I was on the m1 today, same drizzling rain, same greasy motorway, same lorries in slow lane, same middle lane hoggers doing 60 no more no less, and then everything and anyone else blasting up the fast lane to over take them, some going far too quick then standing on the brakes to avoid rear ending the car in front of them because they were too busy checking there nearside mirror to see if it was clear to pull back into the middle lane, some even hagging it up the fast lane and undertaking cars in the fast lane that were probably all doing 3 figure speeds already.. nothing changes, everyone on the motorways lately are go go go bumper to bumper, unecessary braking, suprised something like the M5 crash hasnt happened sooner.

Loads of reports and videos on the bbc site too.

 

bbc news claim the police are launching a criminal investigation, due to the thick smoke from a firework display next to the motorway

 

I cant see how that will pan out though, for a start all the witnesses said it was fog, and not firework smoke, and the rugby club had all the approval from the relevant authoritys to launch the firework display.. just seems like blame culture to me..

 

What a load of nonsense. If visibility is reduced, use appropriate lighting, adjust your driving and leave more distance in front.

Why are they always looking to place blame where there isnt blame ? Smoke may have caused some problems, but certainly is not the cause.
Whether they like it or not, one or more motorists caused it one way or another.
But sadly due to the severity of the crash, they may never find out



And there are no slow lanes and no fast lanes. This is why people have such bad lane discipline, they dont know what the bloody lanes are for or how to use them

 

there might have been a genuine unavoidable accident at the front of the pile up for the first lot of cars/lorrys if the initial crash stopped them quick, but IMO from everything you can see, the rest of it is people driving too fast, too close and not properly for the conditions.

10 maybe 15 cars i could understand if traffic was busy, but 50 odd vehicles.....

 

It sounds a lot, but if all lanes were busy, then I guess it could happen very easily if all lanes get blocked quickly.

It doesnt happen often as usually a few lanes remain open for cars to escape around any accidents.

But as long as the police continue with stupid campaigns against speeding and ignoring the dangerous driving that goes on, then it's only a matter of time until another big one occurs.

As Ive said before, they roll out thousands of cameras to watch us, to monitor speed and ticket us all in the interests of extorting money.

Why dont they use the same technology for road safety to watch for lane hoggers and vehicles driving far too close ?
The technology exists, and WILL make the roads safer. Unlike speed cameras which totally ignore bad driving

 

thinking about gaps between cars, 2 second rule is 210 feet at 70mph....

average stopping distance 315 feet.

so assuming worst case a car stops dead suddenly, anything within approx 350 feet (taking account car lengths) or 400 feet if its a lorry that stopped: has no chance of avoiding a collision.

so thats the first car behind, and likely the 2nd car behind.

anything further back than that should on paper have distance to stop before the blockage.

so 3 lanes of traffic at least 6 cars will crash into the obstruction. If lorries are in that it could double due to lorries extended stopping distance..

but still doesnt add up to the 34 vehicles that crashed, and rest that were involved.

So other factors were at play here.

reduced viz or poor weather means people should extend thinking distance and reduce speed to compensate. ie end result should be similar.....

so somethng else went wrong here, be it people too close, too fast, not paying attention or some other factors that are clearly bad driving.......

 

Very few obey the 2 sec rule though.

Maybe cars should be fitted with audible warnings if you are within say 2-300ft of another vehicle when travelling 60+ and steering wheel as been more or less straight for longer than a few seconds.

Again the technology exists and would not be expensive. I wouldnt trust automatic braking systems though. But an annoying buzzer in-car would hopefully make most drivers adjust to a safe distance.

 

and thats the point stevie, people not following the rules, ie bad driving......

IMO the way british standard of driving has been going last couple of decades an accident like this was way overdue.

 

I fully agree. And the blame is largely down to government and police. They do nothing whatsover to tackle bad driving.
If they would get their brainwashed asses away from targeting speeding, maybe they could save a few lives.

But as long as they can hit people with easy fines to bring in more money, I just cant see them ever tackling the real road safety matters.

 

Things like that will always happen in thick fog.

Just look at this vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsNYwmQNHjs

The evil thing is that you seem to have reasonable visibility but if you hit a thick patch, it can go to almost zero in a second...

We had a terrible accident in northern Germany last year when dust from a nearby field was blown onto the Autobahn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgtwt4YMEMc

 

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-27067020

Firework smoke not to blame for crash.