AS in the news (traffic news)

[skattrd]

This post in Bucketeers collection/dropoff of the AX

 

Epic collection fred took place, Buckets Man parked A FRAME AX in my driveway but the "drop off" railway station fiasco went slightly less well and the non-AX related boiled Pug 205 + Orange rescue service caused A3 traffic chaos.

 

This made me think … how many reported traffic incidents have we (AS collectively) caused … Personally I'm responsible for 2  

 

1. On the M62 between Westbound just after Bradford, I was in the Galant Sapporo. The water-pump shat itself in the middle of the road works, 3 lanes down to 2, one seriously cooked Mitsubishi in lane 1, bringing the M62 down to one lane, it caused a bit of a tailback.

 

2. On the A57 Northbound between Worksop and the M1. Going up a hill just after a roundabout on single carriageway, the driveshaft fell off the boring (Bora Tdi) I was difficult to pass and immobile. A couple of mile tailback. I heard about it on radio 2, and was rather embarrassed.

On VWs the bolts on the passenger side driveshaft unscrew themselves in motion if you don't use thread-lock. I thought the garage would have known this and used thread-lock when they replaced the clutch … apparently they didn't.

[Zelandeth]

Aberdeen. Rush hour. Haudagin roundabout (the main intersection between the main roads to the west of the city). Merc 809d. Halfway round the gearbox decided to engage second gear without first disengaging first. Totally locked up the drivetrain. Having had to dodge to the left because I was trying not to get sideswiped by a taxi - I was blocking two lanes...and following the resulting slide on the greasy tarmac when the (dual) back axle was locked up, wound up at about 45 degrees to the direction of travel.

 

It usually took the best part of an hour to get through the queue there on a normal day. I shudder to think how far the tailbacks stretched that day. Eventually someone in a JCB took pity on me, came roaring down the bus lane and dragged me off the roundabout. I've never been so glad to see a digger in all my life.

 

The most spectacular one was halfway down the A90 between Aberdeen and Dundee when the gearbox in a clapped out LDV convoy decided to detonate. We don't know which failed first...the gearbox of the diff...but the entire contents of both wound up all over the road, and my ears were ringing from the resulting bang for hours. That was surprisingly quickly resolved though - a traffic car saw it happen, pulled in behind me. The guy saw that I knew what I was doing, traffic was quiet, we swept up the bits (no oil in evidence!), and he was on his way. I'd managed to coast down the hill into a layby to await recovery.

 

That could have resulted in a massive tailback had it happened a quarter of a mile sooner.

[Brodders]

The spin I had on the way back from picking up a Rover 75 caused a part of the A14 to be shut for about 10 minutes, whilst the police got it out of the ditch.

 

Despite the snow, it still caused a rather embarrassing queue of traffic behind the rolling roadblock, which wouldn't surprise me if it got mentioned on a BBC Radio Suffolk traffic update (I didn't get to hear my 15 minutes of fame in the police car though).

 

To anyone who may have been stuck in that queue during the snowy weather, sorry.

[Guest Hooli]

Oh good thread...

 

I once blocked the exit to an entire housing estate in Lancing when the airline blew off the back axle of a Dennis Dart. They stop rather quick when the rear wheels lock solid at 20-25mph. No way that was moving till the mechanic turned up.

[NorthernMonkey]

A few years back, we were moving our narrow boat from just outside Skipton to Fallwood marina in Leeds on a beautifully warm bank holiday Monday.

All was going well until one particular automated swing bridge....I popped my waterways key into the control panel on the roadside, turning the traffic lights red and opening the bridge.

After moving the boat through, I jumped off and went to close the bridge...by this time, there were half a dozen cars and a local Arriva bus waiting to cross...unfortunately the bloody key snapped off in the switch!

I tried for a good fifteen minutes to retrieve the broken key but to no avail. In the end, I beat a hasty retreat to the boat, rung British Waterways to report the incident and buggered off sharpish.

Some five hours later, we were still making the top of the traffic reports on BBC R2 having brought most of the Yorkshire dales to a halt.

[Simonsays]

I managed to roll my mothers metro as a callow youth in 1989. Brought traffic to a halt on all four lanes of the A690 in Sunderland. Made the local radio and front page of the local rag the next day.

 

Not my finest hour.

[beko1987]

I caused a rolling road block of the M25 when my wheel fell off (3 hours after it flipping happened) , the traffic wombles kicked the big bits of tyre off the carriageway and away the traffic went. Caused the gantry signs to be lit up saying 'caution - debris in road' for 2 hours too

 

Found it! http://autoshite.com/topic/17257-zx-19td-farewell-faithfull-steed/page-1 Roadblock pic is on page2, that made the first as calendar!

[Talbot]

Back when I was nearly 18 (IE an eternity ago) I had a massive smash on the M3 southbound, in the 2-lane section just north of Winchester.

 

Road was closed for an hour or so with some fairly dramatic tailbacks. It made the news, although I didn't get to hear it as I was at the side of the road talking to a Police officer. There are no photos of it because 1993, but by remarkable co-incidence I ended up speaking to the same police officer about a year later, who commented to me that the car I got out of (a Talbot Horizon) was "the most damaged car I've seen in years where we got someone out alive, never mind walked away"

 

Thanks for that....

[cms206]

Caused a tailback from the Clyde Tunnel to the Erskine Bridge by running out of fuel in a Volvo B10M literally at the bottom of the North Bore of the tunnel at 7.50am on a Monday morning.

 

I phoned my mate to tell him he'd be late for work. He laughed and hung up. He didn't laugh when he passed me at about 10.15am still at the bottom of the tunnel.

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[Slartibartfast]

I caused a rolling road block of the M25 when my wheel fell off (3 hours after it flipping happened) , the traffic wombles kicked the big bits of tyre off the carriageway and away the traffic went. Caused the gantry signs to be lit up saying 'caution - debris in road' for 2 hours too

 

Found it! http://autoshite.com/topic/17257-zx-19td-farewell-faithfull-steed/page-1 Roadblock pic is on page2, that made the first as calendar!

That thread is a hell of a read.

 

Mine was crashing my first, second or third car depending on how you count, into the median on whatever A road it is that takes you from the Newbury bypass to Petersfield (maybe it is the newbury bypass, not sure). The sequence of events was this:

 

It was pelting it down with rain and I was driving too fast for the conditions, my level of driving experience (had passed less than a month previously) and the age of my car, which was a moderately shonky mark 1 diesel Focus. I was in the southbound carriageway, right hand lane, going about 80.

Guy driving a Peugeot on bald tyres hit standing water on the northbound carriageway. He spun out, impacted the median and dumped most of his engine bay over the southbound carriageway. The driver of the car in front of mine, which was a Modern of some sort, stopped dead from 80mph to avoid hitting the debris. I got hard on the brakes and entered a skid, managed SOMEHOW to miss his car and skid past it to the right, skidded over the grass bit and impacted the median, having lost enough speed that my airbag didn't go off and I wasn't injured or even mildly hurt. I was INCREDIBLY lucky. I had had new tyres fitted not long before and I suspect that helped a lot.

 

Afterwards the car looked like this:

 

 

I can't remember if the whole carriageway was shut, or just the two right hand lanes. I do remember that the police and ambulance arrived incredibly quickly, and the driver of the modern was an absolute gent who took me to sit in his car so I could calm down because I was in shock.

[Guest Hooli]

^^ stanced yo!

[andy18s]

I had a bad bike smash in my late teens

Worse for my mam who heard the local radio (Marcher Sound) news report,in which they Gave out my name as a fatality.....