M5 crash

[maxpower]

watching this on sky news... horrendous pile up with about 26 cars..

[trigger]

Dear god, that sounds awful, no doubt speeding/travalling to close etc, I hope no-one is killed although it sounds unlikely.

 

http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16103826

[retrogeezer]

yeh, looks terrible on sky news. The fire service bloke pretty much said people had been killed but as next of kin not notified he could not confirm anything.

[trigger]

I've just been watching it on the news too, It's sickening as i know how easy it is to happen, Mine was only 4 cars yet it happened so fast and i wasn't even speeding or tailgating, I tell you one thing though, It's made me much more aware of what's going on in front.

[autofive]

looks and sounds nasty.

[morris_ital_lover]

Agreed, absolutely awful. The figure that was mentined was 10 people with life changing injuries or died. I hope as many people as possible can make it out alive.

[Lord Sterling]

Sounds awful. I do travel the M5 on occasions so its horrible to hear about stuff like this.

[ProgRocker]

Holy shit, this is one nasty incident.

 

RIP

[Shep Shepherd]

Horrible news indeed

[retrogeezer]

This photo says it all really, 6 lorries that have ploughed through 20 cars..

 

[Cavcraft]

Terrible, terrible thing. Apparantly a couple of the wagons had full fuel tanks hence the fire taking so long to put out.

[trigger]

There's two cars right in front just out of view of your photo RG, I wonder if they had a coming together first and that mess behind is the result of that, an eye witness did say that the Iceland lorry was the first to jackknife and all they then heard was the sound of cars and lorries piling into that.

[retrogeezer]

Yeh, I'm not saying the initial crash was caused by a lorry but a few cars hitting each other doesn't usually cause multiple deaths.

 

You can see by that photo that all 6 lorries could not stop and because of that there have been numerous deaths.

[retrogeezer]

I was trying to find a photo of that massive crash on the M42 in 1997. It says 160 vehicles were involved but can't find any photos.

 

Anyone remember that one?

[trigger]

Wasn't there also a massive one in the early 90's?, I remember a large photo of it in a Top Gear magazine pointing out the dangers of traveling to close and speeding.

 

There was also a big pile up on the A12 near where i used to live in Easthorpe around 1997 time, I'm sure that involved about 60 odd cars, i think fog was a factor in that one.

 

Here we are, just found it, It was the 1991 M4 pile up that Top Gear featured, This was the photo, It must be 12 years since I read that article and it still sticks with me.

 

[retrogeezer]

this one on the M4 in 1991? *edit*

 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Did anyone see an episode of 'Londons Burning' years ago where this 'happened'. I was only about 12 when it was on the telly but it shit me up to the max. Mega terrifying.

[trigger]

this one on the M4 in 1993?

 

That's the one,, but it was 1991, I updated my post with the same photo before i saw this!, There's nothing more frightening then being in a pile up on a motorway Bol, It's even worse when it takes 45 mins for the emergency services to arrive.

[dollywobbler]

The M42 one was a real horror show, and not far from where I lived at the time. That was fog and people just kept on smashing into the back of the crash. Fog and/or heavy rain likely to be the issue here.

 

Not sure what you're getting at about the trucks RG - are you blaming them? As Trigger says, when it all starts going wrong, there's not always much if anything you can do other than hope for the best. People always under-estimate how long it takes a truck to stop as well. Must admit, my instinct always tends to be to try and steer around a problem rather than just slamming the brakes on, though you don't always get the option.

 

In conclusion, horrific and a reminder that motorways can still be dangerous, even with eleventy-six airbags.

[retrogeezer]

Not sure what you're getting at about the trucks RG

 

Just that nearly all motorway crash fatalities are caused by trucks smashing into the back of stationary traffic.

 

People always under-estimate how long it takes a truck to stop as well

 

Sadly, this includes the drivers of said trucks and they are the ones with better visibility of what is happening further ahead (other than when they are sat 6 feet from the rear of the truck in front)!

 

 

I always take a wide berth of trucks, especially the left hooker ones and if traffic is backed up I try to stick to the inside lane and leave a big gap between me and the car in front and also keep a good eye on the rear view mirror!

[scooters]

They don't know how many were killed yet. Never ceases to amaze me how foolishly some people drive in bad conditions. Modern cars give little impression of vunrability. Maybe they will think the 80mph speed limit.

[Guest Len H]

Bloody sheeple in their modern Cavaliers, Sierras, 405s etc, they should be driving Morris Eights, Invacars and Yugos, that'd make them safer drivers etc. etc. zzzzzzzzzzz

[dollywobbler]

I don't really know how truck drivers are meant to be safer. Perhaps leave a mile between them and any other vehicle? Not really practical is it? Don't know if you've ever tried maintaining a sizeable gap on a motorway but people tend to just jump into it. If you keep easing off every time it happens, you'll end up going nowhere. Happens a lot when you're driving slow stuff!

 

Worryingly, this isn't the only place I've seen people blaming the truck drivers for this accident. Like anyone knows the facts yet!

[ashmicro]

Never ceases to amaze me how foolishly some people drive in bad conditions. Modern cars give little impression of vunrability.

 

 

This. My best mate has been a copper for years, and he's said to me that the deterioration in driving standards over the last few years has been marked. Some people seem to think that if their car has 5 NCAP stars they are immortal. If anything, drivers these days should be more careful since the volume of traffic these days is so high.

[retrogeezer]

I don't really know how truck drivers are meant to be safer. Perhaps leave a mile between them and any other vehicle? Not really practical is it? Don't know if you've ever tried maintaining a sizeable gap on a motorway but people tend to just jump into it. If you keep easing off every time it happens, you'll end up going nowhere. Happens a lot when you're driving slow stuff!

 

Worryingly, this isn't the only place I've seen people blaming the truck drivers for this accident. Like anyone knows the facts yet!

 

 

Thing is you do still go somewhere. I've often gone past old campers/cars etc that are doing 50ish, stopped for a comfort break at services 30 miles down the road and come back out onto the motorway only to see the same old car ahead of me again.

 

Journey times are not that much different between doing a steady 50-60 to doing 70-75. One of the reasons I can never understand a lorry doing 60.5mph trying to overtake one doing 59.5 for miles.

 

And sure people don't know the facts of this crash yet but it's pretty obvious the death toll will be largely because of the trucks involved, or do you not think so?

[dollywobbler]

Regardless of whether the death toll is higher because of the trucks involved, it happened. Unless you're planning to ban trucks from motorways, I'd suggest that any accident is going to involve trucks. I remember seeing footage of a smash on the M6 (amazingly with no fatalities) where a truck jack-knifes because everything stops quickly. Then you can see it jolting as cars crash into it. Seems car drivers can be as much at fault as anyone.

 

That was an astonishing accident. A Cavalier Mk3 lost the back end because it had been raining (but was now sunny) and it set off this enormous chain of events. I don't see how you could blame truck or car drivers for the resulting melee. They all crashed so were they all at fault? Or was it just an accident? Society these days always seems to be looking for someone to blame.

[trigger]

It's obvious that when lorries are involved in a crash it's going to be bad, but you can't ban lorries from the road, nearly everything you own has came on the back of a lorry at some point, The trouble is most of them are being pushed all the time by deadlines that they have to meet, You've just got to watch that Eddie Stobart program to now that, If they miss the deadline the company gets big fines.

 

Of course the standard of driving in this country is poor, I see lorry drivers every day do silly things at my work, I had one the other day who was foreign (like many) who couldn't even read English and ended up parked the completely wrong end of the port to collect his box.

 

My wife is on her way to Birmingham today to go shopping with her mum and has just rang to say how good every one's driving is today, She said everybody is keeping a good distance and driving slowly so people have taken notice of this crash, although they will soon forget again.

 

They are also now saying on the news that the rugby club next to the crash scene was holding a firework display and that many drivers could have taken they eyes of the road when one went up which is a major factor.

[retrogeezer]

Yeh, I remember seeing that accident - it was a red mk3 Cav wasn't it? Camera on top of a motorway bridge doing a survey or something.

 

I think the issue is that there are now so many trucks and the size of them has increased as well.

 

The incident involving the Cavalier simply didn't involve many trucks as there were not so many on the roads back then. This M5 crash proves that, 8.30pm and out of 25 vehicles 6 were HGV's.

 

You used to be able to travel late evening to avoid the haulage traffic...not anymore.

 

And yes, the standard of driving in general has decreased hugely and you see that every day on normal roads, fortunately thought the speeds involved are lower so it's usually just horn tooting and fist waving.

 

Open up the canal network I say!

[retrogeezer]

Found the cav video on youtube, there are more lorries than I remember but they are nearly all a lot smaller than you see these days but again they nearly all can't stop and head for the hard shoulder. It was heavy daytime traffic too.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7cyQAE-L9A

 

Quite amazing there were no serious injuries in this is incident.

[Pete-M]

Bloody sheeple in their modern Cavaliers, Sierras, 405s etc, they should be driving Morris Eights, Invacars and Yugos, that'd make them safer drivers etc. etc. zzzzzzzzzzz

 

Rare I'll say this, but Len is spot on.

 

Everyone seems to be blaming something or someone else, whether it be the sheep in the moderns, the humongous mega pillars in moderns, truckers, or the Rugby club for having fireworks in early November when in truth it will have been caused by lots of people on the M5 not driving well enough or leaving large enough gaps. That's people in cars, trucks, vans, whatever, not taking enough notice of what is going on and not being alert.

 

We've all done it, mimbling along the motorway looking for CDs or whatever instead of watching the road. Tailgating people because of some bullshit excuse "I've got to be at a meeting for 10 or I'll be shouted at" etc. Thinking about all kinds of non-driving related things, daydreaming or whatever.

 

Accidents happen. I'm surprised they don't happen more often.