Police Officer killed in M6 motorway crash

[sparkythecat]

A police officer died on the M6 near Carlisle yesterday when his car left the carriageway as he was responding to an emergency incident.
An experienced officer driving on what is usually a relatively quiet stretch of road.
Very sad for his family and colleagues

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-cumbria-...

[jonwm]

Saw this on Twitter last night. I mentioned on a previous post there seems to have been a few serious if not fatal incidents the last 12 months with police cars in single vehicle incidents.

Terribly sad for all involved especially as I would imagine they were responding to someone in need.

What's more sad is there was a tiny article in the mail online today near the bottom of the page yet markle and crew still hit the headlines.

[Glenn63]

M6 was shut both ways for a few hours yesterday my mrs was stuck in it for about 2 hours on her way back from her parents in Dumfries, eventually they turned everybody round back up the wrong way to the last junction. Wonder what actually happened as mentioned is usually very quiet bit of road and mrs said was dry, maybe a blow out at speed? Apparently his wife an officer with the same force as well tragic news.

[Terzo123]

I got stuck in the traffic yesterday. Waze took me off a few junctions earlier and rerouted me through Gretna to Carlisle via back roads. My journey took me 6 hours instead of the usual 5.

I was cursing my luck thinking I was having a bad day, then heard through the news what had happened.

Very sad news.

[V8 Bob]

Cumbria police have pulled all their BMW cars following reports car was on fire before it crashed

[jonwm]

V8 Bob said:

Cumbria police have pulled all their BMW cars following reports car was on fire before it crashed

That's quite scary. There is a huge recall ongoing with egr valves, you would have hoped police would have been top of the priority list, ovs assuming that was the cause of the fire..

Must be quite a dent in the fleet to remove all BMW's.

Hopefully they find out the cause for the families sake.

[BossHogg]

RIP Nick, a very likeable officer who I attended many incidents with. I was manning the southbound closure at J44.

[chopper602]

I was stuck for at the same closure for more than an hour, exiting at Jct.44. Luckily for me, I could divert onto the A69 back to Teesside, some friends were about an hour behind me trying to get back to North Wales. I told them of the closure and they diverted via Carlisle to join the M6 further down.
Sad when I read the report about the copper.

[martinbiz]

V8 Bob said:

Cumbria police have pulled all their BMW cars following reports car was on fire before it crashed

Eye witnesses do report some embellished accounts but maybe lots of sparks from a wheel rim on the road, so the tyre failure theory is a distinct possibility

[Sheepshanks]

Obviously no idea what happened but it's always struck me as a bit scary that they frequently drive in all the crap on the hard should then next thing at high speed. And they probably run the tyres to 2mm. I wonder if blow outs are common?

[edthefed]

In my force blow outs on Mway were not common.
Driving any distance on hard shoulder was recognised as potentially problematic.
Cant recall when tyres on traffic cars were changed, but it was certainly above 2mm.
Mway cars serviced every 6000 miles...not unusual for just a month or 6 weeks between services.

[BossHogg]

Ours cars have the tyres changed at 3mm, I should imagine a lot of police forces do the same.

[vonhosen]

Minimum depth 3mm.

[Sheepshanks]

Thanks, that's more reassuring.