It's been wet and miserable down here, probably the same as everywhere else.
Anyway, whilst driving in a narrow lane that's a bit of a through route, I met someone coming the other way, in a section just wide enough for a car and a bike if they both slowed down substantially.
We were both driving at or about the same speed, not that fast but not overly slow either. Slight right hand bend for me, so left for him... both driving white Vauxhalls with headlights on (mine '12' plate Vx Combo van, his '14' plate Vx Astra hatch).
So, I saw him coming, braked sharply, but didn't need to do an emergency stop, came to a halt... and watched the rest unfold.
He just didn't stop...at all. It was like as if he'd not seen me and continued on at the same pace, like I wasn't there... I even had time to glance at my headlight switch, wondering if i'd forgotten to switch them on (I hadn't forgotten).. then at the extreme last minute (when I thought 'cobblers, this is going to do some damage') he did the most amazing swerve to his left, up the hedge, carried on like a wall of death...and hit my van, scraping all the way down the side..badly.... then stopped with his car leaning on mine, with me level with his boot space.
The only way I could get out of it was to reverse and scrape both vehs down their sides again... and once I'd done that, I though 'oh crap, he's going to roll over onto his side'. He was so far up the hedge that he was in severe danger of rolling over onto his driver's door.
I went over and talked him through getting down off the hedge by doing an extreme right lock, so he didn't tip it over....poor chap was shaking like a leaf. No idea how he got any traction with one wheel 4 or 5 foot up a hedge, but he did....
... then we did the pleasantries of exchanging details and talking it all through. I did ask him what happened as I'd stopped and thought he was never going to stop.. he said he couldn't work out why his car wouldn't stop. So then we had a discussion about had he gone in tight to the hedge, which he said he had... and checking the extreme mud on his nearside front tyre I proffered the explanation that he'd got too close to the muddy edge and couldn't get it stopped on mud, which he agreed with.... and he apologised.
Both vehs legal and driveable (just), although his had a broken rear window and I had to gaffer tape up some sharp bits protruding from my well mangled but still usable mirror (glass didn't break, but the housing is split and deformed and won't adjust properly high enough now, but it's better than nowt).
No arguing or unpleasantness. Two 50 something blokes driving other people's vehs probably helped..;-)
Last edited by: Westpig on Wed 16 Dec 15 at 18:13
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Jolly bad luck, WP and glad you (and he) are ok. Will it just go knock for knock? Got a dashcam?
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Glad to hear you got out of it OK. Any incident you can walk away from........
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>> Any incident you can walk away
>> from........
>>
Yes, too true... but I'm beginning to wonder if I have some form of 'something' left over from it... because I posted this in 'non motoring' for some unknown reason.....;-)
-----> kicks over the wall into the right place
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 16 Dec 15 at 19:02
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>> -----> kicks over the wall into the right place
>>
Thank you
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An unusually nasty one Wp. Embarrassing too.
Our lanes are tight with muddy potholed verges. Something like that could happen any time.
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>> An unusually nasty one Wp. Embarrassing too.
The lady who owns the business (and therefore the van) is a personal friend of mine and an exceptionally nice lady... so you feel a bit mean ringing someone like that to tell them you've done in excess of £1000 worth of damage....
.... esp when on the 2nd phone call at the end of the working day, she said "don't worry about it, these things happen, look at all the mileage you do and if you were stopped, what more could you do"...
I'd have felt better if she'd said "slow down, you ****".
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>> An unusually nasty one Wp. Embarrassing too.
Goes without saying that I'm glad no one was hurt. Embarrassment soon passes, unlike other things.
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>> Will it just go
>> knock for knock? Got a dashcam?
>>
Don't know......... and 'no' to the dashcam.
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HmM. As I'm floating about like a dithering old biddy over a dashcam, keep us informed. From your description it's clearly not your fault and footage would show that. If it goes knock for knock or he fibs at some point, then the dashcam would have been of worth perhaps.
Be interesting if this is a real situation it would have been good in. I know it's not your own vehicle of course.
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You can get mirrors on Amazon quite cheaply. I believe.
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>> dashcam
I think this would be a perfect incident for a dashcam... however... I'm not sure i'll get one, because sometimes I press on a bit... and if stopped by some of my ex-colleagues I wouldn't fancy all my driving history being stuck on the window of my veh just ready for seizing as evidence.
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Did yoos get him to blow in the bag WP :)
I flew down the narrow lanes this morning - wet miserable and very misty but, although I put the pedal-to-the-metal, I'm always expecting to meet some bod as mad as me coming the other way, so I'm always very cautious at bends 'n corners, keeping well left with my (electric) mirrors turned in just in case, and it's worked for me this past 18 years of living in Cornwall.
Yes, the roads are very slippery, what with the drizzle, the leaves, AND the mud. Just as well I've got me winter tyres on!
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But it's been more like 15°C today, nowhere near the 7°C below which winter tyres (supposedly) become useful.
Sounds unpleasant and inconvenient, WP, even if it was just paint, glass and metal. Glad you're OK.
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>> But it's been more like 15°C today, nowhere near the 7°C below which winter tyres
>> (supposedly) become useful.
>>
Had full winter tyres on wife's Jazz and they inspired a lot of confidence in slimey, slippery Cheshire lanes, regardless of temperature.
Having said that, I hate using the lanes - my wife uses them in preference to main roads and now she has to make regular trips to collect our granddaughter from school it was a significant factor in my mind in changing the Jazz for a Tiguan.
One section is just as Westpig describes, yet people, funnily enough also often in white cars, but usually Audis, drive along them at insane speeds, and an offset frontal impact into a Jazz doesn't bear thinking about.
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>>But it's been more like 15°C today, nowhere near the 7°C below which winter tyres (supposedly) become useful
Only 13° here in Sunni Cornwall, so the winter tyres did quite well really I thought. Don't forget they come into their own on wet roads too mister.
www.tyrereviews.co.uk/Tyre/Vredestein/Wintrac-Xtreme.htm
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Had two new back tyres put on the Merc today. Normal ones. Never been a problem. Drive carefully if it's snowing, that's all.
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Glad you're ok WP, that sounds like a mirror image of the prang I had in July.
www.car4play.com/forum/post/index.htm?f=2&t=20253
Fortunately I got away with little damage. I hate single track lanes.
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well, no-one was hurt apart from pride, and you know there was nothing more you could have done to prevent it.
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I have often wondered about getting a dash cam, but deferred it on the grounds of my low annual mileage. At some point in future they will be fitted as standard, but as I sometimes 'make progress' it might not be for the best.
As an aside, earlier this year I enjoyed a walking weekend just S of Edinburgh. En route home, Sunday evening down the A/M? 74 my rear seat female passengers awoke and said, almost in unison, '' we went to sleep in a car, and thought we had woken up on a train''. I slowed down and am not going to publish how fast the 330 was loping along at....
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>> there was nothing more you
>> could have done to prevent it.
>>
Horn, I suppose, if you saw it coming, but one never thinks in time.
I had almost exactly the same a few months ago, but at very low speed.
I stopped, had lots of time to wonder whether the other driver was going to slow down or not. Even when both vehicles in clear view of each other, still she drove on, until she hit head on.
Idiotic not to have sounded my horn, but somehow I just couldn't believe it was going to happen.
On a technical point, if the left hand wheels are on mud but the right hand on firm road, isn't ABS supposed to brake with the wheels that can? I don't know, I've never had ABS, but I thought that was just the situation it was meant to be superior to ordinary brakes?
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Four people hurt and two horses die in A3 collision near Esher
www.964eagle.co.uk/news/local-news/1825328/four-people-hurt-and-two-horses-die-in-a3-collision-near-esher/
www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/a3-esher-crash-four-people-10608451
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/car-crash-victim-fighting-life-7021358
The A3 was shut in both directions following the crash
A woman was left fighting for her life after being trapped inside a car for an hour with a dead horse lying on top of the vehicle.
I called LBC to tell them that their road report on this was next to useless.
The was a vast amount of stationary traffic for miles around even at 1300 ,over 9 hours later.
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Glad you're in one piece, WP.
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Glad you're ok, metal is just metal but accidents are always horrible.
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The exact words my father said to me the day I was born
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Had an accident today - Crankcase
