Really depends on time of day. Horrendous morning rush hour and afternoon school time. Friday afternoons from about 2pm onwards can add at least half an hour to journey times, quite often a lot longer. Outside of these times traffic is not really a problem.
I'm a bus driver driving routes into hereford from ross and always dread Hereford on friday afternoons - especially at start of bank holidays and school holidays.
Aside from traffic the route is an easy drive used a lot by HGV's etc so no access problems etc.
We used this road last week . It is a very good road but lots of twists and turns. I pulled in a few times to let traffic pass me . But it was quite quiet and no problems . We were travelling to north wales .
For our return we came back on the m6 m5 then m50 .
Travelled both ways on sundays . I would prefere Hereford route .
It was nicer and less millage .