Huge car crash on the M5

[DromeGT]

Last night there was a big crash on the M5 Motorway involving multiple vehicles.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-15603124

Thoughts?

 

[mattythedog]

Looks terrible. Was watching some reports on the BBC, not a nice start to my morning.

 

[Grayfox]

Cause of accident is still not clear but there was heavy rain/fog.

 

[mattythedog]

The police say they don't know the cause, but I bet it was someone straying out of lane, causing a lorry to brake and jackknife, then it all went downhill from there.

 

[DromeGT]

Probably, I think the weather might have had a hand in the accident. My dad and I have to travel up the M5 (luckily not near Somerset) to go sell some winter tires to someone.

 

[Famine]

I was out on the roads last night between 4pm and 5.30pm and I haven't encountered a journey so densely packed with utter cretins in all of my previous 17 years of driving. A friend of mine in another part of the country told of a similar experience. Last night really was moron night.

I've woken up to this story and I'm so unsurprised that my eyebrows have fallen into my mouth.

 

[homeforsummer]

I was out on the roads last night between 4pm and 5.30pm and I haven't encountered a journey so densely packed with utter cretins in all of my previous 17 years of driving. A friend of mine in another part of the country told of a similar experience. Last night really was moron night.

I've woken up to this story and I'm so unsurprised that my eyebrows have fallen into my mouth.

I think last night was the first proper night where summer driving idiots change into winter driving idiots. Had all the perfect ingredients: darkness, poor weather conditions, Friday night, rush hour, etc etc.

This winter, the first car I see sitting there on the rev limiter spinning its wheels in the snow, rather than help it, I'm going to use its lack of grip to push them in the opposite direction to really cock up their journey. My first act as transport minister would be to ban from driving anyone who is incapable of pulling away on a level snowy surface without lighting up their tyres.

 

[Famine]

I actually had to get Red going up a snowy Welsh backroad hill by lighting the wheels up. I had too much weight at the back of the car (MiniFam, luggage, dogs x2) and the fronts were just losing traction too easily and I was losing roadspeed. Nearly at a stop I hit upon a genius idea and just caned it - winter tyres are commonly a very soft compound that transfer heat to the surface more easily, melting it and then using the uneven surface to grip. Red was wearing Toyo Proxes, a very soft compound with excellent water clearing properties. They tore through the snow like a hot knife through butter, found tarmac and got going again

Incidentally, this is my edited-for-GTP tale of yesterday evening from elsewhere:

I don't post much in this thread any more because... well, I don't go outside. I've decided after today that I'm not going to bother again.

The Golf V who decided I was either racing or his tow car and he'd fallen off was bad enough. The 10 plate Micra who wanted to be in the right-hand lane for the roundabout six miles ahead was bad enough. The Celica who wanted to sit in the right hand lane at 40mph and 140mph, who I passed three times in 18 miles was bad enough. The random lane-changing gonks were bad enough. But what took the biscuit was an actual act of road rage.

With Golf V glued to my towbar I was happily moving down the right hand lane at acceptable road speed. Without warning - or indication - the Peugeot 106 Quiksilver in the left lane that we were about to overtake and the only other visible car on the road at the time decided that he hated me. At probably a deficit of 30mph, he swerved out into the right hand lane and dropped the anchors. In fact had he thrown actual anchors out he'd have slowed up slightly more gently. The Golf behind me 🤬 himself. I just changed lanes and sailed up the inside. I glanced over and the scene was a twentysomething, scrawny streak of piss in full racing recline position leaning over towards me, Blakeying his left arm furiously while cripplehooking with his right. There was some tiny female in the passenger seat who could only have been whiter had she been bleached by an albino polar bear, looking utterly petrified. He dived back in behind me and I think treated me to a full beam/foglight glare for ten seconds or so - though a combination of piss-poor Peugeot headlights and 75% tints on the rear windows of the BMW meant it looked like I was being chased by four small children with candles.

That was the last I saw of him. I have no idea what the issue was. I have no idea why he'd think his tiny French thing could in any way intimidate a BMW driver. I have no idea what he could possibly hope to achieve by bringing about a coming together of a BMW 5-series touring and a 106, save for a few scratches on my shed and the death of both him and his passenger. If I'd had more presence of mind I'd have pointed and laughed at him. He's probably still raging now, for whatever reason he chose to rage in the first place.


What in 🤬 is wrong with people?

I forgot to mention the articulated lorry who did that roadworks/lane-ends thing of sitting across two lanes to prevent people diving in at the last second by blocking them. Childish at the best of times, but starting that manouevre in a queue of traffic with three cars alongside you..?

 

[dhandeh]

^^^^^

Bloody BMW drivers, think they own the road.

 

[Famine]

I'd have owned his bit of it if I were anywhere near as much of an arse as he was being.

 

[Jim Prower]

I'm finding fewer people are tailgating my SE-R than were my 200SX. Now, though, I'm finding a troubling trend of people turning from the outside lane. I even was in an outside turn lane a few weeks ago( in the 200,) when someone in either a Hyundai or a Jetta decided "Oops, I need to turn" and tried to cut me off from the lane that goes straight across. Of course, I couldn't tighten the turn, because there were people inside of me.

Yesterday, on my way home, pickup truck also misses his turn, decides to cut in at the last minute to avoid something like having to go around the block. Worst part was that it was a vehicle for a telecomm company...without that nice phone number on the back that you can call when someone's being a dumbass.

I've not noticed the usual Grand Prix/Grand Am driver problem, though.

 

[homeforsummer]

I actually had to get Red going up a snowy Welsh backroad hill by lighting the wheels up. I had too much weight at the back of the car (MiniFam, luggage, dogs x2) and the fronts were just losing traction too easily and I was losing roadspeed. Nearly at a stop I hit upon a genius idea and just caned it - winter tyres are commonly a very soft compound that transfer heat to the surface more easily, melting it and then using the uneven surface to grip. Red was wearing Toyo Proxes, a very soft compound with excellent water clearing properties. They tore through the snow like a hot knife through butter, found tarmac and got going again

There are, of course, exceptions to my furious wheelspinning rule I also have instinctive muppet radar so I'm aware when someone is doing it because they're an eejit and not merely to get somewhere.

A bit like the two plonkers I observed for 10 minutes a few winters back on the hill outside my flat. Both were wheelspinning furiously all the way up the hill, and then stopped at a red light. A Micra pulled up silently behind them.

Light goes green, Tweedle Dumb and Dee lit up their tyres again moving slightly slower than someone crawling on broken glass in a force ten gale. Micra sat there waiting. Two idiots eventually cleared the traffic island the lights were mounted on. Micra pulled away - on a snowy, not particularly shallow hill - with no wheelspin at all, overtook the idiots and cleared off up the road. Idiots disappeared from sight, eventually. Five minutes later, one of them came sliding back down the hill (wrong way on a one-way road) closely followed by a running policeman attempting to assist.

Both plonkers clearly weren't held long enough under the font at their christenings.

 

[Carlos]

The reason why people crash all the time, is that alot of people are driving their cars becaus they have to. If you don't like something, you don't care how good your doing it. It's said many times, but it's true. And people who don't care and have a high level of agression, could drive a 106...

 

[homeforsummer]

The reason why people crash all the time, is that alot of people are driving their cars becaus they have to. If you don't like something, you don't care how good your doing it. It's said many times, but it's true. And people who don't care and have a high level of agression, could drive a 106...

And this is why I totally welcome autonomous cars. It shouldn't be mandatory but I much trust a computer to most drivers.

Fun fact: in the hundreds of thousands of miles covered in Google's self-driving car, it has crashed only once - when being driven manually by an engineer.

 

[Beeblebrox237]

While yinz are arguing, I'd like wish the victims good luck on their recoveries and express my condolences to the families of those who died.

 

[ExigeEvan]

Sounds like the final death count won't be known for some time. Cars completely burnt out, little left of even the chassis.

One witness even said visibility was down to 3 metres (fog or smoke from nearby display), which at 70 mph is nothing.

 

[Grayfox]

^^^^^

Bloody BMW drivers, think they own the road.

No.

You mean Bloody Volvo Drivers.

http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2004/volvo/

 

[homeforsummer]

One witness even said visibility was down to 3 metres (fog or smoke from nearby display), which at 70 mph is nothing.

I've driven at night in fog before (and on ice, for that matter) with that sort of visibility and it certainly gets a bit scary. Was coming back from a gig in York back to Newcastle and was reduced to doing between 30-40mph on the A1 all the way back. Took ages.

That said, I was simply driving for the conditions. I can't help feeling that a lot of innocent people have died here due to a lot of people a) not driving for the conditions and b) tailgating. I've seen accidents happen in front of me on motorways before when people have been travelling to close on a wet road when the traffic slows. Chuck in very poor visibility and incredible caution is needed.

No further bodies found, apparently: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-15610140

 

[PeterJB]

Sunday Telegraph says the fog was infact smoke from a fireworks display at a nearby Rugby Club. Firework smoke might crease some haze, but I wouldn't a thought a thick black cloud of somoke, unless they were faulty fireworks or something.

 

[Famine]

I've driven at night in fog before (and on ice, for that matter) with that sort of visibility and it certainly gets a bit scary. Was coming back from a gig in York back to Newcastle and was reduced to doing between 30-40mph on the A1 all the way back. Took ages.

The last time I drove in bonnet-length visibility was in Iceland. I was being overtaken by everyone - but then when the road you're on has a traffic load of six vehicles per hour, there's no-one coming the other way for you to hit. Probably.

That said, I was simply driving for the conditions. I can't help feeling that a lot of innocent people have died here due to a lot of people a) not driving for the conditions and b) tailgating. I've seen accidents happen in front of me on motorways before when people have been travelling to close on a wet road when the traffic slows. Chuck in very poor visibility and incredible caution is needed.

I was telling my daughter about this the other day (the 10 year old one, not the 1 day old one). She's got a bit of a bug about speed following an involvement in a (low-speed) collision a few weeks back. People see a 60mph limit and drive at - or slightly above - 60mph. It's fine because the sign says so. This ignores the possibility that it can be perfectly safe to do 120mph on it (a police driver on pursuit, ambulance driver or fire engine driver might - they're training to assess higher risks and, as humans, quite like going home alive to their family at the end of a day - if it's not safe they wouldn't do it; I have been not-pulled-over at a speed you would not believe, by a fully-liveried BMW 5 series who was overtaking me) or it might be foggy, snowing, raining aardvarks and full of treacle and be phenomenally unsafe to do even 6mph on it. But we're not taught safe assessment of speed, only what speeds are legal or not.

Some say that the French system of variable speed limits (lower when it's raining) is a solution. I say that chronically misunderstands the problem and simply adds more learning of what speed is legal or not rather than how to safely assess speed.


Either way, you can be sure that the usual suspects will jump on this one and declare the proposed 80mph speed limit to be disastrous, dangerous folly in the light of this accident - which had nothing to do with speed and everything to do with inappropriate speed (people moving into the distance they know to be clear too fast to stop within that distance).

Sunday Telegraph says the fog was infact smoke from a fireworks display at a nearby Rugby Club. Firework smoke might crease some haze, but I wouldn't a thought a thick black cloud of somoke, unless they were faulty fireworks or something.

A decent barrage of high quality fireworks will create quite a dense, grey/white cloud. If it was a full, professional display, it's certainly plausible. However, it also wouldn't be allowed within a certain distance (I think it's 100 feet) of a major road.

 

[DromeGT]

Just read that there was an 11 car pile up on the M6 yesterday

 

[ExigeEvan]

I've driven at night in fog before (and on ice, for that matter) with that sort of visibility and it certainly gets a bit scary. Was coming back from a gig in York back to Newcastle and was reduced to doing between 30-40mph on the A1 all the way back. Took ages.

I had the same experience only last week. My dad picked my travel-buddy and I up from Heathrow and dropped him off at Malvern. In our attempt to join the M50 (which was closed) we went through 5m visibility fog in country lanes and I was even telling my dad to slow it down.

People see a 60mph limit and drive at - or slightly above - 60mph. It's fine because the sign says so.

Incredibly dumb girl in work said this when she skidded on ice and landed on the roof of a building. "I wasn't going too fast, I was only doing 70".

 

[Sureboss]

Some say that the French system of variable speed limits (lower when it's raining) is a solution. I say that chronically misunderstands the problem and simply adds more learning of what speed is legal or not rather than how to safely assess speed.

All we really need is some sort of competency test to get idiots off the road. Perhaps some sort of test where an official of some board could examine your skills!

 

[homeforsummer]

The last time I drove in bonnet-length visibility was in Iceland. I was being overtaken by everyone - but then when the road you're on has a traffic load of six vehicles per hour, there's no-one coming the other way for you to hit. Probably.

I had Transit vans flying past me. The A1 was virtually empty but I was on summer tyres and above about 40mph my car was physically swaying from side to side on the sheet ice (was in the Panda at the time), so I kept well below that and tried to keep myself pointing the right direction. More than a few white vans came past me at over 40mph. As did an articulated lorry. Given that there were more than a few lorries head-first in the boonies on the journey I gave them plenty of distance.

Some say that the French system of variable speed limits (lower when it's raining) is a solution. I say that chronically misunderstands the problem and simply adds more learning of what speed is legal or not rather than how to safely assess speed.

I agree, though at the same time plenty of people are beyond help and need to be led around by the hand with these sort of things, so perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad idea. Even if there are those of us who can safely judge speed.

way, you can be sure that the usual suspects will jump on this one and declare the proposed 80mph speed limit to be disastrous, dangerous folly in the light of this accident - which had nothing to do with speed and everything to do with inappropriate speed (people moving into the distance they know to be clear too fast to stop within that distance).

It's already started. Saw someone on BBC news on the TV earlier mentioning the 80mph limit - here we go again...