>> This is a new low, even for Audi drivers (tongue in cheek)
>>
Take the positives from it. at least she noticed the warning light; had it been the one for rear fogs we may not have been so lucky.
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No excuse for not getting onto hard shoulder or a refuge but report does say she was unfamiliar with the car.
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>> No excuse for not getting onto hard shoulder or a refuge but report does say she was unfamiliar with the car.
>>
Familiar enough to be in lane three. :-(
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Useless POLICE. Not interested in dangerous and grossly incompetant driving, just people creeping over arbitrary speed limits on the way to work.
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What was time of day and traffic condition? Is Godstone section managed/smart motorway with potential all lane running?
A quick look on street map suggests there is no or limited hard shoulder.
If so then stopping in a running lane is one of the options covered in the HA's guidance. Stupid, careless even but probably not over the threshold for dangerous. IMHO police took right action in offering strong advice. A press release with anonymised summary gets facts in public domain for driver education purposes.
Prosecution might be wrong message in terms of it's effect on other drivers - encouraging dangerous dives to the n/s verge.
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>> Prosecution might be wrong message in terms of it's effect on other drivers - encouraging
>> dangerous dives to the n/s verge.
Its more to do with the driver not realising that the issue did not warrant a stop anywhere, let alone in the most dangerous place available.
Both items together should raise doubts about her fitness to hold a driving license.
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>> Its more to do with the driver not realising that the issue did not warrant
>> a stop anywhere, let alone in the most dangerous place available.
Oddly, the running lane of a smart m/way is less dangerous than the hard shoulder of a non smart one. Agree she should have recognised the problem but the fact is, in a strange car she didn't. Never driven a Q7 so I don't know what it's warning light set up is. Maybe she'd previously carried on with a light on and damaged a car?
I'd have been far more twitched by a warning light when I drove friend's Passat for a week than in my either of my own cars.
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>> Oddly, the running lane of a smart m/way is less dangerous than the hard shoulder
>> of a non smart one.
Oddly that becomes completely reversed when you stop in the running lane.
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>> Oddly that becomes completely reversed when you stop in the running lane.
Being stopped in running lane of smart m/way is safer than hard shoulder of a non smart one. Cannot find report now but that was experience on the 'pathfinder' managed section on M42.
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>> >> Oddly that becomes completely reversed when you stop in the running lane.
>>
>> Being stopped in running lane of smart m/way is safer than hard shoulder of a
>> non smart one.
That is cobblers. Don't care what the report says, which by the way probably didn't include stopping in lane 3 of the motorway, but was written to justify the safety of cars stopped in lane 1 (or hard shoulder when its not being used)
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>> Stupid, careless even but probably not over the threshold for dangerous.
I disagree. Her action perfectly meets the exact definition of dangerous driving.
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Bit harsh, due care and attention maybe. Pretty stupid for sure.
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>> Bit harsh, due care and attention maybe. Pretty stupid for sure.
I suspect that had she caused a multiple, with serious injury or death resulting, the old bill would have been considering very serious charges.
And she could quite easily have caused a multiple.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 10 Jan 15 at 21:49
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Perhaps the woman was a moron.
Equally, perhaps she was a totally normal person who for a moment was worried, perhaps panicky, and had no idea what to do and chose wrong.
The sanctimonious and perpetually perfect may consider remembering that.
It has been said that perfectly normal, rational people who are usually more than capable drivers can have accidents with buses. Doesn't make them moronic, just fallible.
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>> It has been said that perfectly normal, rational people who are usually more than capable
>> drivers can have accidents with buses. Doesn't make them moronic, just fallible.
Not at all comparable. My accident was a lack of concentration aided by very poor road layout.
It was not a complete inability to think rationally and be utterly unaware of the danger I was placing in others by stopping in the middle of the motorway because a stupid yellow light came on.
A yellow light that by the way was accompanied by a warning telling her what it was.
I got 9 points. Given your criteria of equating both incidents then so should she
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 10 Jan 15 at 22:02
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You got 9 points? Blooming heck I didn't realise that. What were they for?
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>> You got 9 points? Blooming heck I didn't realise that. What were they for?
>>
Parking under a bus?
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BTW, 9 pts for stopping on the motorway like that would seem fair.
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>> You got 9 points? Blooming heck I didn't realise that. What were they for?
The bus incidence. Driving without due care. Funnily enough there were three other accidents at that spot in a year, and the following year the road layout was changed.
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>> 9 pts for a CD?
Yup. and a 400 quid fine.
edit oh and a "victim" surcharge 25 quid I think.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 10 Jan 15 at 22:41
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>> Useless POLICE. Not interested in dangerous and grossly incompetant driving, just people creeping over arbitrary speed limits on the way to work.
>>
Are you struggling to make some sort of point?
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>> This is a new low, even for Audi drivers (tongue in cheek)
Such motoring skills among the Surrey Q7 set are not at all unusual.
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Coming up the M5 last night, fairly heavy traffic as might be expected on a Friday evening, there was a little old Fiat ( maybe a Seicento ) in the middle lane, the driver totally oblivious to the empty lane to its left, doing a steady 40 mph in the middle lane.
Some traffic impatiently undertook it, some overtook, some performed the pathetic over dramatic sweep out to lane 3 and the equally demonstrative swing back to lane 1 right across his bows in some ill guided effort to illustrate their ire, some sat like mesmerised rabbits behind it. It acted like a rolling roadblock. Despite the multitude of ( under the circumstances ) mainly fairly polite flicks of headlights and toots it was receiving it resolutely stayed on its plotted course. When I had the chance to get past it, I noted it was being driven by a fairly normal looking chap of middle years with a front passenger, presumably his wife, and a couple of teenagers on board. He certainly didn't look gormless but his driving suggested he might have been.
He stared straight ahead, gripping the wheel in a classic 10 to 2 apparently totally unaware of the congestion he he was contributing to.
You wonder whether these people actually know what they're doing and don't care or whether it just doesn't occur to them.
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>
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>> You wonder whether these people actually know what they're doing and don't care or whether
>> it just doesn't occur to them.
>>
I've come to realise that there is a fairly common human trait that retreats into a kind of mental lager when it feels it is being lectured to by others. The person is normally an ordinary decent sensible individual, but sometimes flips into a blinkered stubborness.
Hogging the middle lane is one common example. Another is the kind of driver who refuses to turn his lights on when it begins to get dark. They might, if left alone, have done so after a while, but their reaction to more or less well-intended headlight flashes is to carry on determinedly in darkness.
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>> >> it just doesn't occur to them.
>> a kind of mental lager when it feels it is being lectured to by others.
>> a blinkered
>> stubborness.
>
I think there is both.
There are undoubtedly those who simply have no awareness of what is going on around them, and genuinely have no comprehension of the chaos in their wake.
In fact so unaware that undertaking or the retaliatory lane sweep simply has no effect because they don't recognise it. The middle lane is chosen as its reassuringly safe, like the centre of the runway.
There are also the "I have paid my road tax, this is my lane and I don't give a rats sphincter what you say or do and I don't care whats happening behind"
From the description, I guess Humphs example was the first, and is the norm in that household, otherwise the wife and kids inside would have said something?
I'm afraid the "no undertaking" rule is simply impractical these days and rapidly falling into widespread misuse, certainly by me. If I am in an inside lane, my path ahead clear, and a slower vehicle in a lane outside me, I shall not deviate in path or speed to overtake on the offside. Cars have mirrors on both sides, there is no reasons to suspect that undertaking is any more dangerous than overtaking.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 10 Jan 15 at 12:52
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>>
>> There are undoubtedly those who simply have no awareness of what is going on around
>> them, and genuinely have no comprehension of the chaos in their wake.
I met at least ten of them pushing their trolleys in Waitrose this morning.
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>> I met at least ten of them pushing their trolleys in Waitrose this morning.
Ah yes, that will be the Volvo XC60 drivers.
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"Ah yes, that will be the Volvo XC60 drivers."
That would also include the coupe of women who stopped immediately in my path this afternoon as they got off the escalator in John Lewis. And why oh why can't they stand on the right! Norwich people don't understand escalators.
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>> it just doesn't occur to them.
>>
>>
More likely the reason, they'll just totally switch off when driving.
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How funny - it happened to wifey's best friend, except it was the Q5. She called wifey - There's a problem, a light has just come on, I think it's running out of petrol, what shall I do? Wifey related the problem to me. I told her to ignore it, it'll be fine for a couple of days, stop panicking.
I know why it happened in this situation. She was a new driver but almost never used it, husband had flown out for business, she only pottered around locally - hairdressers, spending his money etc. and suddenly a warning light pops on.
Easy for us to laugh but as Mr Spock said - For everything, there is a first time.
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Mrs ON phoned me when our Focus was new, there was a red warning light and the car boinged when she started the engine. The problem, the shopping she had put on the front seat did not have its seatbelt on. She did say if it had been a yellow light she would have driven home.
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>> Easy for us to laugh but as Mr Spock said - For everything, there is a first time.
>>
And David my Boy. I remember the 'First time' very well!!
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This courtesy LEC I've had for a couple of weeks (while Mercedes remove bits of Fiesta from the boot of mine) flummoxed me to start with; a red triangle with a car picture in it kept lighting up at 80mph or so. It took me two days to look it up in the handbook, turns out it doesn't like me tailgating people. Who knew?
Last edited by: Dave_C220CDI on Sat 10 Jan 15 at 22:00
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>> This courtesy LEC I've had for a couple of weeks (while Mercedes remove bits of
>> Fiesta from the boot of mine) flummoxed me to start with; a red triangle with
>> a car picture in it kept lighting up at 80mph or so. It took me
>> two days to look it up in the handbook, turns out it doesn't like me
>> tailgating people. Who knew?
Did you stop in the fast lane of the motorway when it came on?
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>> Did you stop in the fast lane of the motorway when it came on?
I don't stop for any warning lights in a courtesy car.
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of course - silly question really
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There are things on the dashboard of mine, switches and wee slots and so on, things in the Comand menu and functions of the sat nav which I haven't ever bothered to try. I expect some of them are quite useful.
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If you stop in any lane of a motorway for the reason stated you have your licence removed for ever. You then take the Bus. Stupid f/in Cow.
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But if she has taken her test recently she knows where the dip stick is ( maybe in the drivers seat?)
With our joke eyesight test, perhaps she could only see a glow of a bulb :-(
IMO it would be far more useful to teach more useful things like what to do when basic things fail.
e.g engine stops - power steering/brakes affected. Maybe a good instructor could, in a safe location, invoke this ?
If you make it to the hard shoulder then get to safety.
IF you are aware of a puncture you can drive slowly on it for a while until able to stop in a save area.
I have only been at the scene of one accident in the last 20 years or so.
A car on its own smashed into the motorway central barrier . None hurt and all out OK.
Amongst all the folks from serveral cars that had stopped. None had any idea what to do or any kit.
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>>If you make it to the hard shoulder then get to safety.
Woman killed while walking along M25
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-30766785
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>> >>If you make it to the hard shoulder then get to safety.
>>
>> Woman killed while walking along M25
>>
>> www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-30766785
Probably trying to find her parked Q7
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>> .
>>
>> Woman killed while walking along M25
>>
>> www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-30766785
>>
>>
I'd rather walk along the hard shoulder than lane 3 where the pea brained lady stopped when her fuel light came on. Absolutely no excuse for that, she isn't fit to hold a licence.
Last edited by: Robin O'Reliant on Sun 11 Jan 15 at 13:08
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>> >> Woman killed while walking along M25
>> >>
>> >> www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-30766785
>> >>
Web site has now been updated with more info and an arrest
Plus a further crash.
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Duplicate oops
Last edited by: MD on Sat 10 Jan 15 at 22:47
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Don't blame the woman. That's sheer prejudice.
Blame the car : it was an AUDI.. We all know they turn good drivers into bad ones. Must be the secret mind gas hidden in the aircon.. No doubt an evil plot dreamed up by EU bureaucrats...
(Anti Audi, conspiracy theory and anti EU in two lines...)
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It came to me many years ago that knowledge we assume anyone sensible must surely have isn't necessarrily the case.
My first wife was a fairly intelligent girl, she had a good degree and went on to be a head teacher at a pretty exacting girls school. So in other words she wasn't exactly dim.
However, one day, when we were first married, I'd been working for several hours in a room we used to call the "study" which was in fact much less grand and was a small windowless box room.
My wife came in from work and told me there was something wrong with her car. When I asked what it was she explained that the "steering and brakes weren't working properly". So of course I went out to have a look at it to discover that while I'd been squirrelled away indoors it had snowed quite heavily causing the roads to be treacherous.
It simply hadn't occured to her that those conditions would cause the steering and brakes to respond differently.
It proved to me that we should never assume that others on the roads have the same view as we might reasonably expect them to.
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Woman stops Audi Q7 in Mway lane 3 - fuel light on - Harleyman
