Multi car pile up on the motorway

missed that :p

SO it takes 36m to stop from 60mph.

The Focus RS at that speed stopped in 33m due to it being lighter weight. So thats 3m more. Obviously as speed increases it becomes an order of magnitude harder to stop, so we're looking at a worst case scenario of 50m to stop from 70mph (The Highway code measure for this part is a whopping 75m) plus the 21m distance travelling whilst reacting.

So we have a total stopping distance of about 70m which is 229 feet.

If the car in front was 2 seconds ahead that puts the gap at 204 feet.

So that means the Insignia In front would had to have travelled 25 feet / 7.62m or so from the point of giving tom something to react to. Not much at all really.

I think with 2 seconds he probably would have made it.
 
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[TW]Fox;18157418 said:
I know I'm going to get flamed for this but hey.

Tom, what happened to you is your fault and this will go down as a fault accident against you. It was caused by your own poor standard of driving.

The Insignia braked because a car pulled out in front of him. The Ka should not have done this.

However you crashed into the car in front of you when it braked. This happened because you were driving too close. I'm sorry but it really is that simple - he had to brake hard because of an emergency and because you were so far up his **** not only could you not stop in time but you were still travelling at great speed when you hit him. I'd question the logic of whizzing past a line of very slow moving traffic at 60-70mph anyway, but hey.

Maybe this will be a wake up call to sort your reckless, aggresive and downright dangerous driving style out but I suspect it wont be, as you've probably already convinced yourself you are the victim in all this like you always do.

Still, at least the Mini that hit you was at fault as well, for the same reason you are at fault.

The real victim in all of this is the Insigia driver who braked hard to avoid a fool in a Ka and ended up with a tailgating BMW who couldnt stop embedded in his car.

I hope the Insignia driver gets sorted out properly.

Sorry for being harsh - but IMHO the worst drivers are those too arrogant to understand how badly they drive.
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I'm really glad you're OK Tom, sounded nasty. As much as it pains me though, I have to agree with Fox here. Your attitude is commendable though, I'm glad you're accepting some responsibility, lots of people in this world are total ******** and wouldn't do so.

I know quite a few people who are just asking for something similar to happen due to the way they drive and it makes me uncomfortable. Not to mention that the tailgating I get (whilst on the speed limit) around these parts is horrendous. I really hope some people can learn from this.

All the best.
 
I should have known you had valid reasons (apart from Will and your little sniffle).

Hurty knee as well? :D
 
MrLOL said:
missed that :p

SO it takes 36m to stop from 60mph.

The Focus RS at that speed stopped in 33m due to it being lighter weight. So thats 3m more. Obviously as speed increases it becomes an order of magnitude harder to stop, so we're looking at a worst case scenario of 50m to stop from 70mph (The Highway code measure for this part is a whopping 75m) plus the 21m distance travelling whilst reacting.

So we have a total stopping distance of about 70m which is 229 feet.

If the car in front was 2 seconds ahead that puts the gap at 204 feet.

So that means the Insignia In front would had to have travelled 25 feet / 7.62m or so from the point of giving tom something to react to. Not much at all really.

I think with 2 seconds he probably would have made it.
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Just to perhaps add to the debate, at 70mph you'd travel just over 102 feet a second. So assuming that an average person's reaction time would be around a second, leaving a 2 second gap would give them just over 102 feet to stop. Quite unlikely, given that the figures you have are from a Focus RS and/or a BMW 530i, which have "better" brakes than a fair amount of normal road cars

This is, of course, not taking into account the forward momentum carried from a collision, so its not possible to calculate.
 
-westy- said:
Just to perhaps add to the debate, at 70mph you'd travel just over 102 feet a second. So assuming that an average person's reaction time would be around a second, leaving a 2 second gap would give them just over 102 feet to stop..
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Completely flawed. You are not taking into account the fact the vehicle 2 seconds in front of you wont come to a complete halt in 0 seconds. It will also take time to slow down - it will not be in the same place it was when you hit the brakes, 2 seconds later.
 
MrLOL said:
missed that :p

SO it takes 36m to stop from 60mph.

The Focus RS at that speed stopped in 33m due to it being lighter weight. So thats 3m more. Obviously as speed increases it becomes an order of magnitude harder to stop, so we're looking at a worst case scenario of 50m to stop from 70mph (The Highway code measure for this part is a whopping 75m) plus the 21m distance travelling whilst reacting.

So we have a total stopping distance of about 70m which is 229 feet.

If the car in front was 2 seconds ahead that puts the gap at 204 feet.

So that means the Insignia In front would had to have travelled 25 feet / 7.62m or so from the point of giving tom something to react to. Not much at all really.

I think with 2 seconds he probably would have made it.
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No need to guess the distance, you can work it out as long as you take it as a linear acceleration.

You work out the linear acceleration it can do whilst braking, which is

a = (26.8 - 0) / 2.7
a = 9.93 m/s^2

So for 70mph,

v^2 = u^2 + 2as
980 = 2 * 9.93 * s
980 = 19.86s
s = 49.3m

So not a bad guess. :p
 
But the thing is he didnt just hit the Insignia he hit the Insignia at 60mph, so he'd shed barely 10mph of speed before impact. He must have been really, really close to have only had the time to shed 10mph before impacting a car which slowed down largely under its own braking (The Ka didn't stop at the scene so clearly didnt take the brunt of the Insignias deceleration force, it obviously slammed its brakes on).
 
snowdog said:
Yes it is:



People will fill that gap, motorways are extremely busy at times, people will not wait at junctions/sliproads until there is enough space, they will simply squeeze in.
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Someone goes into the gap so you drop off a bit, simple really. I know hardly anyone does this (people seem to think that you are going backwards if doing this), but its not hard.
 
The other thing we arent sure of is whether tom was braking to stop or just slow down. was he aware that there was an accident or was it thought that the insignia slammed on the anchors but would then carry on?

he might not have been braking as hard as he could have been from the outset.
 
[TW]Fox;18161852 said:
Completely flawed. You are not taking into account the fact the vehicle 2 seconds in front of you wont come to a complete halt in 0 seconds. It will also take time to slow down - it will not be in the same place it was when you hit the brakes, 2 seconds later.
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True, when applied to this particular example. However, given that I quoted MrLOL, who was calculating stopping distances, not theorised distance to stop, taking into account momentum carried forward, it relates back to the stated distance in the highway code.
 
The whole debate is academic as the person behind couldnt stop in time either.

Had he stopped in time he'd still have got shunted from behind and had to give the car back damaged to the garage.


-westy- said:
True, when applied to this particular example. However, given that I quoted MrLOL, who was calculating stopping distances, not theorised distance to stop, taking into account momentum carried forward, it relates back to the stated distance in the highway code.
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I've calculated total stopping distances throughout ?

The reaction time is fixed, the only query was what sort of distance the car would stop in at 70mph. I could find figures for lots of cars - but not an e46 BMW 330i. Fox found ones for his E39 530i so we used them instead. And then added reaction time back on top to give a true distance.
 
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MrLOL said:
The whole debate is academic as the person behind couldnt stop in time either

Had he stopped in time he'd still have got shunted from behind and had to give the car back damaged to the garage.
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But the Mini drivers insurance would have covered all the damage done to the car, or, had it written the car off, a payout to the garage.
 
I tend to find surprisingly often, that if I maintain a nice gap in front of me, a person approaching behind, possibly not leaving such a nice gap, may notice my nice gap, realise that's a good and sensible thing to do, and drop back a little from me, leaving me in a nice safe bubble of spreading good road karma.

Or perhaps people just still think Omegas might be unmarked police cars :)
 
I can't wait for the story of Fox having to be removed from is BMW by the fire brigade for driving to close y0.
 
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