This evening in the dark, on a rainy unlit part of the M3 approaching Sunbury where the traffic usually is very light.
I was third car on the scene of an accident where a single car had smacked the central reservation quite hard. The vehicle was sideways on to the flow in the outside lane.
Few there seemed to have much idea what to do.
The two occupants were out of the car but still in the centre but were safely ushered to the hard shoulder. both appeared to be reasonably OK ( "My fags are still in the car")
Scary - you bet!
I had left late in a hurry for a trip to an appointment in Oxford but en route back I was taking it steady in the rain with muppets galore around.
In my speed to leave home I had not transfered my " accident kit" ( I am about to duplicate it) " so none had a triangle, a torch, high viz - NOWT.
I was frustrated at being a plonker!!!
Called the BiB and they went in action.
Found a broken motorway plastic post with a strip of reflector on it and another waved it at 100mph idiots and had some success.
The Armco was well bent and the sickening sound of speeders on the otherside hitting metal debris with the risk of punctures etc or flinging the debris at us left me concerned but the others seemed unaware.
I saw the fire boys going in the opposite direction towards the M3/M25 interchange. I gueess on to the M25 and a U turn at Chertsey. Seemed a Looong wait.
Meanwhile concerned that speeding idiots would add to the event.
The only witness said it was a blow out and the car hit the Armco.
Cetainly the Armco did its job, was bent for a considerable length and I think it was an armco support that was in the other carraiageway.
With the experts on site , who closed our side of the motorway we then left.
I wondered if those then charging towards us ever thought " thats funny - no traffic coming towards us - Slow down there is trouble ahead ?"
I hope the driver was OK. Paramedic seemed to think she was OK.
Airbags had deployed which I suspect did a good job.
Well another experience to keep me learning what to do in such events.
Very low traffic volumes helped.
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Sounds as if you did your good deed for the day henry. Well done.
All the same, steady on with the muppets and 100mph idiots and so on. The outside lane of motorways is thought OK for 70 upwards, with due care of course. That's why the sudden appearance of a car sideways on there with its nose in the armco is so damn dangerous. It's a reverse-up-the-hard-shoulder-200-yards-and-put-all-available-red-trian
gles-in-the-outside-lane
situation, unless you are really brave and put your motor out there too with its flashers going.
Old Bill, blues, pronto! Well done though.
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>> unless you are really brave and put your motor out there too with its flashers going.
Came past an ASDA lorry across lanes 1 & 2 with hazards, fogs, everything switched on early the other morning. It was shielding a pretty much destroyed Astra (I think it was an Astra anyway!) from 2 of the 4 lanes of M25 traffic. Scary.
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>>It's a reverse-up-the-hard-shoulder-200-yards-and-put-all-available
-red-triangles-in-the-outside-lane situation,
>>unless you are really brave and put your motor out there too with its flashers going.
>>
Initially no triangles on site.
Eventually another stopped car said they had one. Young guy the walked along the hard shoulder with a red box in his arms. I shouted at him to get over out of the way. " I dont know what to do with it". I advised him quietly to remove it from the box and I tried to assemble it. I failed ( another lesson check triangle) so all I could do was hold it in front of me and present it to the oncoming traffic.
I had seen the two cars on the hard shoulder which to some extent initially drew my attention. I then saw the unlit car in lane three. I was not going to hit the brakes hard so slipped by and parked at the head of the attendees.
The attendees unsurprisingly were parked opposite the wreck so only one and three quarters of a lane was fee.
It was not really an option to reverse through the gap and then zip out to lane three to protect an empty car.
Maybe ask the last driver to reverse down the hard shoulder as a guard and move all other vehicles forward thus freeing one and a half lanes plus hard shoulder for speeders to swerve more safely around the hazard. Would strangers agree to that ???
So much to think about onder pressure!!
Daugher has now told me that I should have deployed a paper bag! The driver had some form of asthma but would noy use her inhaler. she may have been hyperventilating hence the use of a paper bag.
Another lesson.
>>The outside lane of motorways is thought OK for 70 upwards, with due care of course.
I had just been travelling at less 50 in a free lane on the M25 due to rain and the M3 was also unlit and wet .
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> Daugher has now told me that I should have deployed a paper bag! The driver
>> had some form of asthma but would noy use her inhaler. she may have been
>> hyperventilating hence the use of a paper bag.
>> Another lesson.
If she wouldn't use her inhaler, do you think she would have accepted your generous offer of a paper bag?
If she wasn't being rational in the first example, would she have been rational in the second?
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Prancing about in lane three deploying triangles would have been a terrible idea. As would parking your car there to 'protect ' an empty wreck.
All credit for stopping to help.
Last edited by: Manatee on Sat 14 Jul 12 at 10:04
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>> Prancing about in lane three deploying triangles would have been a terrible idea. As would
>> parking your car there to 'protect ' an empty wreck.
I couldn't agree more. Leave that to the people who have expertise in such things. And who are paid to do so!
>> All credit for stopping to help.
I wish more people were like you, rather than full of their own self importance. I was at the scene of a very serious RTC once, where there was someone lying in the road breathing their last. A motorist in the resulting queue actually wanted to pick his way around the casualty and the debris to reach his house a quarter of a mile away. I could post what I said to him but I think that the swear filter would have a dicky fit!
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Yes, well done, Henry, for keeping about you as many wits as you did. It's one thing to repeat in a classroom situation what you ought to do in an emergency, quite another when the situation is real and immediate.
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Same here well done.It takes a bit of courage to stop and help out.
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>> All credit for stopping to help.
My thanks to all for that comment.
I always call the services - belt n braces.
I always stop unless a mob has assembled.
I have so rarely been an early arrival at a RTC and to date found few can organise resources etc.
I have in the past used my car as a shield ( on a 40 mph dual carriage way ) but still muppets were not slowing.
>>I could post what I said to him but I think that the swear filter would have a dicky fit!
>>
I have only once been in a situation that the swear filter was threatened but SWMO was with me.
A few years ago on the M40 at night I passed an on ramp and saw what I thought was a pair of boots, toes pointing to the stars, in the long grass. I came off at the next exit, doubled back and then rejoined at the said down ramp.
A hitch hiker jumped up out of the long grass !!!!
Earlier yesterday I came across several gun carrying BiB in the middle of Oxford
(in the cobbled road past the exam rooms) . They were all twitchy and getting excited (at my new car ?) but I now find that Bill Clinton was the cause of folk in my way.
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Unless it's something that's just happened or particularly dire, I won't stop any more. I will stop for bike accidents of any type though.
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One evening a couple of weeks ago while driving quite briskly anyway I found myself tailgated by a BMW 1xx that I let by at the first opportunity. Immediately afterwards, coincidentally, I followed him down the westbound exit slip on the A41 at Hemel Hempstead.
At the roundabout we stopped behind a newish Astra. The Astra moved forwards slowly, then stopped, as people often do there - it's a poor view and there's often fast traffic on the island. Meanwhile, laddo has floored it and dumped the clutch, obviously while looking right. Big bang, bumpers in road, and a very bent BMW with the bonnet shortened by 50%.
I drove carefully round the wreckage and gave him a wave, as the young woman in the Astra looked quite composed. I think I probably should have stopped but the wave might have been slightly provocative!
I was certainly pleased I'd let him by.
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All I might suggest in similar circumstances is that you could offer to be a witness and save someone a lot of grief when the other party tries to shift the blame. Even just providing your details might make the offender consider that they are on a loser trying to spin the blame.
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Yes FC I thought about that soon after... I hope the facts speak for themselves in those circumstances.
To my shame I was mostly thinking about baseball cap boy getting his comeuppance, and I was late for an appointment with a curry.
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...and I was late for an appointment with a curry.
A dilemma indeed :)
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Maybe the 1-series driver had already had a curry....
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>> All I might suggest in similar circumstances is that you could offer to be a
>> witness and save someone a lot of grief when the other party tries to shift
>> the blame.
>>
On what grounds? "Some woman in an Astra came round the roundabout backwards and reversed up the slip road into me."?
Yeah......right.......the other one's got bells on.
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" .....On what grounds? "Some woman in an Astra came round the roundabout backwards and reversed up the slip road into me."?
Yeah......right.......the other one's got bells on. .."
Clearly you seem to have missed the the issue where a guilty party manipulates the circumstances and shifts the blame onto the innocent party. Several examples on this forum over the years. An independent witness who can corroborate the true circumstances makes the difference between a successful claim as opposed to a reversed claim or at best 50 50 with all the resultant financial implications. If it happened to me I would be eternally grateful to the witness.
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Yes, but in this case.....
I only know of one genuine example where someone was reversed into while actually on the road[1]. He was indeed fortunate to have a witness, as his own insurers refused to believe him at first!
Usually when it's a rear-end shunt, you'd have a mountain to climb attempting to blame the car at the front and the victim here has a straightforward claim that's nigh-on impossible to contest.
[1] Some prune was in the habit of a morning of reversing out of his drive, continuing about 100yds back down the road past the preceeding turning and then turning left into it. One morning, my neighbour saw him start to reverse out, stopped well back to wait and was surprised to get the boot of Mr Prune's Escort shoved backwards at speed into the nose of his two day old Rover 3500 Vanden Plas. Fortunately for him there was a lady walking her dog on the other side of the road who had seen everything and was nearly catatonic with laughter to prove it.
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>>I only know of one genuine example where someone was reversed into while actually on the road.
I have seen it happen in Saudi.
A local decided to overtake me and a Merc truck as we were approaching a roundabout.
He was not quite quick enough and the truck nudged him. He exited the roundabout at the first exit backwards. Some yards up the road still travelling backwards he went through the bushes in the centre and hit the bonnet of an innocent guys car with his boot.
All escaped unharmed but we were unable to continue until our mirth ceased!!
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>> In my speed to leave home I had not transfered my " accident kit" (
>> I am about to duplicate it) " so none had a triangle, a torch, high
>> viz - NOWT.
I would suggest the vast majority of people have nowt of any use in such a situation in the car.
A few years ago when I had a company car one of our managers hit something which destroyed a tyre on an unlit road on a very dark rainy night. He didn't even have a coat with him (my wife thinks I'm just being stupid when I insist we take coats when driving any distance).
He said he felt completely helpless and started a campaign to get a suitable kit put in all company cars but he failed to get support for it.
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I second the plea to offer a witness statement. My wife stopped behind a car at a junction and pulled forward when the front car moved. It then had second thoughts and reversed into my wife's car. Driver admitted responsibility, but later her husband phoned and denied she had revered. Luckily the car behind gave us his details and solved our problem.
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I always carry bits in the car if I need anything in a emergency.The first aid kit is only simple .I have been on a few first aid courses always worthwhile.
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>>Very low traffic volumes helped.
Possibly. Arguably much easier to bring the motorway to a complete standstill when it's busier? More cars in the system makes it a whole load stickier?
Here's one accident where I didn't stop. In retrospect I feel a bit guilty as the driver was in his cab on its side for half an hour before anybody stopped. That said, as he'd been an idiot, I'm not that guilt-ridden. All credit, though to the solicitor for tracking down a witness (driver was suing his employer... like you do):
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=71031
The solicitor tracked me down through car4play, we had a chat, and I never heard from him again though I offered to travel wherever it took as a witness if need be!
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Attended a M3 "minor" accident " - scary!! - Armel Coussine
