tinyurl.com/2c7rnad
"Tony Woodward, control room supervisor for Suffolk police said ...
The crashes are definitely due to the wet weather conditions,”
“After having a relatively long dry spell, drivers are losing control of their vehicles because the change in weather conditions has had an effect on the wheels.”
Always someone/something else to blame, eh?
|
Oh no it isn't!
Like an accident near us on a country lane "caused by mud" according to the mother of the young driver. Not her fault at all. All down to an inexperienced driver going too fast on a bend.
John
|
I notice that the report above is from Suffolk.
I also notice that the sugar beet season has started and we get this same thing every year.
The farmers simply do NOT clear the mud off the road anymore and they are allowed to get away with it.
It's lethal on a motorbike and even more so in the dark when you can't see it until you're on it.
The only way very early, commuting bikers round here manage to stay upright is by noting when they travel home at night, which field has a beet cleaner in it, and remembering that at 3.30am the following day.
It's just another thing that get's overlooked in the Fens, and becomes part of life.
Pat
|
The first rains after a long dry period do make the roads unusually slippery, as all the mud, crud, and other rubbish that's built up on the road surface mixes with the water and sits there. In time it's washed away, but the first few hours tend to be quite bad.
By contrast, many motorcyclists agree that a dry road after a period of prolonged rain is the ultimate scenario for grip, as the tarmac is nice and clean.
Of course there is no excuse for not driving to the conditions, whatever they are.
|
Sorry Pat, I don't mean to make light of mud. In the accident I have in mind a mudometer would barely have registered. An inexperienced driver took a bend too fast. She was lucky actually. You could only see the tailgate of a RAV4 sticking up out of a pond. She could have drowned.
John
|
|
Reminds me of a relative of mine who crashed her Mk3 Ford escort due to black ice, fair do's but then went on to blame the car and wouldn't buy another Escort. LOL
|
> “After having a relatively long dry spell, drivers are losing control of their vehicles because
>> the change in weather conditions has had an effect on the wheels.”
The implication being that the change in weather conditions has had NO effect on the way people are driving! Is that too much to ask of motorists these days?
|
As DP says, after a long dry spell dried oil and diesel on the road surface make a sort of slurry with rainwater that is extra slippery. It can catch anyone out in a smooth-surfaced, bumpy bend, roundabout exit and so on.
Of course one should expect this and cautiously try to find the limits of adhesion when these conditions arise. Unfortunately though people aren't being taught to drive any longer. Indeed driving is positively discouraged these days.
'I was just driving along and the car sort of spun round and went up a tree.' My own daughter, an intelligent young woman, says things like that. The modern world is a nightmare.
|
|
I spun a car once on a very wet road. I ended up facing the wrong way with the engine stalled which is how I knew I'd spun. Of course it was the fault of Toyota for building a car with the engine in the middle combined with dodgy semi-trailing car rear suspension. I wasn't going too fast or anything.
|
>> I spun a car once on a very wet road
I did too. Clods of steaming grass verge all over the road in the headlights, and miraculously I hadn't hit the huge oak gatepost or stone house-corner that I should have hit.
I was though obviously going much too fast. I was also extremely drunk. 'The luck of the devil', phew. I don't do that sort of thing any more.
|
>> I did too. Clods of steaming grass verge all over the road in the headlights,
>> and miraculously I hadn't hit the huge oak gatepost or stone house-corner that I should
>> have hit.
I stayed on the road. I think the car spun around its axis and it was very late at night, so nothing else on the road to hit. On the other hand, had there been traffic I probably would have been driving more slowly. I was going through a personal crisis at the time. In America I probably would have visited a shrink. Being in Britain I just drove like a nutter instead.
|
>> I stayed on the road.
So did I mostly. A narrow bit of road though, fortunately with a grass verge on the non-dangerous side. I worked out afterwards what I seemed to have been trying to do, and what piece of sloppy imprecise heavy-footed driving paradoxically saved my life, or at least that car. It was so stupid, ill-conceived and ham-footedly carried out that I can't even bear to think about it. I deserved worse I do believe.
|
In general I tend to agree with all your sentiments about the modern driver/culture to look to blame anyone else other than oneself when a mishap occurs.
However, I left Kesgrave at about 15:15 yesterday afternoon, travelled down the A12, A14 thorough Copdock and then south down the A12, I must have been about 5 minutes in front of this accident and I must say that I have some sympathy with the view that the rainfall could have contributed. For about ten minutes in that half an hour or so through that stretch I experienced some of the heaviest rain I have seen in some time, with wipers on full pelt I still only felt safe at around 30 as a maximum, if that. Still didn't stop some numpties coming by me at silly o'clock with no lights on, mind you.
No excuse for poor driving but it was pretty extreme.
|
...I experienced some of the heaviest rain I have seen in some time...
Same for me in County Durham last night.
I was grateful to be in a car with such a water-tight roof.
|
|
In Surrey, we pay to have it rain elsewhere.
|
...In Surrey, we pay to have it rain elsewhere...
The same way as you pay for everything else - through the nose?
|
|
The Qashqai has one of those great big panoramic glass roofs. Doesn't open though which is a shame but never mind. Thing is though it's really strange when it's raining hard. Just an odd feeling. I have close the blind. I find it mildly disturbing and it makes me want to pee.
|
There's nothing disturbing about that, it's called old age and incontinence.
Pat
|
in Surrey, rainfall / population = desert. No wonder you drink bottled stuff, you have to import it, not enough of the local produce. :-)
John
|
>> in Surrey, rainfall / population = desert. No wonder you drink bottled stuff, you have
>> to import it, not enough of the local produce. :-)
>>
You dont have to take the pee out of the worthy people of Surrey, many of them are drinking their own!
tinyurl.com/puttingthepintosurrey
|
Yes, and the filtration systems can't remove oestrogen, as found in the pill....
John
|
Would that explain why most southerners are a bit girly then ? I know little of biology but it would seem to be quite a coincidence don't you think ?
:-)
|
You might say that but I couldn't possibly comment :-)
John
|
Not girly
Just in touch with our feminine side.
|
He takes it well, don't you think?
:-)
John
|
|
Some of them, get this, some of them even know how to pronounce "lingerie" correctly. Tells a tale that does.
|
|
By 'eck, we mays be girly, be we's not scared o' spiders thou knows.
|
|
You a closet Wurzel or something ?
|
>> Just in touch with our feminine side.
And nowt wrong with that, coupled with a bit of old fashioned romanticking the right sort of girlies respond well.
Them up north types still club 'em and drag 'em off t'cave....when the pub runs out of booze.
..-:)
|
...Them up north types still club 'em and drag 'em off t'cave...
"Get yer coat on, pet, you've scored."
|
Us Northern types understand that it takes more than a Babycham.
John
|
In Scotland you don't even need to provide a Babycham, you just have to promise a slice of lorne sausage on a well fired roll for breakfast and you're sorted.....
:-)
|
I don't hold with health food.
John
|
|
Just a variation on the " breakfast at my place or yours" chat up line.
|
Where's pmh? He sets all of this going and then vanishes. I think he's stirring it.
John
|
|
Well, if you've got some from the 11th cycle I guess you would want a spoonful of sugar in it.
|
Tooslow
What me ;)
- you brought in the oestrogen element:)
HD
I like the sugar idea - make it more palatable.
Last edited by: pmh on Sat 25 Sep 10 at 09:31
|
Yes, but I'm hoping no one noticed. I seem to have got away with it so far :-)
Off to cut (more) hedge now.
John
|
>> Just a variation on the " breakfast at my place or yours" chat up line.
>>
How do you want your eggs in the morning, sweetheart...boiled, fried..... or fertilised ?
Ted
|
>> I was grateful to be in a car with such a water-tight roof.
>>
You left the CC at home then?
Don't pretend you didn't set that one up yourself!!!
|
Most likely an MR2?
I did it myself in one of these coming off a roundabout (sunny and dry) only a few minutes after climbing into it - I'd eased the throttle a little and the oversteer was so quick and unexpected I didn't catch it.
Fortunately there were no other cars around and it was a big roundabout.....
|
>> Always someone/something else to blame, eh?
>>
Rule #1 - It is wet. Slow down.
We have a dry season of up to 5 months with no rain.
First day of rain, the roads are absolute mayhem.
Tyres which have got balder in the past few months, perished wipers which are now making soup of the dust on the windshield...
|
The last car I spun spectacularly was my Mini 1275GT base Pimlico Kit car.
It was basically just like these two but certainly not in pink!
www.minimarcos.org.uk/altpics/domino/pimlico.html
|
'Downpour blamed for crashes' - Tooslow
