Breakdown/Recovery driver's pic dump

[loserone]

1 hour ago, Barry Cade said:

Question for all you folks.. I'm in a bit of a "discussion". 

If you were a recovery driver, or a tyre fitter, would you rather attend a casualty vehicle on a "normal" motorway with a hard shoulder or a "Smart" motorway, that has closed the lane with a red "X".

Surely this isn't even a question, it's just an excuse for a dig at "smart" motorways?

[Pieman]

1 hour ago, comfortablynumb said:

" Oh look, an empty lane just for me cos I'm in an Audi!"

FTFY.

[Barry Cade]

2 minutes ago, loserone said:

Surely this isn't even a question, it's just an excuse for a dig at "smart" motorways?

Why does everything have to have an agenda? I'm in Scotland, where there are no smart motorways, and I'm not in trucks anymore. Doesn't affect me at all. I'm interested how people view them. We have the Queensferry crossing, which is 3 lane but one is a hard shoulder. Gantrys have the ability to show a lane closed. Its stupidly busy, so an extra lane would ease a lot of congestion. I'd feel safer on a hard shoulder, but some argue the benefits to "Smart" motorways outweigh the lack of them. They've been on the go for a while now and I'm interested. 

[loserone]

Sorry, just how it came across.  

 

I don't think anyone could argue a red X is safer than a separate hard shoulder, the idea is preposterous so given the answer is obvious..

 

The argument is that it's safe "enough", and that any increase in risk is balanced by saving lots of money through not upgrading the roads and getting people to their destinations faster.

[Barry Cade]

12 minutes ago, loserone said:

Sorry, just how it came across.  

 

I don't think anyone could argue a red X is safer than a separate hard shoulder, the idea is preposterous so given the answer is obvious..

 

The argument is that it's safe "enough", and that any increase in risk is balanced by saving lots of money through not upgrading the roads and getting people to their destinations faster.

People do get hit on the hard shoulder too I suppose, and Congestion causes it's own problems and accidents. IF they had proper surveillance and the Police were on hand each time to cone off and provide plenty blue lights to give space, then fine. I just wouldn't be able to get it out of my head that I'm relying on EVRYONE seeing the red X and taking appropriate action.

Things like this back that up for me. If you drive into the back of that, then a high viz jacket has no chance..

[FakeConcern]

The red X on smart motorways should work, but I have seen so many instances of vehicles just driving straight through them. I don't really understand why as it's not exactly hard to see what is meant just from the graphics on the overhead stanchions.

If I could be bothered I could probably find several examples on dashcam files I have.

So the answer to the question is what was that again?

[rainagain]

You’ve got to wonder with modern signs now, why don’t they display the red X and underneath it ‘lane closed’. 

[Barry Cade]

19 minutes ago, rainagain said:

You’ve got to wonder with modern signs now, why don’t they display the red X and underneath it ‘lane closed’. 

Not everyone speaks English.. I've no idea what Lane Closed is in French , but I understand a red X everywhere.  Maybe holograms are the answer, or inflatable drop down bollards?

[lesapandre]

14 minutes ago, Barry Cade said:

Not everyone speaks English.. I've no idea what Lane Closed is in French , but I understand a red X everywhere.  Maybe holograms are the answer, or inflatable drop down bollards?

In French it would be 'voie fermée' - can't say I've ever seen it used though - if a lane is closed it's coned - with arrow signs or one of those trucks with a massive arrow on it - or possibly from the occasional gantry. Closures usually for maintenance. No 'smart motorways ' I've seen - French would just drive straight through 😂 whilst smoking, kissing a girl and discussing Sartre. I kid you not.

[catsinthewelder]

With a puncture you might be better with a smart motorway than a normal one as the occasional laybys are deep enough to work on the car in relative safety compared to a hard shoulder (I've changed an offside wheel on the hard shoulder and don't relish the idea of doing it again).

With a sudden mechanical failure you could be safer on a smart motorway too if you end up stuck on the outside lane.  At least they can put a lane closure up on the board and drop the speed limit accordingly.  If that happens on a normal motorway all you can do is abandon car and wait for the accident.

I do realise that theres a good chance something will hit you before they close the lane but at least it can happen.

Theres also the factor that when something is reported they seem to drop 8 miles of road down to 40mph so by the time you reach the hazard you've started doing 70mph between the cameras.

[sheffcortinacentre]

You obviously didn't watch the documentary last year on smart motorways, they scare the shit out off me & like op I've seen it from both sides.

[Pieman]

3 hours ago, Barry Cade said:

People do get hit on the hard shoulder too I suppose, and Congestion causes it's own problems and accidents. IF they had proper surveillance and the Police were on hand each time to cone off and provide plenty blue lights to give space, then fine. I just wouldn't be able to get it out of my head that I'm relying on EVRYONE seeing the red X and taking appropriate action.

Things like this back that up for me. If you drive into the back of that, then a high viz jacket has no chance..

If you drive into the back of that you deserve to have your driving licence taken away permanently.  Or maybe both your eyes removed, cos you clearly can't be fucked to use them.

[Metal Guru]

5 hours ago, Barry Cade said:

Why does everything have to have an agenda? I'm in Scotland, where there are no smart motorways, and I'm not in trucks anymore. Doesn't affect me at all. I'm interested how people view them. We have the Queensferry crossing, which is 3 lane but one is a hard shoulder. Gantrys have the ability to show a lane closed. Its stupidly busy, so an extra lane would ease a lot of congestion. I'd feel safer on a hard shoulder, but some argue the benefits to "Smart" motorways outweigh the lack of them. They've been on the go for a while now and I'm interested. 

The Queensferry  crossing us stupidly busy? Oh look there’s a spare suspension bridge over there!

[comfortablynumb]

I can't find the video now,but the Australian road safety teams have developed a water 'curtain' which deploys, and allows a ' lane closed' image to be protected onto it.

Aside from making the road constantly wet, seemed like a good idea to me.

[comfortablynumb]

Couple from a recovery a few years ago, featuring the new Vauxhall submarine.

Fortunately the occupants got out ok, but when we got there the only signs were a ripple of water above the aerial, note the weed!

Took a while of grappling to get hold of that one 

[JJ0063]

I’ve still got such an urge for this career. Got my license, had an interview with Tears recovery, got offered it but turned it down after a few ex employees put the frighteners on me.

Maybe one day..

[sheffcortinacentre]

Long antisocial hours.

[loserone]

Long and antisocial.  Yours?

[Zelandeth]

Having had a brief breakdown on a supposedly smart stretch of the M1, hard shoulder all the way.

In my case thankfully I got the car going again so I didn't need to see if I was any good at playing a real world game of Frogger.

I was in lane 2 or 3 at the time and my car cut out just as traffic started moving off following a 40 minute period of standing there.  Was probably five minutes or so before I managed to get it going again.

Biggest challenge if I had abandoned the car was that there was nowhere to go.  I'd have had to run a good hundred yards or so in either direction along a live carriageway to get to a place where I could actually get off the road.  At least if there's a hard shoulder there I'd have had a reasonable chance of surviving that experience.

I also have a friend who has had a catastrophic gearbox failure on a smart motorway, no chance of making it to a refuge area.  The fact that they're in a wheelchair meant that there was absolutely nothing they could do but call the police and wait.  It took them nearly an hour to get a traffic car there to at least provide high visibility cover while they waited for the breakdown recovery to turn up.  Apparently the number of near misses was horrifying.

The police had the cheek to suggest that the driver should have had a plan in place for such a situation.  How the heck do you plan for that?  As an able bodied person*I* can't think of a sensible contingency plan there aside from getting the hell out of the car and off the road as quickly as possible.

As someone who spends a fair chunk of time on the M1, the other big headache I've seen with them is that it makes life far, far harder for emergency crews trying to get to an incident.  Normally they'd just travel up the hard shoulder - but when there isn't one, they need to just muscle their way through four lanes of queued traffic which has absolutely nowhere to go most of the time.

The hard shoulder isn't a magic solution to all the safety problems, but it's hugely safer than not having one.  Having that *and* the laybys set further back would be even better.

My other absolute hated feature is that the gantry speed limit signs are only used if there's something going on.  I really wish they'd just show the relevant signage if everything is free running.  Nothing makes you second guess yourself like going past a sign saying "End" or similar and having you second guessing if you somehow missed a reduced speed limit sign.

[comfortablynumb]

21 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

My other absolute hated feature is that the gantry speed limit signs are only used if there's something going on.  I really wish they'd just show the relevant signage if everything is free running.  Nothing makes you second guess yourself like going past a sign saying "End" or similar and having you second guessing if you somehow missed a reduced speed limit sign

Obviously many years ago, when I was a student, one of the other guys dad was a traffic cop.

He used to get really annoyed after they'd asked for signs to be illuminated, it usually took ages for it to happen.

Then when they'd finished with the incident, and rang asking for it to be switched off, they'd come back to the same section a couple of hours later, and the warning would still be on!

He used to say it was no surprise that drivers ignored the signs, when there wasn't anything to sign for.

I don't know why it was such a problem, but IMHO not much has improved, even though the technology is leaps and bounds above what it was then.

[Volksy]

This was my old Canter from when I worked in Recovery. 

It was a job I really enjoyed in the main, this was way back when they were tacho exempt, and Green Flag didn't do 'Relay' when recovering vehicles long distances. So on more than one occasion I had the issue of the last job of the ten hour shift was a distance recovery, which meant that I was duty bound to take them where they needed to go. Paid well for these though. 

Motorway recovery was pretty terrifying at the best of times. Even before Smart Motorways were a thing. Once I had four old dears in a Mk1 Punto that was loaded to the rafters pretty much shut down the M1 having had a rear tyre blow in the middle lane. You guessed it, they stopped where they were and I got there before the Police. This was before Highways Traffic Officers were as prevalent as they are now. 

I essentially had to close Lane 1 and 2 with the truck, and wait as there was no chance of pushing the laden car over to the hard shoulder given the flat tyre, Thankfully a helpful HGV caught in the subsequent jam assisted by blocking the lanes so I could use my rig to drag the car complete with occupants as the old dears flat refused to get out of the car. Some choice words exchanged with them, however they just could not grasp the danger they had put themselves in, so logged a official complaint against me.

[Pieman]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

The hard shoulder isn't a magic solution to all the safety problems, but it's hugely safer than not having one.  Having that *and* the laybys set further back would be even better.

Even when there is one, nowadays when there is solid traffic self-entitled cunts just drive up it with their hazards on because they're too fucking important to wait.

Police and recovery should be allowed to stop them when they reach the scene and make THEM clear the accident up, maybe half an hour hoovering up bits of bodies might make them rethink.

[Momentary Lapse Of Reason]

6 hours ago, comfortablynumb said:

Couple from a recovery a few years ago, featuring the new Vauxhall submarine.

Fortunately the occupants got out ok, but when we got there the only signs were a ripple of water above the aerial, note the weed!

Took a while of grappling to get hold of that one 

Is that the Forty Foot Drain ?

Years ago narrow boating on the Forty Foot we struck an underwater object near Wells Bridge

and were told in The George that it was probably one of the cars down there.

[comfortablynumb]

5 minutes ago, Momentary Lapse Of Reason said:

Is that the Forty Foot Drain

Close, it's the Twenty foot near March.

I know over near the Dog in a doublet they have problems with the Sluice gates every so often, because of vehicles 

[Pieman]

29 minutes ago, comfortablynumb said:

Close, it's the Twenty foot near March.

I attended a wedding in March a couple of years ago and drove back on some of those roads at night, that was a squeaky-bum experience as the roads aren't well surfaced and are narrow...one false move and you're in the drink!

[comfortablynumb]

Yeah they're easy to get wrong, there's frequent cars in the river near me. 

Doesn't stop the idiots driving at warp speed tho 🙄

[Sunny Jim]

Fair play, that's some really skilled work there. Placing objects the size and weight of modern cars where you want them using winches and blocks is no mean feat.

[CreepingJesus]

I remember doing a Hiab 'trick shot' in Edinburgh, when I was driving for the parking enforcement. Some clown thought burying their shitty Corsa several deep near their garden, magically made the lack of tax/MOT etc., go away. Not with that bunch of wankers* it didn't. There was a fair old crowd, cos it was opposite a bus garage, and I actually said "Watch this!" and hoiked the thing neatly and easily over everything, onto the flatbed.

Did it again with a big Merc 4x4, cos the guy was sure there was no way I was lifting it. I shouldn't have, because it was right on the lifting limit, even though the truck was so close I could barely get in the gap, to attach the wheel forks properly. He wasn't happy, but he had to admit defeat...

*Yes, they've richly earned their reputation. I didn't last long, because even as a committed misanthrope, I couldn't spend any longer with the meanest, nastiest, pettiest minded bunch of pencil neck jobsworths I'd ever encountered. Utterly horrible people. 

[Momentary Lapse Of Reason]

2 hours ago, comfortablynumb said:

Close, it's the Twenty foot near March.

I know over near the Dog in a doublet they have problems with the Sluice gates every so often, because of vehicles 

Near the Dog in a Doublet a number of years ago a horse box was fished out with the remains of the horse still in it.

Believed to be some sort of grudge being settled.

 

[comfortablynumb]

There was also a missing person found there when a trainer turned up with the remains of a foot in it a few years ago🤢