M1 also closed 12-13 following collision involving car(s) and a coach. As with M40 media reports suggest closure will remain in place until this afternoon.
www.mkweb.co.uk/M1-CLOSED-Coach-car-collision-closes-motorway/story-26026086-detail/story.html
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-31469329
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sat 14 Feb 15 at 10:17
|
I do wonder if it is possible to keep oneself safe on a motorway in poor visibility. Shocking, but again not surprising that professional drivers in charge of the vehicles with overwhelmingly the highest kinetic energy are again either unable or unwilling to drive to the conditions, if the eye witness report is correct.
I wonder how many vehicles with auto -lights were showing anything at the rear.
No wonder the nannies want to control us all.
|
That stretch is really subject to patchy and sometimes thick fog.
In my experience most people think they are invulnerable and just asdume they will be able to see again before anything bad will happen.
|
>> That stretch is really subject to patchy and sometimes thick fog.
It has swoopy downhill bits as well, maybe the height variation exacerbates the patchiness. It's probably safer in those conditions when it's busy, and everybody can see each other. There can't have been much traffic at 0745 on a Sunday.
|
|
Sunday? Am I misunderstanding something?
|
>> No, it's me:)
That's a relief. I was starting to question my drinking habits.
|
>>There can't have been much traffic at 0745 on a Sunday Saturday.
Enough to be going on with bearing in mind it's half term (at least in England).
|
|
I would be very surprised if any car using auto-lights was showing no rear lights just a half hour after sunrise and in gloomy foggy conditions. There will be have been a number of people not using fog lights in both cars with auto lights and those without.
|
In his antipathy to auto-lights (a useful, but not of course absolute, piece of idiot-proofing, I think) M is conflating them with DRLs, which - in some implementations at least - show only at the front.
Of the two, DRLs are more useful in fog, because even the most negligent driver is showing something.
|
Conflating, no, nor confusing.
I have formed the opinion that some users of auto-lights now don't bother to operate them manually when required, leading to a greater likelihood that they will be unlit in poor visibility.
DRLs where present offset some of the increased risk, but only at the front which isn't usually the problem when everybody is travelling in the same direction.
Actually both may be net counterproductive - DRLs and auto-lights both result in more drivers not lighting up properly, and DRLs in busy conditions camouflage motorcyclists.
No, I'm not a Luddite. If I was, I'd be going round smashing them up :)
|
A car running on only DRLS will not be showing any light to the rear. To activate the rear lights you need to switch on either the parking lights, not recommended for driving, or headlights. Headlights can be turned on manually or automatically.
|
>> In his antipathy to auto-lights (a useful, but not of course absolute, piece of idiot-proofing,
>> I think) M is conflating them with DRLs, which - in some implementations at least
>> - show only at the front.
>>
>> Of the two, DRLs are more useful in fog, because even the most negligent driver
>> is showing something.
>>
Good point, I think that many drivers do not know the difference between DRLs and auto lights.
|
>> Good point, I think that many drivers do not know the difference between DRLs and
>> auto lights.
But not as many as confuse either of them with something useful:)
|
|
Have never understood why the DRL laws and regulations only applied to the front lights - why not the rear lights as well?
|
>>
>> But not as many as confuse either of them with something useful:)
>>
They are both useful, but only if you understand them and how to use them.
|
>> They are both useful, but only if you understand them and how to use them.
So I need to understand how to operate my automatic lights. QED I think.
What you are saying is that the driver still has to think about whether lights are required. All the automation is doing for him is operating the switch - and not always at the right times. They are a distracting PITA - I speak from nearly four years experience with mine.
DRLs at least have some worthwhile benefit, though the same requirement to be aware of when you need to be seen (for which you do not need them) apply, and many are stupidly bright and large.
Last edited by: Manatee on Sat 14 Feb 15 at 15:31
|
So I need to understand how to operate my automatic lights. QED I think.
Substitute 'transmission' - or, in another context, 'pilot' - for 'lights' and are you still so adamant? Same goes for automatic exposure in a camera: it's OK in most circumstances but occasionally a dead loss. I don't think your argument that 'automatic=never think about it' holds any water.
As for nearly four years' experience, if you don't get on with the system, just use the 'Off' position, assuming it has one (mine has) and any 'distracting PITA' is gone. I've had my auto lights for three years; I used to use Off but I seldom bother any more as it never switches them on when I don't want them, and only occasionally fails to when I do. I usually put the lights on myself as a matter of good practice, but as I've mentioned before, the car will do it for me if I forget when I start under bright streetlighting. That's the idiot-proofing I referred to.
|
>
>> Substitute 'transmission' - or, in another context, 'pilot' - for 'lights' and are you still
>> so adamant? Same goes for automatic exposure in a camera: it's OK in most circumstances
>> but occasionally a dead loss. I don't think your argument that 'automatic=never think about it'
>> holds any water.
Automatic transmission is actually a driver aid, not a complication. And it can actually be used, and is by millions, without any manual intervention at all without causing danger to others. Basically, auto lights don't work, auto transmission does, in general.
>>
>> As for nearly four years' experience, if you don't get on with the system, just
>> use the 'Off' position, assuming it has one (mine has) and any 'distracting PITA' is
>> gone.
Ergonomically not really catered for. The rotary switch positions are OFF - AUTO - PARK - HEAD, the auto position being in the midst of the ones I want. So turning on the lights manually below threshold light level produces an unwanted flash for example.
>>I've had my auto lights for three years; I used to use Off but
>> I seldom bother any more as it never switches them on when I don't want
>> them, and only occasionally fails to when I do. I usually put the lights on
>> myself as a matter of good practice,
So you do have to turn them off then, unless you have switched them back to auto beforehand?
>>but as I've mentioned before, the car will
>> do it for me if I forget when I start under bright streetlighting. That's the
>> idiot-proofing I referred to.
Not many people drive around in the dark for long with no lights. So there's an answer to a non-existent problem.
I need a new screen too; I wonder if that is now a more complicated exercise than it needs to be.
Anyway, as long as you like it, I'm happy for you.
|
I absolutely detest cars that keep doing things unbidden. I even shout at mine when it squeals to remind me that I'm not wearing a seat belt. The damn jumped-up cheek of the thing!
And DRLs are a silly consumerist development guaranteed to keep everyone faffing and to dazzle old codgers in broad daylight. It's not as if we didn't have the low sun to contend with just at present.
Can't say how much I despise all that Scheiss. Words fail me not for the first time.
|
It used to be easier to spot idiots in bad visibility, they drove around with no lights on. Unfortunately automatic lights hide the idiots so we can't spot them, but it doesn't stop them being idiots. Just because the car has turned its own lights on doesn't mean the idiot inside is actually paying attention.
Consequently I think it would be better if instead of automatically turning your lights on for you, it should illuminate a warning light if you do not. This warning light should be flashing yellow in the middle of the roof allowing all around you to not only aee you, but also know that you are a fool.
I should have gone into car safety design.
|
So turning on the lights manually below threshold light level produces an unwanted flash for example.
It shouldn't do that, and doesn't in my LEC, whose dial has the same sequence (plus two one-side parking light positions to the west of Off.) Since the dial isn't a light switch so much as a mouse click to the computer to activate the lights, the computer can be - and generally is - designed to check that the dial is stopping, and not just passing through, before proceeding. I've tried this with mine and there is no flash. I've not seen anyone else's flash either, but I'll keep a close eye on any Mitsubishis I pass.
};---)
As for having to turn them off, as I've mentioned I use the Auto feature as protection against my own possible negligence, but often feel before the computer does that the lights should be on, so select them manually. (In most of these situations my be-seen requirement would be satisfied by shaped, bumper-mounted DRLs.) I then turn the dial back to Auto instead of Off. It works fine; no need to ban it.
|
>> In his antipathy to auto-lights (a useful, but not of course absolute, piece of idiot-proofing,
>> I think) M is conflating them with DRLs, which - in some implementations at least
>> - show only at the front.
>>
>> Of the two, DRLs are more useful in fog, because even the most negligent driver
>> is showing something.
Even before Automatic lights and DRLs were a twinkle in the inventors eye, people have been crashing in fog and failing to use lights properly.
Nothing changes despite the tech,.
Today was a transport dis ahster dahling. The north and the south more or less cast adrift.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 14 Feb 15 at 20:28
|
"It has swoopy downhill bits as well"
Does it? It didn't have over the years I commuted along that stretch and further on down the M40. Js 9 and 10 are only a few mile apart but very busy as they take the traffic to and from the M1/A43 and the A34 down to Southampton.
|
>> "It has swoopy downhill bits as well"
>>
>> Does it? It didn't have over the years I commuted along that stretch and further
>> on down the M40.
It has loads of up and downs and swoops between 8 and 12
|
|
I can't recall the bit between 9-10 - I'm probably thinking of the bit just north of the scarp, and the cutting, a few miles south of J8. The scarp itself certainly contributes to weather variations on that stretch.
|
The scarp
>> itself certainly contributes to weather variations on that stretch.
At times I have come over that, from South to North and looked down onto the road disappearing into what looked like a fluffy cloud!
Not as bad as the time I came over the top to find a lorry had shed a load of aluminium ladders in the fast lane!
|
>> Even before Automatic lights and DRLs were a twinkle in the inventors eye, people have
>> been crashing in fog and failing to use lights properly.
>>
>> Nothing changes despite the tech,.
First thought on seeing pics of the M40 was that seventies phrase, motorway madness.
PLenty will doubtless aver that they drove into a wall of fog of which they'd no previous inkling. While I'm (quite) saying such a thing is impossible I've always been aware of streaks in the headlamps, stuff spilling out of fields etc some minutes before any sudden reduction in visibility.
|
|
It certainly gets more undulating towards London and particularly around Stokenchurch. The weather either side of the ridge there can vary very considerably. When I was associated with the road research laboratory umpteen years ago quite a bit of fog v driver psychology work was done west of J11 of the M4 where the flooded gravel pits adjacent to the motorway produced regular and reliable quantities of fog.
|
|
How about sewage v driver? The pong from the works near J7 can be overpowering in the summer. Or perhaps that's just Slough.
|
|
"come friendly bombs..etc"
|
>> How about sewage v driver? The pong from the works near
Should have lived near Bradford's plant at Esholt as we did in sixties. As soon as air was still and wrm the pong crept up out of the Aire valley. Interesting place though, it was equipped to recover the lanolin which was a waste product of the woollen industry for sale as a by product.
Also had it's own rail system and small fleet of steam locos.
|
>> Should have lived near Bradford's plant at Esholt as we did in sixties.
Ah yes, I rrememberr it well. We had a school trip there in the 60s. The chap who took us on the tour eventually arrived at a tap, from which he drew a glass of the supposedly purified effluent and drank it to show how clean it was. Some people even believed it.
There was a treatment works at North Dean, Halifax that had a similar effect on nearby residents when the wind was in the wrong direction. A product of the process there was a pressed cake that was sold in bags for some years as a garden fertiliser that rejoiced in the name of "Organifax".
When Yorkshire Water took over the product was renamed "Yorkshire Bounty".
Following this masterstroke, that must have inspired many local school leavers to seek a career in marketing, the product became commercially unviable and was discontinued.
We digress.
|
M40 J9-10 N closed. 30 cars + fatality - Bromptonaut
