Coming along M8 out of Glasgow tonight, 18:30 so rush hour starting to tail off.
Travelling at about 50mph, notice the traffic ahead is slowing to a halt.
Turns out woman in broken down Corsa in middle lane. Inside and middle lane stationery. Guy parks his BMW up on the hard shoulder, puts a hi-vis jacket on, crosses the 2 stationary lanes, tells the woman to get out and go to hard shoulder. He starts pushing the car, another driver jumps out and helps and gets the car over.
Meanwhile lane 3 is still passing at speeds up to 50mph (why is it that if this was a crash on the other carriageway, all 3 lanes would be crawling along to have a good look but since it was this side the lane 3 drivers were making sure no one was coming out in front of them ?)
Result? Within 2 mins, road was cleared, no accidents happened, no hold ups and everyone went their merry way.
I was impressed with the good samaritans calmness, took control of the situation, realised the woman was in a panic and obviously thought no point in asking her to steer while he pushed.
Would I have done the same, probably not.
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Would I have done the same, probably yes.
I held the door open while a lad climbed out of his Golf on the M40 a couple of years ago, after he bounced off the central barrier and parked it on its side on the grass verge right under my nose. A couple of other cars stopped, but their drivers seemed to prefer standing 50 yards away and 'phoning 999 to actually mucking in and helping. Checked the lad over for obvious injuries, confirmed no-one else in the car, gave a 10-second summary to the first copper on scene, and cleared off.
Golf doors are surprisingly heavy.
Last edited by: Dave_TD {P} on Tue 7 Sep 10 at 20:36
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A colleague was killed on th A74 (before it was a motorway) assisting after an accident. You need to be aware of your own safety, he turned a minor shunt into a fatal accident.
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>> You need to be aware of your own safety
Too much fear is a bad thing too though, and it's what we default to today.
Hats off to the only guy in the place to actively help out. He can claim a virtual pint from me :-)
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Well done that man. Not stupid, and probably not particularly brave either. Just a matter of knowing what to do and having the guts to do it. If the two inside lanes were stationary, then it wasn't a dangerously irresponsible thing to do.
BMW drivers are truly the salt of the earth.
:-)
Last edited by: tyro on Tue 7 Sep 10 at 21:12
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And if someone could have injured their neck or back then do not get them out unless absolutely necessary. I wonder how the person who got someone to go and sit in their car after their car was in an accident claimed for the fire brigade removing the roof of their car to get them out without risking injury.
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Some Police Force or other suddenly had a nice Jaguar convertible as a result of doing just that...
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3445284/Firemen-cut-roof-off-police-car.html
Found it - it wasn't a Jag.
Last edited by: Pugugly on Tue 7 Sep 10 at 21:25
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I was filtering on the bike through crawling traffic on the M6 near Hilton Park.
When I got to the front I saw the reason...half an extending aluminium ladder was across lane 2.
People were just crawling round it and blasting off into the distance.
I stopped the bike, blocking lane 3 and protected by stationary traffic. cleared the ladder into the central reservation and got on my way.
None of them had the brains to move it and I suppose none of them realised that a bike hitting it at speed would probably turn out to be fatal.
Wimps !....it wasn't even raining .
Ted
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>>half an extending aluminium ladder... cleared the ladder
>> into the central reservation
>> Ted
I'm glad you took the necessary steps there, ted!
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I could have rung the neck of the guy whose ladder it was.
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Brave, stupid, or what "we used to do" - Dave_
