A tragic day

[Junkman]

Four people were killed in two spectacular pile ups on British motorways today: http://news.sky.com/story/1427453/four-die-in-coach-crash-and-motorway-pile-up

Not sure what the daily death toll usually is, but it does make me sad.

 

Avoid motorways whenever you can.

[beko1987]

The m40 one was sobering close to home, I really hope I don't know anyone in it...

[Louise2cv]

The BBC report made me cross:

"BBC Berkshire reporter Tim Dellor, who was on his way to Derby for the football match against Reading, said he was held up in the diversion along the B430.

 

"Part of the problem is all the diverted traffic is congested down these narrow B roads," he said.

 

"The M1 is closed as well, and the trains have problems with a landslip so it's very difficult for any football fans, or anybody else for that matter, travelling north."

 

Made you late for football eh Tim? The thoughtless bastards.

[richardmorris]

M1 seems to have been a coach driving onto the hard shoulder. M40 at the slip road onto the motorway.

[Albert Ross]

One of my biggest gripes about British roads and the drivers upon them. People don't slow down in foul weather. Fog and driving rain particularly. Snow is another matter completely. They slow down FAR too much, causing following drivers to take risks to overtake them, because they are impatient. Couple this with the nanny aids in cars, and the way the occupants feel insulated from the road. Modern drivers are invincible, until things like this happen.

[Pillock]

The M1 crash was 12-13 where they use hard shoulder running, so it's possible the coach hit a stranded car before CCTV operators noticed it and closed the lane. Perhaps he was going too fast in fog, been driving too long, got distracted, perhaps the car driver had suddenly had to pull onto the shoulder (they were still in the car, and there is no way on earth I would sit in the vehicle if it broke down on the motorway)

 

Mind you, I regularly use the managed motorway bits of the M1 and you sometimes get the big red cross on the gantries after a mile of arrows saying to pull into another lane. But no, twatty drivers know better and will go screaming up to the accident

[Jim Bell]

Sour times.

[scruff]

Tragic couple of weeks really, what with the runaway Scania in Bath as well. 

[Doctormop]

Indeed, there seems to be no good news about at all just lately,

[gordonbennet]

Managed motorway with hard shoulder running crap is bollocks, it's a cheap fix and a dangerous one.

 

The roads are too crowded because there's too many people crammed onto this small island, anyone who travels regularly will know this despite all the propaganda those responsible come up with.

 

Whats happened recently and today we are going to have to get used to, it's not going to get better, driver training, ability, courtesy and attitude isn't going to suddenly improve....technology will be used to force obeyance of certain things like speed, travelling distance and automatic braking via radar will soon be required, but ever increasing numbers of people travelling and further dumbing down of driver skills will cancel out the gains.

[MarvinsMom]

well there never ever is any good news, cos good news doesnt sell newspapers or put bums on seats infront of the telly.

 

from what i heard especially about the M40, is just how fast and how close they were running on that road on fog? i think we can guess that it was too fast, and too close together. even in fine weather there always seems to be someone driving up and under my cars arse, even in fine weather, and then in bad weather, well the other drivers seem to think that that will save them so that they don't need to change either their aggressive driving habits or their speed

[MarvinsMom]

and the previous poster above is correct, this running on the hard shoulder is a fookin' stupid idea. the hard shoulder is where you end up when you have a problem before getting off the road completely, now you have to hope that you either don't come across some poor sod in the hard shoulder, or if you have gotta stop on a motorway, that some daft twat doesn't come charging down the hard shoulder and collect you on the way....

 

it is nothing more than a cheap and dangerous way of moving a traffic jam a few miles up the road.

 

does anyone else do stoopid things like this on their motorways?

[Mr Lobster]

M40 accident almost certainly down to a combination of fog and excess speed. Its generally never that busy once you get north of High Wycombe and everyone tends to get their foot down. I've no problem with that if the weather is ok and traffic permits but as it was foggy here you can see the probable outcome.

 

Despite the fact I agree that hard shoulder running is a stupid idea, I thought it was only used at peak times? So would it have been operational on a Saturday morning? Either way, seems that the coach has hit the Audi which was stationary on the hard shoulder at the time. Nasty stuff regardless of how it happened.

 

There was a local guy killed on the M65 a mile or so from here last night too. 

 

Thought provoking stuff and a reminder that however good your driving skills might be, theres plenty of idiots out there.

[Pillock]

Trouble is, peak time is most of the time. I can't remember seeing that section of M1 without the hard shoulder running.

[Lankytim]

I think on average 10 people are killed on the roads every day, but that includes folk getting run over e.t.c. 

[Guest Breadvan72]

The fog in Oxfordshire this morning was super dense, and the worst motorway pile ups often involve people failing to slow down sufficiently in fog.  The one that they show you on the speed awareness course was a mahoosive fog smash up.

 

I don't agree with junkman about avoiding motorways, however.  They are safer than country A and B roads, as most accidents on motorways involve what are in effect shunts between vehicles going the same way at relatively similar speeds.  

[rml2345]

^ That. You are safer on the motorway but it doesn't feel like it when something like today's tragedy occurs. Hard shoulder running is a bloody dangerous idea, as is converting hard shoulders to bus lanes. Great ideas to ease conjestion but if it's a contributory factor in the M1 fatality then it probably won't be the last.

As for driving in fog... I'm always amazed how many people tailgate at 70-80mph when you can't see further than a couple of car lengths.

Or on sopping wet or icy roads for that matter. Crashing at sub 30mph with no immediate injury is still fucking unpleasant so God only knows what it'll be like at 75 if you hit standing water on the motorway and pirouette.

All to save five minutes...

[dollywobbler]

I think on average 10 people are killed on the roads every day, but that includes folk getting run over e.t.c. 

 

Sounds possible. Motorways are still BY FAR the safest roads to travel on, because everyone is travelling the same way. But, like aeroplane crashes, things can go catastrophically wrong, so it actually makes the national news. 

 

Actually, road deaths and serious injuries have actually started to go up again. The number of traffic Police has actually diminished. Coincidence? Certainly, there are an awful lot of people driving like twats at the moment. I blame turbo diesels. That low-down shove of torque fools people into thinking they've driving something powerful, so they go for overtakes that aren't realistic. A bit like me when I had a stupid incident in the Rover 400. I'm sure that's because I had a spoiler on it and assumed it must therefore be able to accelerate. I was wrong. An Iveco Daily was forced to see if his brakes actually worked. I felt incredibly stupid. I wonder if other people who have near-misses do?

[forddeliveryboy]

Govt stats show m-ways are loads safer because they want you to use them. Given the density of the traffic, you're sometimes a sitting duck with nowhere to go, no matter how well you use the road. On the other hand, a road like the M6 North of Penrith is safer than the rest because it's so quiet. Even though speed differentials are usually so much greater. For a start you stay awake.

[Partridge]

Sobering and upsetting. What a shitty way to die. It must be horrible for the families.

 

Be safe, everyone.

[dollywobbler]

Govt stats show m-ways are loads safer because they want you to use them. Given the density of the traffic, you're sometimes a sitting duck with nowhere to go, no matter how well you use the road. On the other hand, a road like the M6 North of Penrith is safer than the rest because it's so quiet. Even though speed differentials are usually so much greater. For a start you stay awake.

 

Ah, so you're getting all tin-foil hat on this one? http://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation/content/downloadables/roads%20and%20reality%20-%20bayliss%20-%20accident%20trends%20by%20road%20type%20-%20160309%20-%20background%20paper%209.pdf

 

Rural A roads still seem to be particularly unsafe, and it's hardly surprising. You've got vehicles passing each other in close proximity, heading the opposite way, at 60mph or more. And bends. And tractors. And cyclicsts. It is true that until recently, deaths and serious injuries were dropping on all roads bar motorways, but I guess that's because an airbag isn't much use if a truck ploughs into the back of you at 56mph. The truth is though, this doesn't happen very often.

[brickwall]

5 folk die everyday on UK roads. This includes pedestrians and stuff.

[forddeliveryboy]

Prhaps, but if you're alert and driving sensibly, there's more often a way out on a non-Mway road. On a motorway you might just have to watch events take place in your mirrors, and wait for the crunch. Distances between cars on the motorway, given the speeds, are ridiculously small, too. Of course govt don't really want the police to police this since it would cost on two counts - firstly traffic density would reduce and so jams also increase as well as the cost of policing, if a police car could squeeze in there at rush hour.

[Guest Breadvan72]

You see the aftermath of a fair few accidents if you drive a lot on motorways, but they usually involve crumpled up cars and people standing around talking on their mobiles, and not lots of helicopters and ambulances.  You can fake a lot of statistics, but it's hard to fake death rates.

[Craig the Princess]

Prhaps, but if you're alert and driving sensibly, there's more often a way out on a non-Mway road. On a motorway you might just have to watch events take place in your mirrors, and wait for the crunch.

Not really, you can't easily get out of the way of someone buggering up an overtake and ploughing into you head on on a rural road. The design of motorways is generally very good and of a far far higher standards than most rural and A roads.

 

The problem is we are too reliant on the car so we all use them too much and the standard required to be allowed to drive isn't high enough.

[MrDuke]

Certainly, there are an awful lot of people driving like twats at the moment. I blame turbo diesels. That low-down shove of torque fools people into thinking they've driving something powerful, so they go for overtakes that aren't realistic.

Yes and no. I do think modern TDs are a liability, both for inexperienced drivers, and for more mature drivers who expect them to behave like XUDs & other proper turbodiesels (fortunately, the first time I tried to overtake with a Fez TDCi, there was nothing coming the other way). However, there is an ever-increasing breed of driver that will just drive like a thundering twat regardless of what car they're driving, or what the conditions are. It's not even about arrogance or selfishness, it's just a sheer inability to appreciate what the consequences of their actions will be. You can't help them with more stringent driving tests, or compulsory bike sessions: the best you can do is to hope that they never breed.

 

And the current appalling state of motorways isn't due to over-population (although we are over-populated of course), it's due to the utter failure of successive governments to maintain a decent rail infrastructure. The Victorians laid down a forward-thinking basis for efficient, cost-effective, freight distribution and commuter transport throughout the UK, which we then proceeded to utterly f**k up in a monumental way.

[HillmanImp]

Shit, about 50 people per year die falling from ladders. I am pretty sure that proportionately if the amount of people that drove on motorways each day climbed ladders, you would find that ladders would prove even more deadly but hell, unless you are Rod Hull falling off a ladder ain't glamorous enough to make it on the news.

 

You can't lock yourself in a room worrying that some bad shit is going to happen each time you walk out of the door. It probably won't. If it does, normally its just bad luck and there is fuck all you can do about that. Okay, there is reason to try and minimise risk by avoiding stuff like base jumping and freebasing but as a great philosopher* once said 'life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while you might miss it'.

 

*Abe Froman - The sausage king of chicago

[forddeliveryboy]

I agree, but what are these stats? Deaths/serious injuries per motorway mile? But like aeroplanes being almost totally safe, statistically - per nautical mile.

[Sloth in a bowl]

Sounds possible. Motorways are still BY FAR the safest roads to travel on, because everyone is travelling the same way. But, like aeroplane crashes, things can go catastrophically wrong, so it actually makes the national news. 

 

Actually, road deaths and serious injuries have actually started to go up again. The number of traffic Police has actually diminished. Coincidence? Certainly, there are an awful lot of people driving like twats at the moment. I blame turbo diesels. That low-down shove of torque fools people into thinking they've driving something powerful, so they go for overtakes that aren't realistic. A bit like me when I had a stupid incident in the Rover 400. I'm sure that's because I had a spoiler on it and assumed it must therefore be able to accelerate. I was wrong. An Iveco Daily was forced to see if his brakes actually worked. I felt incredibly stupid. I wonder if other people who have near-misses do?

 

The only time I have wished that I had never attempted an overtake was in Slovakia in a gutless hire Focus (may have been a 1400cc).

Getting a run up to overtake a slow van, I was bulked by a faster person overtaking me, which lost me some momentum, then I followed him.

Gutless car was gutless, overtaking start speed was slower and oncoming car was nearer.

All a bit squeaky bum in the end though no braking or avoidance was required, I regret that split second decision that went 'I planned to pass this bastard, that's what I'm going to do'.

Having been bulked and slowed, I should have reappraised the situation.

[forddeliveryboy]

Not really, you can't easily get out of the way of someone buggering up an overtake and ploughing into you head on on a rural road.

 

Obviously a blind bend is going to be that sort of situation - if you can see the road for a hundred or two yards ahead, then you can read it and look out for bad driving. I've been saved a couple of times like this, but I agree if the road had been nose to tail, visibility would have been much reduced.