HGV Sideswipes car on the M1, caught on camera..

[Scania]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-34933345

A driver who says he was "deliberately and repeatedly rammed" by a lorry has criticised police for failing to respond to his calls for three hours.

Matthew Stockdale claims he was repeatedly cut up and shunted three times by the other motorist.

He said he made six 999 calls and was connected to three police forces.

Northamptonshire Police, which took the first call, has apologised for the communication failures, saying it plans to interview the lorry driver.

The force says it is carrying out a "live investigation", but no arrests have yet been made. Bedfordshire Police is due to interview Mr Stockdale.

Dashcam footage of the encounter, recorded on the M1 near Northampton on 11 November, shows the lorry hitting Mr Stockdale's car.

"I honestly thought I was going to die," he wrote in a police statement.

"My life literally rushed before my eyes. Whilst that sounds dramatic, I can honestly say I have never felt fear like it. I began shaking uncontrollably."

The former special constable said he was driving southbound towards his home in Northampton when a lorry began flashing him, sounding its horn and driving up to the rear of his car.

Footage shows the lorry apparently bashing his car as it passed at about 20:40 GMT, and repeating the action 14 minutes later.

Mr Stockdale then called 999 and was connected to Northamptonshire Police. After the second incident, he was connected to Thames Valley and then Bedfordshire Police.

Despite assurances from all three forces that help was on the way, he said no-one arrived.

Mr Stockdale, who runs a dashcam company, followed the lorry to a depot in Dunstable where an ambulance took him to hospital with neck and shoulder pain.

Bedfordshire Police had called the paramedics and one of its officers arrived at the hospital nearly three hours after the first call was made.

Footage shows Mr Stockdale stayed in the middle lane for some time, which motorists can be fined for, but he said he was about to move over when the lorry driver began to "intimidate" him.

The Northamptonshire force said it could not attend because officers trained to deal with such incidents were in pursuit of a stolen car. The force has seen the footage and an investigation is under way but no arrests have been made yet, a spokesman confirmed.

Supt Dennis Murray, who is in charge of the force's control room, said: "What we should have done was contact the other forces... that's a failure on our part, for which I apologise to the driver of that vehicle."

The lorry driver, who lives in Bedfordshire, was employed by Wincanton hauliers through an agency. A spokesman confirmed he is "no longer conducting deliveries".

Liability for the car damage has been accepted by the firm's insurers.

Am I being over cynical here? - a driver who apparently runs a dashcam company drives like a twonk by sticking to the middle lane for a long time (which is an offence) to the point where an HGV overtakes him in the 3rd lane - which he shouldn't - and sideswipes him a few times.....

I can't help wondering if the car driver somehow wanted this and tried to create the circumstances where he could get this footage which he recorded out there to highlight the pro's of dashcams as an outcome?

To be clear, the HGV driver was wrong in what he apparently did. In no way do you use any vehicle as a weapon as he has done,least of all an articulated truck, but, it seems a little fishy to me to say the least - The nearside lane was empty. Why was he driving at less than 56mph - an HGV's limited speed - on an empty motorway at night in the MIDDLE lane? The HGV had no trouble passing him which tells me he was driving very slowly.

The damage to his car seems extremely minor given he's been swiped by a moving HGV, I know HGV's can do an awful lot more damage in such incidents.

Again, I don't condone the actions of the HGV driver, he's an idiot, he's done what many many truckers would like to do to some drivers but generally don't!

Thoughts?

 

[Scania]

Oh, you cynic you

That could well be the case, but then again it could just be an idiot lorry driver

I don't dispute for a moment the truck driver was an idiot.

Whether he was being a bit of a plank or not I don't think his reaction to being swiped numerous times by an arctic makes him a drama queen, you'd be *****ing yourself if you were in that drivers seat.

I'd love to see the whole of the footage,you would expect him to be terrified indeed and to try to get away surely? - it seems odd that he appears to take no avoiding action whatsoever when the HGV comes toward him despite the nearside lane being completely clear.

Very odd imo.

 

[Scania]

shame he didnt hit him harder

To be fair, had he hit him harder the car would have ended up flung off the carriageway or, under the wheels of the trailer - the side crash bars on trailers are not particularly strong - looking on the BBC link, the damage to his car is remarkably minor given he didn't move when the truck hit him.

 

[Scania]

Even a HGV bashing into him twice still didn't get him in the inside lane.

Same person, the bloke is an idiot that uses dashcams and acts like a guardian of the road.

He's clearly off his head. http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/n...olice-race-to-focus-on-space-threat-1-4376089

Indeed he seems to have an agenda to put it mildly....

And some more footage from this incident, with commentary from his own website.

Again, the HGV driver is very much in the wrong, but, there is more to this than meets the eye.

 

[Scania]

This is the correct thing to happen, you put peoples lives at risk, you lose your job.

Indeed it is.


He's an agency driver though, whilst he won't be allowed back at Wincanton Logistics (rightly!) I promise you he won't be out of work for long until or if the Police prosecute him at least.

 

[Scania]

Perhaps that is enough? Just a gentle reminder that your driving a missile that could weigh up to around 40 tonnes, had that accident been worse I am fairly confident that the car driver would have come out of the accident a whole load worse.

Having seen that other video (edit: and website) that doesn't get the car driver off the hook for being a muppet.

Disagree there mate,him being booted off the agency / or its Wincanton contract is imo no where near enough.

If he's minded to drive an HGV in that manner he should lose his HGV entitlement, end of.

Regardless of the actions of the moron car driver who undoubtedly instigated this for his own gain the HGV driver is a supposed professional and has to act accordingly, he could very easily have killed the pillock by his actions.

He did what many HGV drivers are tempted to, believe me, but he crossed the line (in more ways than one) by his actions.

He should be up before a traffic commissioner at the very least, and have his HGV entitlement revolked ideally, idiots like him shouldn't be anywhere near an articulated truck.

 

[Scania]

So if the lorry is in the left hand lane, and this twonk is in the middle lane, he can pass legally on the left as he's maintained his position? That's where the difference in changing lanes to undertake comes in, and where the legal boundary is?

The trucker should have either hung back and waited (chances are he's paid by the hour) or indeed passed on the inside, assuming he was in the nearside lane to start with when he encountered this tool.

Its what I would have done in this situation and indeed have done many times before in both HGV and my car.

I hope we get some follow up on this story and indeed the Police look into this car driving clown who from his youtube video's seems to think he's some self styled road vigilante who goes out of his way to create "incidents" to drum up business.

Bit more to this muppet than I first thought....

http://www.mattstockdale.com/

Matt Stockdale - Former Independent Police and Crime Commissioner Candidate for Northamptonshire and business adviser.

As a huge believer of fate, I believe that ‘what goes around - comes around’

I sincerely hope he's ruffled a few feathers with the Northamptonshire Police in his time and now gets what he believes in.....

 

[Scania]

Scania- is this sort of thing (i.e. car drivers deliberately being a bell) a common occurrence for HGV drivers?

Unfortunately, an increasingly common occurrence alas, you would not believe some of the stunts I've seen pulled around my hgv and those around me - hand on heart - in situations where I or the other truck have done nothing wrong whatsoever.

People take exception to such huge slow beasts on our roads holding them up, without appreciating that pretty much everything they use or need on a day to day basis at some point will have travelled by truck.

We - hgv drivers - Provide a critical service to the public and are in the main despised for doing so.

I'd like a list please guys of things we use daily that don't travel by road at some point, think about that one for a minute!

I learned many years back to not let it get to me, it's part & parcel of driving an hgv for a living.

Again I'll say that the truck driver in this instance did what I and most other hgv drivers would love to do on an almost daily basis to some muppet we encounter but we don't because we're used to it and frankly expect no less.

For whatever reason this guy went further.

I very much look forward to hearing about the hgv driver in question and do wonder if some collusion went on here.

I've seen an incident where an hgv has punted a car off the road, trashing it in the process, in my 19 years as an hgv driver, I've never seen it done repeatedly nor with so little damage to the car involved.

We still only have half of this story.

 

[Scania]

Does this guy live in Northampton?

I am pretty sure I have seen a car with police witness stickers on it around the northants area.

I'd imagine he has been antaganizing motorists so an event such as this occurs, hence why he makes no attempt to move away from the lorry so that he can be hit as I am sure this will no doubt no harm his sales or awareness of the company.

What does own a dash cam company entail? surely amazon could claim the same just because they sell them.

Yes he's local to you and has had a previous incident reported in the local press.

http://m.northamptonchron.co.uk/new...miss-on-northamptonshire-roundabout-1-6264093

If you read his story here, it's pretty apparent he's got plenty of form for doing this sort of thing not to mention no clue as to what road markings mean.

 

[Scania]

If memory serves from watching The Bill, 'public interest' is one of the criteria for prosecuting, isn't it?

Kinda implies the weighting could be changed for this particular metric, on a borderline case?

Some blurb if you're bored:

https://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/docs/code_2013_accessible_english.pdf

Of particular note:



Plebbing about on the motorway is pretty serious I'd say. Taking either party to court is gonna cost the public moola. Anyone know how much? I'm gonna suggest it's not worth even a quid of public money to pursue, considering everyone on the planet now knows the score.

I think if both admitted succumbing to tiredness and acting irrationally, both could be sent on an anger management~ course (although I would absolve the HGV driver of all wrong doing, personally) to 'help' them, that might represent a win in the public interest?

Whilst I'm all for the car driving business generator having the book thrown at him the actions of the articulated truck driver if anything more so!

Regardless of the undoubted provocation, you never use such a vehicle as a weapon believe me.
How he didn't punt the car off the carriageway or under the trucks wheels I don't know.

He did something any sane driver wouldn't do.


As for your initial point, is anybody who's qualified other than by scripts from "The Bill" able to enlighten us further?


I find it curious that thus far nothing about the hgv driver seems to be in the media......