First road traffic accident

As per a few other posts, I put full blame in the Audi.

The girl did say she checked her mirrors and thought there was a safe distance, obviously no second glance was made to confirm safe distance before making the move.

I don't know if you guys have driven the M42, but there's cameras on every gantree (for variable speed limit), so this collision was more than likely captured on film, the evidence will all be there.

It was drench in the van, I along with other drivers and response teams all got a fair bit!

Also did get her number, but just for insurance stuff ;)
 
EnderXi said:
As a relatively new driver judging closing speeds on vehicles on the motorway is very tricky or at least for me anyway, If you look in the mirror and see someone there you think to yourself they are doing XX miles an hour and estimate closing speed and carry out your maneuver if however they are in three digit speed the time that it takes for them to get to you is significantly shorter = accident.
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If you are going to move in front of the visible car, there should be no real closing speed. If you see a car 100m back, you are right that it is hard to tell what speed it is doing. However you can tell if the car is gaining on you and if it is there is no point unless you will match the speed of the approaching car (and you have to consider if you can accelerate quickly enough to match it).

Even 10mph closing speed is ~5 metres per second.

You need to let a good bit of time pass before you can tell. Some people in this thread have mentioned glancing at a car in the mirror and deciding if there is enough space. If you simply take a glance you are ignoring speed. You can't tell how fast something is going from a photo. I see people do this all the time and this is probably what the van driver did.
 
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If someone's moving into your lane your not really in a position to take your time to evaluate the closing speed of someone behind you.

Audi driver shouldn't have been going so fast on a busy motorway.

mattyfez said:
It's the a fail but it happens, a good driver will know when to expect lapses in judgement from others, and and slow down from 120 in good time.
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A good driver wouldn't be doing 120mph :rolleyes:
 
LizardKing said:
If someone's moving into your lane your not really in a position to take your time to evaluate the closing speed of someone behind you.
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The driver could brake. Sprinter Van likely is speed limited to 70mph. Braking from 70 to 60 doesn't require much space. It could hardly have been a situation where the driver had no choice but to switch lanes, unless it had no speed limiter and the van was going significantly faster than the 60 the lorry was doing.

I wouldn't ever dream of casually moving lanes to avoid slower traffic in front without gauging what is in the other lane and at what speed.
 
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Well done to OP

I drive for Langdons.. That wasn't the wagon involved was it perchance ?

(I'm on holiday atm so it wasn't me !!)
 
As with most accidents we could sit here and argue all day over if she did this, if he didn't do that then it wouldn't have happened...

She probably should have looked better before just pulling out into the 3rd lane, however if you have a truck pulling out on you then that is going to be your reaction and you are likely to only have a quick look to make sure something isn't right upon you as there isn't enough time to check their speed.

Audi driver should not have been going 120mph with traffic around, and should definitely be expecting the unexpected. Whether it would be deemed your fault or not, if you could see what may happen and take action to try and reduce the chances of an accident occurring then you should. He should have looked ahead, seen a van driving alongside a truck likely in its blind spot and think, if that truck goes to pull where will the van go?

Truck shouldn't have pulled out into the van. Van shouldn't have just pulled out without a proper look, could possibly have avoided this if she had not been sitting in the trucks blind spot. Audi driver should not have been doing 120mph, should have been prepared for someone to pull out and expect someone to do something stupid.

They are all partly to blame for the accident, however going 120mph around traffic just does not give you the time to react. If you are going at 100mph and perform an emergency stop, all else being equal you will still be above 70mph by the time you would have stopped had you been going 70mph in the first place. Add another 20mph to that and your stopping distance is going to be so much longer.

Well done for helping, although as mentioned above with possible risks of aggravating a spinal injury not necessarily the best course of action. But if she was up and moving trying to get out then that risk has already been taken by her.
 
muon said:
You need to let a good bit of time pass before you can tell. Some people in this thread have mentioned glancing at a car in the mirror and deciding if there is enough space. If you simply take a glance you are ignoring speed. You can't tell how fast something is going from a photo. I see people do this all the time and this is probably what the van driver did.
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I agree, but on a busy motorway if we are doing 70 ourselves we can't sit there staring at our mirrors to see how much a speeding motorist is breaking the speed limit by. A quick glance is all it should take.

I give a few quick glances in between checking the road ahead to try and calculate how fast an overtaking car is closing in but have experienced situations many before when I check the mirror and next second they are right behind or overtaking.

Doing 120mph (not that I go this fast) on an empty motorway is one thing but overtaking traffic at that speed is asking for trouble.
 
muon said:
The driver could brake. Sprinter Van likely is speed limited to 70mph. Braking from 70 to 60 doesn't require much space. It could hardly have been a situation where the driver had no choice but to switch lanes, unless it had no speed limiter and the van was going significantly faster than the 60 the lorry was doing.
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The only thing we know is the Audi driver was speeding, everything else is speculation.
Had he not been speeding then the accident would likely not have happened, the fault is 100% his fault. He was not going the appropriate speed for the situation, else he may have been able to take avoiding action himself.

Speeding on a busy motorway is an idiotic thing to do, how anyone can begin to justify the Audi's driving is worrying.
I spend far to much of my time in congestion most likely caused by heavy braking by people driving like plebs to entertain the idea its anything but a dumb ass thing to do.
 
I've had a Q5 make me slam on when he decided the inside lane on a roundabout wasn't for him. He then had me slam on again when he decided he didn't want to go straight ahead at a roundabout but would prefer to go right instead in the outside lane.

Wouldn't have been so bad if the roundabout wasn't this one and he wasn't doing 50mph before he slammed on at the last minute.
 
No surprises in this story I'm afraid.

Audi driver driving like a ****

Lorry driver driving with complete disregard for other road users and pulling out in front of them.

Woman not checking her mirrors.

And none of the above people realising that they are actually allowed to use their brakes on the motorway.

The only thing that stops this incident being a total cliche of of every tool you encounter on a motorway is that there also isn't an overturned caravan being towed by a unsuitable vehicle or some **** with an unrestrained dog bounding around the car.
 
Looks nasty. It's hard to judge a car coming towards you at 50% faster than you.

I've sat at silly speeds for miles and always let off a bit if I'm even a little bit unsure of what's going on.

Even tonight I had a girl in a corsa in lane 3,of 4, cut across infront of me as I moved from lane 1 to lane 2 planning on moving into lane 3 to go past the car in lane 2. I braked and let her move over for her to then sit faster than the traffic in lane 2 and about the same speed as me in lane 3. Proper WTF moment.
 
Media spin certainly ingrained into most of you here I see.
Jumping straight in with shock horror at Q5 doing 120
SPEED KILLS.. etc etc


Lorry driver should have looked where he was bloody going and van driver should have hit the brakes/horn, not swerved into the 3rd lane when there is a Q5 tanking down it.

Yes it's a factor but it's not the cause in my opinion.
 
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bainbridge said:
I agree, but on a busy motorway if we are doing 70 ourselves we can't sit there staring at our mirrors to see how much a speeding motorist is breaking the speed limit by. A quick glance is all it should take.
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Forget speed limits. You are obligated to check it is safe to change lanes either side of you. Speed limits don't absolve a driver of this responsibility, not least because no one drives at 70mph anyway.

This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say many UK drivers are unable to judge things in high speed situations. This is what will avoid accidents, not speed limits.
 
muon said:
Forget speed limits. You are obligated to check it is safe to change lanes either side of you. Speed limits don't absolve a driver of this responsibility, not least because no one drives at 70mph anyway.

This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say many UK drivers are unable to judge things in high speed situations. This is what will avoid accidents, not speed limits.
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Check your mirror, see the car and the distance, think "This is a 70 road so I have time", move over... Boom he's doing 50mph more and came up MUCH faster than you expected.

EDIT: It's happened to me a few times crossing the road near my house, you go to cross and have a quick look both ways before crossing, you notice the car but it's far away so you cross and before you know it he's slamming his breaks on because he's doing 40/50 in a 30 zone.
 
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TBh a good driver would have seen the truck moving into lane 2 and have been expecting the Sprinter to possibly look to move into lane 3 (NOT the 'fast lane') in order to maintain their speed. I've slowed down many times knowing that someone in lane two will be looking to move into lane three.

Moronhead in the Audi shouldn't have been going anything like that fast and should have been more aware of the situation in front of them. Lady in the Sprinter maybe took one glance, probably not even half a seconds look and, making a (usually completely safe) assumption that no one is going to be closing at what could possibly have been 50-60mph difference pulled out, believing it to be safe.

As for who is at fault, well, you can easily blame the Audi driver for going so fast, but then if the Sprinter lady had looked for more than half a second and actually judged the speed the Audi was going at correctly the accident probably wouldn't have happened. Doesn't make the Audi driver blame free the same way it doesn't make Sprinter Lady blameless. Audi driver is a **** though.
 
I'm with those who say all three drivers were at fault. The law will probably come down most heavily on the Audi driver, because that's the easiest to prove, but none were paying proper attention, and all were carrying out unsafe manoeuvres. The Audi driver does deserve special punishment though, for failing to understand the argument about driving faster than the limit when it is safe to do so - which it clearly wasn't. If you drive faster than the limit then you also need to pay really good attention to what everyone else might do, not just what they are doing. Because at that speed, only reacting to what they are doing is too late. The van driver is probably least culpable, but only be a small margin. Yes, she should have looked twice to cross-check the Audi's speed, but she was trying to avoid a lorry which had pulled out in front of her. Yes, she could have slowed, but I'll bet money that everyone here, in the same circumstances, has taken one quick look in the mirror and pulled over. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
 
Antony101 said:
Check your mirror, see the car and the distance, think "This is a 70 road so I have time", move over... Boom he's doing 50mph more and came up MUCH faster than you expected.

EDIT: It's happened to me a few times crossing the road near my house, you go to cross and have a quick look both ways before crossing, you notice the car but it's far away so you cross and before you know it he's slamming his breaks on because he's doing 40/50 in a 30 zone.
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That's not an excuse, that is just poor observation and subsequent poor judgement on your part.

You have not given hour self enough time to see how fast another vehicle is coming, assumed it simply must be doing the speed limit, and then just gone out in front of it.

Its a common fault with most drivers and a cause of most accidents.
Poor observation and then making a decision based on insufficient details.

In the case of the lorry driver, not planning his overtaking maneuver , just arriving at the back of a another lorry, giving his mirrors a quick glance, not getting the full road picture behind him, then pulling out.
Woman in sprinter, not observing the road ahead, not factoring in the lorry on her left is closing on the lorry in front and not slowing down or pulling over sooner and anticipating his actions, lack of observation of the road picture behind her.
Audi driver doing exactly the same, driving too fast for his ability, not observing, anticipating and adjusting speed to suit.
 
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