Only a fool breaks the two second rule.....

[flakeypaul]

Just had a really near miss. Coming down the A63 in some moderate rain doing about 60/65. It had rained heavily five minutes earlier and there was a fair bit of standing / running surface water. I'm in the nearside lane following a jag which is following an astra. We're all doing the same speed and driving to the conditions. With no warning (and apparently little reason), the astra veers violently across the offside lane and into the barrier, spins and comes to a halt facing the wrong way against the barrier leaving bits of front end right across the carriageway.

Luckily we had all left a good gap and were able to stop without hitting each other (although I swear somebody threw an anchor out of the window of the jag! - a set of greenstuff disks and pads are now in the post! and my avons are getting replaced in the morning with something a little stickier!)

What worries me is how bad an accident this could have been had we all been up each others arses like you see so often. People think 'it'll never happen to me' - believe me it can and it happens with next to no warning.

Fortunately the driver and passenger in the astra were fine but very shaken up (as was I!) especially at how what could have been no more than 3mm of standing water no more than 10 metres long on a new road surface could cause a car to go so violently and quickly out of control! (It apparently had plenty of front tread too - very worrying!)

Edited by flakeypaul on Saturday 20th March 17:06

[Ace-T]

Glad you are ok. Do you think the Astra aquaplaned, went a little skewed then caught again?

Re the greenstuffs, in my experience they are great when warmed up but poor when cold and as a result not entirely suitable for 'normal' road driving. I span the Mini on a very wet and cold road with those on as the drums at the back caught before the fronts.

Trace

[S. Gonzales Esq.]

The rest of the rule goes: 'in the rain, say it again.'

[Gun]

I've had a similar near miss approaching a set of traffic lights on a roundabout, the road is a dual carriageway with the left lane going left only and the right lane to go straight ahead. I was in the right lane, the lights changed to red as I came up to them so had to pulled up to a stop but the Parcel Farce van who had been tailgaiting me since we had to move into our lanes couldn't stop in time, he swerved into the left lane to avoid me which, thankfully, was empty and he just about stopped before he shot out into the cars going round the roundabout.

[flakeypaul]

S. Gonzales Esq. said:

The rest of the rule goes: 'in the rain, say it again.'

That's very true!!!

The road was quite busy at the time - I really don't know how a more serious accident didn't occur!

[Diderot]

Was driving on the M23 and the M25 this afternoon. Conditions were dreadful - visibility was really ste, hefty rain at times and in patches some big areas of surface water - yet plenty of mentalists piling down the outside lane doing well into the 80s up each others arses. Crazy.

[GuinnessMK]

Must be a day for close calls.

Taking the hire van back this morning, I'm going down the slip road onto the motorway, so accelerating to match the speed of the moving traffic. Blue Rover 25 about 50 yards in front of me on the same slip, travelling at about the same speed. He indicates, approaches the white dashed lines, I look over to check my blind spot, all clear, look back, WHOAH!!!!!

Matey in the Rover is now 10 yards from me and stopped! FFS on a slip road. Hard on the anchors, swerve left onto the hardshoulder, and slide the van nicely between him and the armco. Thank fk for ABS on the van.

That's about the closest I've come to having a major whoopsie in about 10 years!

[MX7]

I think the chevrons on the M1, just south of the M45 junction, are brilliant. People simply don't understand how far you should be from the car in front, and I think that very few take into account that the Elise in front of them will stop far quicker than their Chevrolet 300C.

I'd like to see them on every motorway, at 10/15 mile intervals, just to remind people how much distance they should leave.

[flakeypaul]

I think this is where better driver education would benefit. The accident could not have been predicted. It was a freak occurance the likes of which I have never seen in 13 years (and 250,000 miles) of driving. The car went from 60ish to 0 in a second. My Zafira has fairly new brakes (new disks and pads 11 months ago) and the front tyres have 3 and 2.5 mm of tread left (very legal but on my 'replace next pay day' list - many people would leave it until they hit the tread wear indicators) yet my car took about 4 - 5 seconds to stop.

Had I been driving 30 feet from the car that crashed (as many do) - I'd probably have hit it before I'd even got to the brake pedal (remembering that the front end of this car had already absorbed the impact from hitting the barrier) so that would have been a 60mph head on crash into a stationery car with its airbags spent and crumple zones destroyed probably resulting in the deaths of the people in it - if not me and my family.

Had I been driving 2 seconds (as the 'rule' says) behind, more likely a 40mph impact - still possibly fatal for the occupants of the astra.

Thankfully I wasn't and the only damage to my car was the mud I picked up on my tyres when I pulled over to help (only me and one other car stopped - everyone else drive through the debris cos they didn't give a fk). Next time somebody drops into my braking space - I won't tut I'll just drop back - it's not worth it.

[GTIR]

A jaaaaarg!

[zakelwe]

Do you know what I worry about?

Going around a country bend at full speed in my Aygo (so about 15mph -ed.) and coming across a bunch of cyclists and skittling them all over and having to thus bend over in the showers so to speak.

2 second rule for motorways/A roads. visibility speed on corners for B roads

Andy

Edited by zakelwe on Saturday 20th March 20:33

[flakeypaul]

zakelwe said:

Do you know what I worry about?

Going around a country bend at full speed in my Aygo (so about 15mph -ed.) and coming across a bunch of cyclists and skittling them all over and having to thus bend over in the showers so to speak.

2 second rule for motorways/A roads. visibility speed on corners for B roads

Andy

Edited by zakelwe on Saturday 20th March 20:33

If you can't stop (including thinking time) in the distance you can see - you're going too fast. Simples

[DangerousMike]

glad you escaped ok.

I was driving up and down the A19 today, also with rain and spray... the number of drivers driving grey cars, on a grey road, against a grey sky, without their lights on was ridiculous. I was performing an overtaking move a very long dead straight section of the road, apparently clear as far as I could see, and then out of the distance came some eurobox without their lights on... idiots.

[flakeypaul]

The standard of driving in this country really terrifies me sometimes.

[SmoothRB]

I'm a big fan of leaving a big gap in front.

I wish more people would.

Tailgating is more dangeous than speeding IMHO.

You don't have to be speeding to be driving dangerously.

[flakeypaul]

SmoothRB said:

You don't have to be speeding to be driving dangerously.

But you can't teach a camera to spot tailgaters so how can we police them?

[Furyous]

S. Gonzales Esq. said:

The rest of the rule goes: 'in the rain, say it again.'

Ive not heard that bit, although I regularly check distance on motorways with the 2 second rule.

[Alfanatic]

MX7 said:

I think the chevrons on the M1, just south of the M45 junction, are brilliant. People simply don't understand how far you should be from the car in front, and I think that very few take into account that the Elise in front of them will stop far quicker than their Chevrolet 300C.

I'd like to see them on every motorway, at 10/15 mile intervals, just to remind people how much distance they should leave.

You have a good point but I also think that part of the problem is often that too many people are taking into account just how well their own car stops.. in their opinion. I've heard a number of people use their ABS / BMW / Merc / Audi brakes as a reason why they can tailgate in safety. Yeah right buddy, lets see how adequate your brakes feel when the car with inferior brakes in front of you collides with whatever it was braking for and stops dead.

Edited by Alfanatic on Saturday 20th March 21:15

[flakeypaul]

ABS is no reason to think that your car will stop quicker but after today (I've never had to do a genuine emergency stop at that speed in those conditions) I'm a big fan. I've done the 'pumping the brakes to keep control' thing in my previous non-abs cars without problem (but not in a high speed low traction situation). I'm not so sure I'd have been able to do it today with my kids and a 6kg bottle of propane in the car!

[1337n00b]

DangerousMike said:

glad you escaped ok.

I was driving up and down the A19 today, also with rain and spray... the number of drivers driving grey cars, on a grey road, against a grey sky, without their lights on was ridiculous. I was performing an overtaking move a very long dead straight section of the road, apparently clear as far as I could see, and then out of the distance came some eurobox without their lights on... idiots.

I drive the A19 Mon- Friday rush hour. How there isn't a crash every day is a mystery to me. 99% of the commuters are driving like they want to kill themselves.
and for some reason not a single person uses the nearside lane. Mad.

SmoothRB said:

I'm a big fan of leaving a big gap in front.

I wish more people would.

Tailgating is more dangeous than speeding IMHO.

You don't have to be speeding to be driving dangerously.

Coulnd't agree more. On a motorway I bet more people are involved in fatal accidents due to this type of suicidal driving than speeding.
IMHO the police don't crack down on this type of driving hard enough. I've never seen anyone pulled for breaking to 2 second rule, which IMHO is careless and inconsiderate driving.