Lunacy on the M40

[Willhire89]

TooMany2cvs said:

Willhire89 said:

Why can't we just have a simple rule - first wrong way access of a slip (or indeed any no entry of this type) and it gets fitted with a durable version of these:



Then if it picks up say three in any year (or a figure of your choice) a road design needs to be undertaken.

You leave the motorway at the slip, which slopes upwards. There's a queue for the r'a'b.
What do you reckon the chances of nobody ever rolling back over the spikes are?

Then there's what'll happen in the event of the m'way being closed, and the police needing to get people off via the on-slip.

Who said you have to fit them on an upslope ?

The design of these could have a retracting lock feature.


None of this is hard unless you want it to be..........

[TTmonkey]

So not a foreign driver then.

The only logical action to take in this situation would be a complete stop and if possible into the hard shoulder or central reservation.

No other actions are logical on such a busy road once a mistake is made.

So either the occupants were unable to judge that such a mistake had been made, or it was deliberate.

[4x4Tyke]

Willhire89 said:

Why can't we just have a simple rule - first wrong way access of a slip (or indeed any no entry of this type) and it gets fitted with a durable version of these:



Then if it picks up say three in any year (or a figure of your choice) a road design needs to be undertaken.

I'm sceptical about those, reverse searching that image lead directly to this article.

Why spike strips aren't the answer to wrong-way incidents

https://www.azdot.gov/media/blog/posts/2017/03/22/...

The underlying engineering report

http://www.transguide.dot.state.tx.us/sat/wwd/cont...

[saaby93]

TTmonkey said:

So not a foreign driver then.

The only logical action to take in this situation would be a complete stop and if possible into the hard shoulder or central reservation.

No other actions are logical on such a busy road once a mistake is made.

So either the occupants were unable to judge that such a mistake had been made, or it was deliberate.

It depends what you call logical. Have you seen anyone in that situation park up?
The other 'logical' option is to keep going until you find a way out of danger
.

saaby93 said:

GSE said:

Any sane person would have realized their mistake and immediately stopped.

From what's been posted about similar occurences that doesnt seem to happen. They seem to keep going.
Have you found some articles where someone has realised and parked up?

[TooMany2cvs]

Willhire89 said:

Who said you have to fit them on an upslope ?

So, umm, you don't do anything with those many sliproads that slope upwards all the way from m'way carriageway to lights/r'a'b/whatever?

Or you completely rebuild the slip?

[saaby93]

TooMany2cvs said:

Willhire89 said:

Who said you have to fit them on an upslope ?

So, umm, you don't do anything with those many sliproads that slope upwards all the way from m'way carriageway to lights/r'a'b/whatever?

Or you completely rebuild the slip?

Why cant they get some of the people who design our town and city centres onto it?
All they need to do is white line the slip road so that if you go down it the wrong way you end up in a culdesac

[gothatway]

4x4Tyke said:

otolith said:

"Witnesses claim the driver of the Subaru was waving his hands and beeping his horn before the horrific crash."

Why has he put his wipers on?

I think he was just completely confused and didn't understand what was happening.

That's what I think, probably coupled with some stubbornness, 'I'm in the right here, what are these idiots doing'. I think wild panic would be more likely result in wild swerving of avoidance. We see it in the videos of 'stamping the accelerator instead of brakes' which is typically coupled with wild steering.

Whilst here we see willfully pressing on despite the obvious dangers and a strong unwillingness to even stop and work out what is wrong. Any sensible driver on the correct side of the road (or not), encountering a stream of cars coming their way, is immediately going to wonder WTH is going on, slow right down or stop and try to work out what is going on.

That raises a lot question about why, press on like this, it has to be some kind of loss of basic reasoning capability. This could be part of a general deterioration in reasoning such as dementia, or a new episode like partial stroke and locked into semi-automatic behaviours. I'm sure we've all been in the situation of slipping into driving on autopilot at times when something a little out the ordinary has suddenly snatched our attention from just plodding on.

Also why didn't she object, was she incapacitated already, or perhaps he is the type that will simply never be told anything.

Yes this is all pretty speculative, but given this is so far out of normal expectations there was something odd going on here.

A pound to a penny says you're right.

[TTmonkey]

saaby93 said:

TTmonkey said:

So not a foreign driver then.

The only logical action to take in this situation would be a complete stop and if possible into the hard shoulder or central reservation.

No other actions are logical on such a busy road once a mistake is made.

So either the occupants were unable to judge that such a mistake had been made, or it was deliberate.

It depends what you call logical. Have you seen anyone in that situation park up?
The other 'logical' option is to keep going until you find a way out of danger
.

On a mostly empty, quiet road yes, possibly.
Not this time though, not a chance. The amount of traffic as seen on camera on the road meant the only logical option was an immediate stop.

If the person driving the subaru couldn't make this decision then they had a reason not to stop - mental incapacity, possible physical incapacity (although after 8 miles of dodging oncoming traffic I doubt it) or a death wish.

[Red Devil]

4x4Tyke said:

The article also says "The caravan was believed to have joined the M40 motorway eight miles from the crash scene" which should answer that question.

https://metro.co.uk/2018/10/23/couple-in-car-towin...

More useless media reporting without even performing the most basic research.
Far from answering the question, what it is claiming is physically impossible.
8 miles from the crash scene puts it squarely between junctions 8a (A40) and 9 (A34/A41).
https://goo.gl/maps/ksw9SffPZiL2

[turbomoped]

its for the police investigators to work it all out. I bet they are keen to check where they had been and their state of mind as seen by the people they met.
Such a shame for the other party involved as he sounds like a splendid chap.

[dandarez]

otolith said:

red_slr said:

All of that points to suicide IMHO.

"Witnesses claim the driver of the Subaru was waving his hands and beeping his horn before the horrific crash."

Why has he put his wipers on?

I think he was just completely confused and didn't understand what was happening.

Several keep asking that.

Possibly because it was wet, constant drizzle that afternoon.


videos clearly show vehicles on opp side with wipers going.

[anonymous-user]

I live on a small island where we get lots of wrong way tourists, probably not helped by us driving on the left in LHD cars. You've got to have the reflexes of a cat to avoid someone coming head on at you at 30 when the car or SUV you are following suddenly moves out the way presenting you with the oncoming car to deal with. It's happened to me 3 times, all on roundabouts. At anything close to motorway speeds it's an absolute miracle they made it so far! The point of my post though was that the last one I came across had traveled about 5 miles and must have negotiated 4 roundabouts before I came across him; he looked about 40; I guess once someone is confused and the adrenaline is up, calm, rational thinking goes out the window.

[Grandad Gaz]

dandarez said:

otolith said:

red_slr said:

All of that points to suicide IMHO.

"Witnesses claim the driver of the Subaru was waving his hands and beeping his horn before the horrific crash."

Why has he put his wipers on?

I think he was just completely confused and didn't understand what was happening.

Several keep asking that.

Possibly because it was wet, constant drizzle that afternoon.


videos clearly show vehicles on opp side with wipers going.

....or, he thought that was the headlight flasher. Some cars have them the opposite way round.
I know this, as I once nearly had a head on crash with an idiot overtaking where he shouldn't have. All I did was fire my windscreen washer bottle at him!

[Vipers]

Grandad Gaz said:

....or, he thought that was the headlight flasher. Some cars have them the opposite way round.
I know this, as I once nearly had a head on crash with an idiot overtaking where he shouldn't have. All I did was fire my windscreen washer bottle at him!

But why drive so fast?

[beko1987]

I drove to work from the Thame junction today due to traffic, and you can see the new armco in place. Very sad.

What with this, the accident at Warwick and I'm sure there was another one too, I hope these aren't all being totted up ready for a smart motorway proposal...

Unless that' what's needed, but I'm not a fan of smart motorways in general...

[speedking31]

On a 'Smart' motorway the cameras could be set to detect a negative speed and then set signs a long distance ahead to red X's. Potentially mitigating the issue, or potentially allowing the wrongwayer to gain speed. Depends on the reason for the wrong way I suppose. Maybe this feature is already programmed in.

[4x4Tyke]

On the st driving caught on camera thread, that's a mouthful (maybe SDCOCs henceforth), there is a video with loads of cars driving through red X with a stationary (broken down) car in lane 3. So to be effective we'd need camera enforcement of red Xs as well.

[saaby93]

4x4Tyke said:

On the st driving caught on camera thread, that's a mouthful (maybe SDCOCs henceforth), there is a video with loads of cars driving through red X with a stationary (broken down) car in lane 3. So to be effective we'd need camera enforcement of red Xs as well.

Unfortunately too many times, overhead gantry signs cry wolf so hardly anyone believes them until they find out what theyre on about.
If the red X is being taken to mean, carriageway may be closed up ahead ( or maybe it isnt) and everyone deals with whatever it means properly, is there a problem?
.

[saaby93]

beko1987 said:

I drove to work from the Thame junction today due to traffic, and you can see the new armco in place. Very sad.

What with this, the accident at Warwick and I'm sure there was another one too, I hope these aren't all being totted up ready for a smart motorway proposal...

Unless that' what's needed, but I'm not a fan of smart motorways in general...

Guy pulls over for being tired on so called smart motorway.
https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/local-news/w...

[Vipers]

saaby93 said:

beko1987 said:

I drove to work from the Thame junction today due to traffic, and you can see the new armco in place. Very sad.

What with this, the accident at Warwick and I'm sure there was another one too, I hope these aren't all being totted up ready for a smart motorway proposal...

Unless that' what's needed, but I'm not a fan of smart motorways in general...

Guy pulls over for being tired on so called smart motorway.
https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/local-news/w...

What is the connection between this incident and "So called smart motorway", what am I missing?