Horrific Crash on M6

Stretch · 21 Oct 2008 at 13:50

Fothsn said:
Involving an foreign truck driver! Doesn’t surprise me.

It's not so much foreign trucks as trucks in general. I think it's about time they were consigned to the inside lane only on a national basis.

Russinating · 21 Oct 2008 at 13:52

Mat said:
But can you not empathize with the situation and the families involved?

No, because I could probably paste another 10 news stories links regarding car crashes from the past week, let alone the numerous other ways of people dying. What makes these guys so 'special' and worthy of your mourning?

Hedge · 21 Oct 2008 at 13:52

rghjones said:
Meh. Am I the only person who thinks this is no different to the X thousands of people who die everyday.

I only care about people I know - I don't have it in me to care about the other 6bn.

"Meh" in regard to a whole family being wiped out in a crash that left their remains very difficult to identify.

People dying in circumstances like this warrant some compassion at least. I know you dont know them personally, and i know thousands of people die each day.. but when its something like this you cant help but feel for them.

Well i cant anyway, but i guess you lack any emotion it seems.

Conscript · 21 Oct 2008 at 13:52

KaHn said:
Wow that took long.

KaHn

magicroundabout said:
idiot

Duke said:

Given the stories you hear about foreign truck drivers who often dont maintain their vehicles to the same vigourous standards as UK drivers, who often have less regard for road rules and most importantly are driving a large vehicle that already suffers from numerous blind spots with a foreign configuration (ie, left hand drive), the original statement isn't really that far off the mark. As someone has said, anyone who has driven on Portugese roads will also know theat they can be 'exciting', to say the least.

I'm not saying that the driver was definately at fault, but you should consider that Fothsns statement was not meant in a racist sense before jumping all over him.

Hedge · 21 Oct 2008 at 13:54

rghjones said:
No, because I could probably paste another 10 news stories links regarding car crashes from the past week, let alone the numerous other ways of people dying. What makes these guys so 'special' and worthy of your mourning?

Nothing makes them "special" at all. Its the simply fact that its a tragedy. its sad that children with their lives ahead of them die in such a horrific way.

comments like yours come up quite often on here, i just dont get it really, I know there isnt a personal link, but i think it should be in our nature to sympathise/aknowledge people in circumstances like this.

Fothsn · 21 Oct 2008 at 13:56

Conscript said:
Given the stories you hear about foreign truck drivers who often dont maintain their vehicles to the same vigourous standards as UK drivers, who often have less regard for road rules and most importantly are driving a large vehicle that already suffers from numerous blind spots with a foreign configuration (ie, left hand drive), the original statement isn't really that far off the mark. As someone has said, anyone who has driven on Portugese roads will also know theat they can be 'exciting', to say the least.

I'm not saying that the driver was definately at fault, but you should consider that Fothsns statement was not meant in a racist sense before jumping all over him.

Thank you

Russinating · 21 Oct 2008 at 13:57

Hedge said:
"Meh" in regard to a whole family being wiped out in a crash that left their remains very difficult to identify.

People dying in circumstances like this warrant some compassion at least. I know you dont know them personally, and i know thousands of people die each day.. but when its something like this you cant help but feel for them.

Well i cant anyway, but i guess you lack any emotion it seems.

I'd rather be 'wiped out' (nice compassionate vocabulary) instantly in a high-speed crash than, say, raped, shot or tortured.

willhub · 21 Oct 2008 at 13:58

Yep not surprising that it was a foreign driver, last year I went on holiday to Portugal with a friend and his mum and his mums bf was driving and we went around allot in the car and you could see how craaaazy allot of the drivers where.

Masterdog · 21 Oct 2008 at 13:58

rghjones said:
No, because I could probably paste another 10 news stories links regarding car crashes from the past week, let alone the numerous other ways of people dying. What makes these guys so 'special' and worthy of your mourning?

Why are they not? We happen to be discussing them because the circumstances of their death were newsworthy, not because they're deserving of mourning any more than other people who've died this week. But because they died, we feel sorry for them and their families, as we would in any other case someone innocent died.

Fothsn · 21 Oct 2008 at 14:01

willhub said:
Yep not surprising that it was a foreign driver, last year I went on holiday to Portugal with a friend and his mum and his mums bf was driving and we went around allot in the car and you could see how craaaazy allot of the drivers where.

Be careful there you might get label a racist it seems, anyway this is my point they don’t have the same safety procedures as we ‘UK Licence holders’ do, they seem to all be crazy

Russinating · 21 Oct 2008 at 14:02

Took me literally 2 seconds to find:

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- A partially built bridge collapsed in New Delhi on Sunday onto several vehicles below, killing two people and wounding 11 others, police said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/10/19/india.bridge/index.html

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A longtime Pennsylvania state senator has died after his Cadillac collided head-on with a truck.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/10/18/james.rhoades.ap/index.html

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- Taliban militants stopped a bus traveling on Afghanistan's main highway through a wild and dangerous part of the country's south, seized about 50 people on board and slaughtered around 30 of them, officials said Sunday.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/10/19/afghan.bus.attack.ap/index.html

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) -- Eight people are dead after overnight violence in the rough Mexican border city of Tijuana. The state prosecutor's office says three teenagers were gunned down in the street. A 14-year-old girl was among them.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/10/14/tijuana.violence.ap/index.html

Where's your mournful topic for them? Oh yeah, they're not British.

Blue Cypher · 21 Oct 2008 at 14:02

Well said Conscript

Firestar_3x · 21 Oct 2008 at 14:07

Conscript said:
Given the stories you hear about foreign truck drivers who often dont maintain their vehicles to the same vigourous standards as UK drivers, who often have less regard for road rules and most importantly are driving a large vehicle that already suffers from numerous blind spots with a foreign configuration (ie, left hand drive), the original statement isn't really that far off the mark. As someone has said, anyone who has driven on Portugese roads will also know theat they can be 'exciting', to say the least.

I'm not saying that the driver was definately at fault, but you should consider that Fothsns statement was not meant in a racist sense before jumping all over him.

Agree with this, i'm not saying the truck driver is to blame it could have been the car driver but its more likely and usually results in a worse accident when a foreign truck crashes in the uk.

robbiemc · 21 Oct 2008 at 14:08

I don't think Fothsn was being 'racist' with his comments, simply that foreign trucks are often (compared with UK trucks) less well maintained, and the drivers are likely to have spent more time at the wheel.
According tothis artical, foreign trucks are 8 times more likely to be involved in a serious RTA in the UK.

Muffin` · 21 Oct 2008 at 14:10

Awful story, but 16-18 seems to be the black spot of Britain's roads in regards to accidents :/

Firestar_3x · 21 Oct 2008 at 14:11

This part of the M6 is the most dangerous i think, J15 is very very bad.

Datamonkey · 21 Oct 2008 at 14:19

i cant believe the people jumping on the racist comments lol.

Most accidents involving a truck with a fatality are foreign trucks, i dont care who its driven by, could a turk, a china man. french or what ever.

ITS TRUE.

Trucks in general have some bad blind spots., left hand drive have it even worse. Very easy for a left hooker to move over to the right and not see the small nissan micra which has just gone under it wheels.

As for the other accident stories others have posted, i think this is a bit closer to home. Being the UK and that.

drunkenmaster · 21 Oct 2008 at 14:24

Azagoth said:
Portuguese too! If you've ever driven in Portugal then this will not be a shock at all. We were ran off the road twice by trucks over there, both times they were on the wrong side of the road, i.e. our side and barrelling towards us with no intention of moving. One of the times, we ended up in a ditch at the side of the road and had to be pulled out by a local guy with a Toyota pick-up.

Theres two things that strike me, firstly, people in their OWN country are unlikely to drive on the wrong side of the road, I'm not saying you were, I'm saying, unless you stopped and had a chat with them in portuguese how do you know thats where they were from.

THe other point being long haul driving around Europe tend to deliver from one country to another, they could realistically have been from anywhere could they not, and its far more likely a driver from another country was driving on the wrong side of the road.

Pretty much everything in your statement would make me believe they weren't Portuguese, hell, they might have been English.

I also laugh, wholeheartidly at the idea that there are no unsafe english lorries being driven around. Have any of you not ever lived in the UK, with dodgey people working for dodgey people and shockingly not abiding by the rules. There are some foreign drivers who realise their job is their livelyhood and crashing their vehicle due to crappy maintainance will only lead to their death, there will be some who don't give a crap and drive a wreck, both types of people who you would also find working in the UK.

I've been witness to thousands of ridiculously bad drivers cutting across traffic on motorways, jumping redlights, causing accidents in my years, the majority of them were English. There are thousands of crashes a day all caused by English people. Yes it IS completely and utterly ridiculous, without question, to say you're not remotely surprised it was a foreign driver and it is a fairly typical response these days on the forum.

had it been a uk driver you would not have said you were not surprised, considering the massive, ridiculous majority of car crashes in the uk are caused by english drivers, surely you would not be surprised to see it was a English driver but surprised it was a foreign driver.

ANyway, it was probably caused by a smegging chav throwing a brick into the lorry off a bridge..............

Yeah, i took the foreign/racist angle and made my own typical chav/anti english scum semi racist comment, irony.

Jonnycoupe · 21 Oct 2008 at 14:24

rghjones said:
I'd rather be 'wiped out' (nice compassionate vocabulary) instantly in a high-speed crash than, say, raped, shot or tortured.

or burnt in a fireball car with the rest of your immediate family. Accidents like this dont happen often. RIP those involved.

Sone · 21 Oct 2008 at 14:25

traffic was backed up here till about 10am

I was told there was accidents on the A34 and A500 aswell making stoke very inaccessable this morning.