M25 crash 30th June 2015 Surrey?

M25 crash 30th June 2015 Surrey?

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Pan Pan Pan

Original Poster:

9,777 posts

110 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
Does anyone have any details on the incident which occurred yesterday involving twos cars and a HGV in which a driver was seriously injured?
The crash blocked the anti clockwise carriageway (and many of the surrounding roads) for miles, and hours.
I understand that careful investigation of a crash site is necessary, and the safety of the victims, and personnel dealing with the incident is paramount, but why do they take so much time to deal with these (far from rare) incidents, and why do they seem to use the policy of shutting the road at the drop of a hat (completely on many occasions) as the first response?
I have been stopped for hours on the M25 for minor incidents (in one case just a car on the hard shoulder with a flat tyre FFS!) Surely their main priority must be to do all possible to keep as much of the road open as possible, or keep it shut for the absolute minimum period of time.
Also the poor quality control of the diverted traffic makes these incidents much worse and hugely more expensive for the country as a whole, than they otherwise might be.

I witnessed a (much more serious) accident than the one on M25 yesterday, take place just in front of me on a French motorway. This involved many more vehicles, where I was able to observe the actions of their emergency services. The road was kept shut for the absolute minimum time (no more than 25 minutes) it took to rescue the victims, take detailed measurements, and collect evidence, and shift the damaged vehicles off the road (which I assumed would be collected at a later less busy time) and get the road flowing again. That does not `seem' to be the priority on the M25.
Why do the authorities hear `seem' to want to make a such dogs breakfast of almost every incident?

StottyEvo

6,860 posts

162 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
I've posted on here a few times about a RTA I was involved in where a major dual carriageway was closed. Being on the police/ambulance side of the tape was eye opening, despite their being very little reason to close the road it was shut for about an hour causing huge tailbacks.

Unrelated to the incident, a friend of mine was caught in the traffic and was held up for an hour and half.

I'm sure the "wait until its you in the accident" brigade will be along any second to tell you you're a terribly awful person for suggesting the road closures aren't required.

Chris Stott

13,184 posts

196 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
Not sure what happened, but my 2 mile drive home (normally c.10 minutes), took an hour FFS.

zarjaz1991

3,471 posts

122 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
I'm fairly certain that the Highways Agency (or whatever it's called this week) has admitted that the policy changed...the priority used to be "get the road open as soon as possible", whereas now it's "gather evidence for prosecutions".

Collectingbrass

2,198 posts

194 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
zarjaz1991 said:
I'm fairly certain that the Highways Agency (or whatever it's called this week) has admitted that the policy changed...the priority used to be "get the road open as soon as possible", whereas now it's "gather evidence for prosecutions".
It's still the Police (this week) who gather the evidence for prosecutions.

Typical timeline here:

https://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/newsroom/fea...

SteveS Cup

1,996 posts

159 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
I left work 30 mins early as it was sunny, took an extra hour to get home!

so called

9,074 posts

208 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
Yes, M6 is terrible for this nowadays.

Its interesting that Emergency Services safety isn't on the list for reasons to close down.
On the emergency services side, a friend of mine in the US lost her husband, a Fireman, when he was attending an Interstate accident and was hit by a speeding car while the Police were trying to keep the Freeway open.
Another example was that of a speeding car piling in on emergency personnel in France,killing several of the rescue workers.

I dont think that the balance is correct but I wouldn't want anyone to get killed.

Chris Stott

13,184 posts

196 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
so called said:
Yes, M6 is terrible for this nowadays.

Its interesting that Emergency Services safety isn't on the list for reasons to close down.
On the emergency services side, a friend of mine in the US lost her husband, a Fireman, when he was attending an Interstate accident and was hit by a speeding car while the Police were trying to keep the Freeway open.
Another example was that of a speeding car piling in on emergency personnel in France,killing several of the rescue workers.

I dont think that the balance is correct but I wouldn't want anyone to get killed.
Virtually no chance of that happening in the UK... even for a simple rear-ender, everyone has to slow to a crawl just to have a good look as they drive past.

LaurasOtherHalf

21,429 posts

195 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
so called said:
Yes, M6 is terrible for this nowadays.

Its interesting that Emergency Services safety isn't on the list for reasons to close down.
On the emergency services side, a friend of mine in the US lost her husband, a Fireman, when he was attending an Interstate accident and was hit by a speeding car while the Police were trying to keep the Freeway open.
Another example was that of a speeding car piling in on emergency personnel in France,killing several of the rescue workers.

I dont think that the balance is correct but I wouldn't want anyone to get killed.
I don't want anyone to get killed either, but there does come a point where your profession has to accept the risks involved for monetary reimbursement.

I don't fancy being shot at, hence I'm not a soldier.

smack

9,727 posts

190 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
Surrey Police usually have updates of roads issues here:
https://twitter.com/surreyroadcops

And a report here:
http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/m25-sh...

Pan Pan Pan

Original Poster:

9,777 posts

110 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
I don't want the people who have to deal with these incidents to be exposed to any more risk, than they already have to, but it seems that there is too little emphasis on the need to get the road open again as soon as possible, and more on gathering every bit of evidence to the extent of them wandering around the carriageway for ages.
Accidents happen, and they happen all the time, we know that, and we know they have to be dealt with as comprehensively as possible, but it seems the authorities do not take into account the effects of them on the hundreds of thousands of people (and the cost to UK PLC) of shutting and keeping the road
shut for longer than is `really' necessary.
It seems to be an attitude of `This road is shut, and it will remain shut for as long as we want it to, and if you are held up by the incident that is just tough. The people dealing with these incident have to be there, that is their job, they don't have to be anywhere else, but everyone else caught up in it, do have to be somewhere else, and it seems that for that for the authorities dealing with these incidents, this is the very first thing they forget.

toasty

7,441 posts

219 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
Last night's journey home from work - 17 miles.

Time taken - 3 hours 25 minutes.

They closed the M25 for over 5 hours!

Bulldoze the fkers out of the way and let me through! furious

OK not really, but please could you speed it up a little?

R8VXF

6,788 posts

114 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
They should use one of these to scan the scene, then clear it ASAP. It would preserve evidence positions etc for as long as they need to examine it. http://www.deltasphere.com/deltasphere_crimeaccide...

Sheepshanks

32,530 posts

118 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
Collectingbrass said:
It's still the Police (this week) who gather the evidence for prosecutions.

Typical timeline here:

https://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/newsroom/fea...
Reading that, there's a number of things that seem to have been done consecutively when they could have been done concurrently.

Sheepshanks

32,530 posts

118 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
so called said:
On the emergency services side, a friend of mine in the US lost her husband, a Fireman, when he was attending an Interstate accident and was hit by a speeding car while the Police were trying to keep the Freeway open.
They enforce the "move-over" law pretty aggressively in most States now - you have to move over to leave a clear lane between you and any emergency vehicle on the shoulder, or slow to 20 below the limit if you can't move over.

SteveS Cup

1,996 posts

159 months

Wednesday 1st July 2015
quotequote all
Pan Pan Pan said:
I don't want the people who have to deal with these incidents to be exposed to any more risk, than they already have to, but it seems that there is too little emphasis on the need to get the road open again as soon as possible, and more on gathering every bit of evidence to the extent of them wandering around the carriageway for ages.
Accidents happen, and they happen all the time, we know that, and we know they have to be dealt with as comprehensively as possible, but it seems the authorities do not take into account the effects of them on the hundreds of thousands of people (and the cost to UK PLC) of shutting and keeping the road
shut for longer than is `really' necessary.
It seems to be an attitude of `This road is shut, and it will remain shut for as long as we want it to, and if you are held up by the incident that is just tough. The people dealing with these incident have to be there, that is their job, they don't have to be anywhere else, but everyone else caught up in it, do have to be somewhere else, and it seems that for that for the authorities dealing with these incidents, this is the very first thing they forget.
If I or a family member were ever the victim of an accident caused by another negligent driver I'd want the police to be able to produce as much evidence as possible in court.

I do however get annoyed on my commute when there is a lot of traffic.

I'd rather we as a country focussed on mandatory motorway driving instruction as I'm sure it would reduce all of the above. Rather than have a go at the by product why not deal with the actual source of the issue?

Jakg

3,451 posts

167 months

Thursday 2nd July 2015
quotequote all
SteveS Cup said:
I'd rather we as a country focussed on mandatory motorway driving instruction as I'm sure it would reduce all of the above. Rather than have a go at the by product why not deal with the actual source of the issue?
Motorways are already the safest roads in the country - it's just that an accident causes a lot more holdups than anywhere else.

I drove past a very small accident today (car into central reservation, no injuries) on a dual carriage way. Miles of tailbacks in one direction, and slow traffic the other way (rubberneckers).

Around the corner from my office yesterday, a woman was hit by a car and died on a town street. Road closed, but no increase in traffic anywhere else, no real holdups.

chriscoates

787 posts

159 months

Thursday 2nd July 2015
quotequote all
Jakg said:
SteveS Cup said:
I'd rather we as a country focussed on mandatory motorway driving instruction as I'm sure it would reduce all of the above. Rather than have a go at the by product why not deal with the actual source of the issue?
Motorways are already the safest roads in the country - it's just that an accident causes a lot more holdups than anywhere else.
This is true, however having driven on the M25 last weekend it's staggering how poor the driving standards are on there. As soon as you give people 4+ lanes they seem to have no clue about what lane to be in, which results in loss of capacity, congestion, and stop-start traffic, all of which means that those not paying attention will have an accident.

I experienced this last Friday at the M40 turnoff when a young girl in a Corsa realised she needed to leave the M25, but she was in lane 4. She panicked and braked so hard that I and the taxi in front had to do an emergency stop to avoid a pile-up. It was pure luck there was nobody behind within 400 yards of me or there would almost certainly have been an accident. She then managed to force her way across onto the slip road oblivious to the danger she'd just caused.

dcb

5,834 posts

264 months

Thursday 2nd July 2015
quotequote all
chriscoates said:
This is true, however having driven on the M25 last weekend it's staggering how poor the driving standards are on there. As soon as you give people 4+ lanes they seem to have no clue about what lane to be in, which results in loss of capacity, congestion, and stop-start traffic, all of which means that those not paying attention will have an accident.
Compared to the rest of Europe, the Brits are utter amateurs in this respect.

35 million drivers untrained in motorway driving and so it's a wonder
to me that only about 100 people a year die on UK motorways.

I think I'm right in saying that UK is one of a very few (only ?) that
doesn't have motorway driving as standard as part of the test.

The usual reason given for not having motorway driving on
the UK test is that many places are far away from a motorway.

The rest of Europe manages this ok, why not the Brits ?



saaby93

32,038 posts

177 months

Thursday 2nd July 2015
quotequote all
dcb said:
Compared to the rest of Europe, the Brits are utter amateurs in this respect.

35 million drivers untrained in motorway driving and so it's a wonder
to me that only about 100 people a year die on UK motorways.

I think I'm right in saying that UK is one of a very few (only ?) that
doesn't have motorway driving as standard as part of the test.

The usual reason given for not having motorway driving on
the UK test is that many places are far away from a motorway.

The rest of Europe manages this ok, why not the Brits ?
You'd have to show that not doing it leads to these collisions
The opposite may be true. Lack of training means drivers are more wary = less accidents

What about a simulator?