take the toll road, I would stick to the old M6 and McPhee would flit about a bit. We would meet at Corley services on the M6 near Coventry.

Our paths diverged at the new junction 11A. My Golf surprised itself by hitting 62mph before creaking to a halt within a minute in a snarl-up near Wolverhampton North services. The lack of motion was intensified by the presence of a Red Arrows flight simulator on the back of a truck in the inside lane.

At 8.18am, Radio WM announced: "It's absolutely horrendous on the roads this morning."

Tickle's log later showed that at this point her Rover was cruising at 70mph. "Driving is much easier on the toll road," she said. "It feels much more like driving on a motorway in France.There is virtually nothing on the road. It's glorious." The Golf was still stationary, behind a white van with a sticker saying "save our songbirds".

Tickle, who said that she had just seen her first lorry on the new road, was having trouble keeping to 70mph. By 8.26am, the Golf had travelled five miles in 18 minutes at an average speed of 17mph. Tickle had covered more than 20 miles and was paying her £2 at the southbound toll booth.

The Golf hit top gear, briefly, and then slowed to 15mph while being mocked by a 40mph sign.

By 8.48am, the Golf had travelled 10 miles in 40 minutes. A minute later Tickle phoned to say she was at Corley and had been there for four minutes. She sounded insufferably smug.

The Golf was inching towards the RAC ski slope building close to the M5 interchange and then sped up to 50mph as the road cleared. Five minutes later the road clogged up again.

At Spaghetti Junction, the rain was belting down once more. Fort Dunlop had a huge sign saying: "M6 Toll: fast, efficient relief from the M6."

By the National Exhibition Centre, we had travelled 25 miles in 67 minutes.

At 9.17am, the toll road joins the old motorway in mist so thick that white vans disappear. But the traffic thinned and so, eventually, did the mist. The Golf zoomed at speeds of up to 50mph.

At 9.24am, the Golf passed the advance sign for Corley and two minutes later came to a halt in the car park. There was a suggestion of watery sunlight in the cloud-stuffed sky.

Tickle was in the coffee shop. We did some sums. The Golf travelled 33 miles in 76 minutes at an average speed of 26mph. The Rover covered 34 miles in 37 minutes at an average speed of just over 55mph.

The conclusion: the Rover had a much easier ride and travelled at more than twice the speed of the Golf. Tickle gloated and said the trip was worth every penny of the £2.

The Rover left the service area and headed back north - via the toll road. The Golf went for a quiet lie down.