Saw a VERY Lucky Accident and Escape today...
Discussion
Apologies for the long post, but saw an accident today that was very scary, and just want peoples views on if I did the right thing etc...
So, I left my house in my runabout diesel astra van (
) near Kidderminster at about 3:15pm to go back to work at RAF Lyneham, near Swindon. My Normal Route is to drive down to the A449, then follow it until J6 M5, then get on the motorway to M5 11A.
I got on the motorway about 3:45pm, weather was drizzly and a bit overcast, so had lights on, keeping good distance from car infront etc. So, i'm in the outside lane doing about 80-85 leptons keeping up with the flow of traffic, overtaking the normal elephant racing trucks, about halfway between J7 & J8. Traffic was moderate, and I was a good 3 secs behind the car infront, as even though it had stopped raining, there was a bit of spray occasionally. As we overtook a few slower cars, I noticed a small blue car in lane one a few hundred yards ahead start to move into the middle lane with no indicators. I immediatly eased off, and got ready to brake as if it carried on moving into lane 3, I would have to slow down for it.. sure enough, the car keeps on coming into lane 3, so I brake, and gave a full-beam flash, as the driver had obviously not bothered to check mirrors or even indicate on a busy motorway! As I was flashing, I realized that the car was not correcting it's course to stay in lane 3, so I stood on the brakes, and sure enough, with no brake lights on, the blue car hit the central reservation crash barrier doing about 70Mph!
Cue lots of smoke, sparks, the smell of burning metal like you get when welding and rubble peppering my van, with me cowering behind the steering wheel, still braking hard... Everyone else was braking hard as well, but as the car bounced off the central crash barrier, it still didn't brake.
My immediate thoughts were it was probably and older gent or lady who had lost conciousness due to a heart attack/stroke etc, due to no obvious steering or brake inputs to try and correct the situation.
As the car went back across 3 lanes, narrowly missing cars in lanes 2&1, it still must have been doing 60-70Mph, and carried on across the lanes, over the hard shoulder and mounted the grass embankment, and proceeded to go right to the top, bounced off the fence or whatever was at the top of the embankment still doing probably 50-60Mph, and started to come back down. At the bottom of the verge where it meets the hard shoulder is a strip of rubble, probably a drainage ditch? Well, as the car came back down, it's front offside wheel seemed to dig into the rubble/earth, and the car went up on it's two offside wheels, a good few feet of clear air under the left side of the car!
At this point I had slowed down and had my hazard lights on in the middle lane, and as I watched it unfold, I fully expected the car to roll over. Luckily, the rubble seemed to slow the car down quickly, and as it's speed scubbed off, it dropped back onto all four wheels, and came to a halt half on the verge and half on the hard shoulder.
I'm very lucky to be fairly well first aid & accident/incident trained in my job (RAF engineer),so I pulled in behind the car (turned out to be an 04' plated City Rover
) , ran over with my phone ready to call 999, and immediatly check how the occupants were. As I got to the drivers door, there was a middle aged black lady sat there looking shocked, and a young child around 4-5 i think who I assumed was her daughter in the back seat screaming. Amazingly, the engine was still running, so I opened the drivers door, turned the ignition off and pulled the keys out whilst asking the driver her name and if she was ok.
At first she didn't even look at me, and I was wondering if she had had a seizure/stroke etc, or that she didn't understand English etc, so I asked her again, and she sort of looked at me with wide eyes, then slowly got out of the car and grabbed her daughter out of the back, as you would expect, and just stood on the hard shoulder looking dumbstruck. I managed to get her name, and asked if she was ok, to which she said yes. I asked a number of times if she wanted an ambulance, but she said no, and appeared to be fine along with her daughter, bar obvious signs of shock.
I managed to convince her to get onto the verge away from the car, and asked if she had anyone to call for help, or was she in the AA/ RAC etc. She said she would call her husband, but had no breakdown cover etc. I was still thinking what to do regarding calling the police etc, bearing in mind so far the incident had just happened, no one else was involved and there were no obvious injurys.
She then suggested that she should just drive the car to the services 3/4 of a mile or so down the road, to which I replied you can't do that, you have just crashed, you don't know if the car is safe to drive etc, it might be best to wait for help? She said again she wasn't in the AA/RAC, and her husband would take some time to arrive, and she just wanted to get to the services...
In the heat of the moment, I looked at the car, and bar lots of superficial panel damage, it seemed to be ok, as the engine was still running before I turned it off, and the wheels all seemed to be pointing straight etc.. Now, during this conversation, she had seemed to perk up quite a bit, and was just upset and a bit shaken from the whole episode, and seemed ok and insisted she was ok to drive a short distance. It was very hard trying to get anything else out of her, as she seemed to have quite a limited grasp of English.
As it was quite busy, and not brilliant conditions, it seemed safer to get mother and daughter away from the hard shoulder, as she was getting very agitated and just wanted to get away from the motorway, so I grudgingly agreed to let her have the keys back, but told her to drive very slowly down the hard shoulder with her hazards on, and stop if ANYTHING felt wrong at all, with me following her to make sure she was ok.
At that moment in time, all things considered, ie that she was physically ok as far as I could tell, she didn't want an ambulance, calling the police seemed pointless, and the car looked in amazingly reasonable shape, I followed her down the hard shoulder to J8 services. When we got there, she thanked me for stopping and helping, and assured me she would call her husband for help, and didn't need any more assitance.
Now, going back to the concerns I had about illness/medical conditions, it was very obvious and I realized that the woman had just fallen asleep at the wheel, and the crash was a very rude awakening!
Looking back on it tonight, I am not sure letting her drive to the services was a great idea, but on the other hand I could see little benefit to sitting on the hard shoulder in poor conditions where there was an option to remove them to the safty of the services?
The other thing that really annoyed me was at least 10-15 cars and trucks must have seen the accident happen, yet ONLY I stopped, which I think is disgraceful really, especially considering the way it happened.
But, on the upside, it seems the woman and her child were AMAZINGLY lucky, not only to escape without a scratch, but also with a car that seemed largly ok bar scrapes and dents etc??
What else could I have/should I have done? Very eye opening on how quickly things can go wrong, and that having an escape plan should a crash or somthing unusual happens is vital, and should be hammered home to drivers like it is when you do your bike licence!
I'm open for criticism and discussion, as every day is a school day!
So, I left my house in my runabout diesel astra van (
) near Kidderminster at about 3:15pm to go back to work at RAF Lyneham, near Swindon. My Normal Route is to drive down to the A449, then follow it until J6 M5, then get on the motorway to M5 11A. I got on the motorway about 3:45pm, weather was drizzly and a bit overcast, so had lights on, keeping good distance from car infront etc. So, i'm in the outside lane doing about 80-85 leptons keeping up with the flow of traffic, overtaking the normal elephant racing trucks, about halfway between J7 & J8. Traffic was moderate, and I was a good 3 secs behind the car infront, as even though it had stopped raining, there was a bit of spray occasionally. As we overtook a few slower cars, I noticed a small blue car in lane one a few hundred yards ahead start to move into the middle lane with no indicators. I immediatly eased off, and got ready to brake as if it carried on moving into lane 3, I would have to slow down for it.. sure enough, the car keeps on coming into lane 3, so I brake, and gave a full-beam flash, as the driver had obviously not bothered to check mirrors or even indicate on a busy motorway! As I was flashing, I realized that the car was not correcting it's course to stay in lane 3, so I stood on the brakes, and sure enough, with no brake lights on, the blue car hit the central reservation crash barrier doing about 70Mph!
Cue lots of smoke, sparks, the smell of burning metal like you get when welding and rubble peppering my van, with me cowering behind the steering wheel, still braking hard... Everyone else was braking hard as well, but as the car bounced off the central crash barrier, it still didn't brake.My immediate thoughts were it was probably and older gent or lady who had lost conciousness due to a heart attack/stroke etc, due to no obvious steering or brake inputs to try and correct the situation.
As the car went back across 3 lanes, narrowly missing cars in lanes 2&1, it still must have been doing 60-70Mph, and carried on across the lanes, over the hard shoulder and mounted the grass embankment, and proceeded to go right to the top, bounced off the fence or whatever was at the top of the embankment still doing probably 50-60Mph, and started to come back down. At the bottom of the verge where it meets the hard shoulder is a strip of rubble, probably a drainage ditch? Well, as the car came back down, it's front offside wheel seemed to dig into the rubble/earth, and the car went up on it's two offside wheels, a good few feet of clear air under the left side of the car!
At this point I had slowed down and had my hazard lights on in the middle lane, and as I watched it unfold, I fully expected the car to roll over. Luckily, the rubble seemed to slow the car down quickly, and as it's speed scubbed off, it dropped back onto all four wheels, and came to a halt half on the verge and half on the hard shoulder.
I'm very lucky to be fairly well first aid & accident/incident trained in my job (RAF engineer),so I pulled in behind the car (turned out to be an 04' plated City Rover
) , ran over with my phone ready to call 999, and immediatly check how the occupants were. As I got to the drivers door, there was a middle aged black lady sat there looking shocked, and a young child around 4-5 i think who I assumed was her daughter in the back seat screaming. Amazingly, the engine was still running, so I opened the drivers door, turned the ignition off and pulled the keys out whilst asking the driver her name and if she was ok. At first she didn't even look at me, and I was wondering if she had had a seizure/stroke etc, or that she didn't understand English etc, so I asked her again, and she sort of looked at me with wide eyes, then slowly got out of the car and grabbed her daughter out of the back, as you would expect, and just stood on the hard shoulder looking dumbstruck. I managed to get her name, and asked if she was ok, to which she said yes. I asked a number of times if she wanted an ambulance, but she said no, and appeared to be fine along with her daughter, bar obvious signs of shock.
I managed to convince her to get onto the verge away from the car, and asked if she had anyone to call for help, or was she in the AA/ RAC etc. She said she would call her husband, but had no breakdown cover etc. I was still thinking what to do regarding calling the police etc, bearing in mind so far the incident had just happened, no one else was involved and there were no obvious injurys.
She then suggested that she should just drive the car to the services 3/4 of a mile or so down the road, to which I replied you can't do that, you have just crashed, you don't know if the car is safe to drive etc, it might be best to wait for help? She said again she wasn't in the AA/RAC, and her husband would take some time to arrive, and she just wanted to get to the services...
In the heat of the moment, I looked at the car, and bar lots of superficial panel damage, it seemed to be ok, as the engine was still running before I turned it off, and the wheels all seemed to be pointing straight etc.. Now, during this conversation, she had seemed to perk up quite a bit, and was just upset and a bit shaken from the whole episode, and seemed ok and insisted she was ok to drive a short distance. It was very hard trying to get anything else out of her, as she seemed to have quite a limited grasp of English.
As it was quite busy, and not brilliant conditions, it seemed safer to get mother and daughter away from the hard shoulder, as she was getting very agitated and just wanted to get away from the motorway, so I grudgingly agreed to let her have the keys back, but told her to drive very slowly down the hard shoulder with her hazards on, and stop if ANYTHING felt wrong at all, with me following her to make sure she was ok.
At that moment in time, all things considered, ie that she was physically ok as far as I could tell, she didn't want an ambulance, calling the police seemed pointless, and the car looked in amazingly reasonable shape, I followed her down the hard shoulder to J8 services. When we got there, she thanked me for stopping and helping, and assured me she would call her husband for help, and didn't need any more assitance.
Now, going back to the concerns I had about illness/medical conditions, it was very obvious and I realized that the woman had just fallen asleep at the wheel, and the crash was a very rude awakening!
Looking back on it tonight, I am not sure letting her drive to the services was a great idea, but on the other hand I could see little benefit to sitting on the hard shoulder in poor conditions where there was an option to remove them to the safty of the services?
The other thing that really annoyed me was at least 10-15 cars and trucks must have seen the accident happen, yet ONLY I stopped, which I think is disgraceful really, especially considering the way it happened.
But, on the upside, it seems the woman and her child were AMAZINGLY lucky, not only to escape without a scratch, but also with a car that seemed largly ok bar scrapes and dents etc??
What else could I have/should I have done? Very eye opening on how quickly things can go wrong, and that having an escape plan should a crash or somthing unusual happens is vital, and should be hammered home to drivers like it is when you do your bike licence!
I'm open for criticism and discussion, as every day is a school day!
Edited by RWD cossie wil on Tuesday 14th September 03:54
When I was two cars back from a car that crashed on the A63 only myself andthe car in front stopped to make sure that the occupants were ok and that they could get to the side of the road safely (their car was embedded in the central reservation).
People were only interested in getting past to the point where they were racing up the outside lane (it's a 2 lane dual carriageway) to try and cut at the crash site nearly wiping them out! People won't wait two minutes for anyone!
People were only interested in getting past to the point where they were racing up the outside lane (it's a 2 lane dual carriageway) to try and cut at the crash site nearly wiping them out! People won't wait two minutes for anyone!
RWD cossie wil said:
Apologies for the long post, but saw an accident today that was very scary, and just want peoples views on if I did the right thing etc...
So, I left my house in my runabout diesel astra van () near Kidderminster at about 3:15pm to go back to work at RAF Lyneham, near Swindon. My Normal Route is to drive down to the A449, then follow it until J6 M5, then get on the motorway to M5 11A.
I got on the motorway about 3:45pm, weather was drizzly and a bit overcast, so had lights on, keeping good distance from car infront etc. So, i'm in the outside lane doing about 80-85 leptons keeping up with the flow of traffic, overtaking the normal elephant racing trucks, about halfway between J7 & J8. Traffic was moderate, and I was a good 3 secs behind the car infront, as even though it had stopped raining, there was a bit of spray occasionally. As we overtook a few slower cars, I noticed a small blue car in lane one a few hundred yards ahead start to move into the middle lane with no indicators. I immediatly eased off, and got ready to brake as if it carried on moving into lane 3, I would have to slow down for it.. sure enough, the car keeps on coming into lane 3, so I brake, and gave a full-beam flash, as the driver had obviously not bothered to check mirrors or even indicate on a busy motorway! As I was flashing, I realized that the car was not correcting it's course to stay in lane 3, so I stood on the brakes, and sure enough, with no brake lights on, the blue car hit the central reservation crash barrier doing about 70Mph! Cue lots of smoke, sparks, the smell of burning metal like you get when welding and rubble peppering my van, with me cowering behind the steering wheel, still braking hard... Everyone else was braking hard as well, but as the car bounced off the central crash barrier, it still didn't brake.
My immediate thoughts were it was probably and older gent or lady who had lost conciousness due to a heart attack/stroke etc, due to no obvious steering or brake inputs to try and correct the situation.
As the car went back across 3 lanes, narrowly missing cars in lanes 2&1, it still must have been doing 60-70Mph, and carried on across the lanes, over the hard shoulder and mounted the grass embankment, and proceeded to go right to the top, bounced off the fence or whatever was at the top of the embankment still doing probably 50-60Mph, and started to come back down. At the bottom of the verge where it meets the hard shoulder is a strip of rubble, probably a drainage ditch? Well, as the car came back down, it's front offside wheel seemed to dig into the rubble/earth, and the car went up on it's two offside wheels, a good few feet of clear air under the left side of the car!
At this point I had slowed down and had my hazard lights on in the middle lane, and as I watched it unfold, I fully expected the car to roll over. Luckily, the rubble seemed to slow the car down quickly, and as it's speed scubbed off, it dropped back onto all four wheels, and came to a halt half on the verge and half on the hard shoulder.
I'm very lucky to be fairly well first aid & accident/incident trained in my job (RAF engineer),so I pulled in behind the car (turned out to be an 04' plated City Rover) , ran over with my phone ready to call 999, and immediatly check how the occupants were. As I got to the drivers door, there was a middle aged black lady sat there looking shocked, and a young child around 4-5 i think who I assumed was her daughter in the back seat screaming. Amazingly, the engine was still running, so I opened the drivers door, turned the ignition off and pulled the keys out whilst asking the driver her name and if she was ok.
At first she didn't even look at me, and I was wondering if she had had a seizure/stroke etc, or that she didn't understand English etc, so I asked her again, and she sort of looked at me with wide eyes, then slowly got out of the car and grabbed her daughter out of the back, as you would expect, and just stood on the hard shoulder looking dumbstruck. I managed to get her name, and asked if she was ok, to which she said yes. I asked a number of times if she wanted an ambulance, but she said no, and appeared to be fine along with her daughter, bar obvious signs of shock.
I managed to convince her to get onto the verge away from the car, and asked if she had anyone to call for help, or was she in the AA/ RAC etc. She said she would call her husband, but had no breakdown cover etc. I was still thinking what to do regarding calling the police etc, bearing in mind so far the incident had just happened, no one else was involved and there were no obvious injurys.
She then suggested that she should just drive the car to the services 3/4 of a mile or so down the road, to which I replied you can't do that, you have just crashed, you don't know if the car is safe to drive etc, it might be best to wait for help? She said again she wasn't in the AA/RAC, and her husband would take some time to arrive, and she just wanted to get to the services...
In the heat of the moment, I looked at the car, and bar lots of superficial panel damage, it seemed to be ok, as the engine was still running before I turned it off, and the wheels all seemed to be pointing straight etc.. Now, during this conversation, she had seemed to perk up quite a bit, and was just upset and a bit shaken from the whole episode, and seemed ok and insisted she was ok to drive a short distance. It was very hard trying to get anything else out of her, as she seemed to have quite a limited grasp of English.
As it was quite busy, and not brilliant conditions, it seemed safer to get mother and daughter away from the hard shoulder, as she was getting very agitated and just wanted to get away from the motorway, so I grudgingly agreed to let her have the keys back, but told her to drive very slowly down the hard shoulder with her hazards on, and stop if ANYTHING felt wrong at all, with me following her to make sure she was ok.
At that moment in time, all things considered, ie that she was physically ok as far as I could tell, she didn't want an ambulance, calling the police seemed pointless, and the car looked in amazingly reasonable shape, I followed her down the hard shoulder to J8 services. When we got there, she thanked me for stopping and helping, and assured me she would call her husband for help, and didn't need any more assitance.
Now, going back to the concerns I had about illness/medical conditions, it was very obvious and I realized that the woman had just fallen asleep at the wheel, and the crash was a very rude awakening!
Looking back on it tonight, I am not sure letting her drive to the services was a great idea, but on the other hand I could see little benefit to sitting on the hard shoulder in poor conditions where there was an option to remove them to the safty of the services?
The other thing that really annoyed me was at least 10-15 cars and trucks must have seen the accident happen, yet ONLY I stopped, which I think is disgraceful really, especially considering the way it happened.
But, on the upside, it seems the woman and her child were AMAZINGLY lucky, not only to escape without a scratch, but also with a car that seemed largly ok bar scrapes and dents etc??
What else could I have/should I have done? Very eye opening on how quickly things can go wrong, and that having an escape plan should a crash or somthing unusual happens is vital, and should be hammered home to drivers like it is when you do your bike licence!
I'm open for criticism and discussion, as every day is a school day!
Spillsy? There's only one Techy at Lyneham I can think of that's from Kidderminster and has an unhealthy love affair with the Blue Oval!So, I left my house in my runabout diesel astra van (
) near Kidderminster at about 3:15pm to go back to work at RAF Lyneham, near Swindon. My Normal Route is to drive down to the A449, then follow it until J6 M5, then get on the motorway to M5 11A. I got on the motorway about 3:45pm, weather was drizzly and a bit overcast, so had lights on, keeping good distance from car infront etc. So, i'm in the outside lane doing about 80-85 leptons keeping up with the flow of traffic, overtaking the normal elephant racing trucks, about halfway between J7 & J8. Traffic was moderate, and I was a good 3 secs behind the car infront, as even though it had stopped raining, there was a bit of spray occasionally. As we overtook a few slower cars, I noticed a small blue car in lane one a few hundred yards ahead start to move into the middle lane with no indicators. I immediatly eased off, and got ready to brake as if it carried on moving into lane 3, I would have to slow down for it.. sure enough, the car keeps on coming into lane 3, so I brake, and gave a full-beam flash, as the driver had obviously not bothered to check mirrors or even indicate on a busy motorway! As I was flashing, I realized that the car was not correcting it's course to stay in lane 3, so I stood on the brakes, and sure enough, with no brake lights on, the blue car hit the central reservation crash barrier doing about 70Mph!
Cue lots of smoke, sparks, the smell of burning metal like you get when welding and rubble peppering my van, with me cowering behind the steering wheel, still braking hard... Everyone else was braking hard as well, but as the car bounced off the central crash barrier, it still didn't brake.My immediate thoughts were it was probably and older gent or lady who had lost conciousness due to a heart attack/stroke etc, due to no obvious steering or brake inputs to try and correct the situation.
As the car went back across 3 lanes, narrowly missing cars in lanes 2&1, it still must have been doing 60-70Mph, and carried on across the lanes, over the hard shoulder and mounted the grass embankment, and proceeded to go right to the top, bounced off the fence or whatever was at the top of the embankment still doing probably 50-60Mph, and started to come back down. At the bottom of the verge where it meets the hard shoulder is a strip of rubble, probably a drainage ditch? Well, as the car came back down, it's front offside wheel seemed to dig into the rubble/earth, and the car went up on it's two offside wheels, a good few feet of clear air under the left side of the car!
At this point I had slowed down and had my hazard lights on in the middle lane, and as I watched it unfold, I fully expected the car to roll over. Luckily, the rubble seemed to slow the car down quickly, and as it's speed scubbed off, it dropped back onto all four wheels, and came to a halt half on the verge and half on the hard shoulder.
I'm very lucky to be fairly well first aid & accident/incident trained in my job (RAF engineer),so I pulled in behind the car (turned out to be an 04' plated City Rover
) , ran over with my phone ready to call 999, and immediatly check how the occupants were. As I got to the drivers door, there was a middle aged black lady sat there looking shocked, and a young child around 4-5 i think who I assumed was her daughter in the back seat screaming. Amazingly, the engine was still running, so I opened the drivers door, turned the ignition off and pulled the keys out whilst asking the driver her name and if she was ok. At first she didn't even look at me, and I was wondering if she had had a seizure/stroke etc, or that she didn't understand English etc, so I asked her again, and she sort of looked at me with wide eyes, then slowly got out of the car and grabbed her daughter out of the back, as you would expect, and just stood on the hard shoulder looking dumbstruck. I managed to get her name, and asked if she was ok, to which she said yes. I asked a number of times if she wanted an ambulance, but she said no, and appeared to be fine along with her daughter, bar obvious signs of shock.
I managed to convince her to get onto the verge away from the car, and asked if she had anyone to call for help, or was she in the AA/ RAC etc. She said she would call her husband, but had no breakdown cover etc. I was still thinking what to do regarding calling the police etc, bearing in mind so far the incident had just happened, no one else was involved and there were no obvious injurys.
She then suggested that she should just drive the car to the services 3/4 of a mile or so down the road, to which I replied you can't do that, you have just crashed, you don't know if the car is safe to drive etc, it might be best to wait for help? She said again she wasn't in the AA/RAC, and her husband would take some time to arrive, and she just wanted to get to the services...
In the heat of the moment, I looked at the car, and bar lots of superficial panel damage, it seemed to be ok, as the engine was still running before I turned it off, and the wheels all seemed to be pointing straight etc.. Now, during this conversation, she had seemed to perk up quite a bit, and was just upset and a bit shaken from the whole episode, and seemed ok and insisted she was ok to drive a short distance. It was very hard trying to get anything else out of her, as she seemed to have quite a limited grasp of English.
As it was quite busy, and not brilliant conditions, it seemed safer to get mother and daughter away from the hard shoulder, as she was getting very agitated and just wanted to get away from the motorway, so I grudgingly agreed to let her have the keys back, but told her to drive very slowly down the hard shoulder with her hazards on, and stop if ANYTHING felt wrong at all, with me following her to make sure she was ok.
At that moment in time, all things considered, ie that she was physically ok as far as I could tell, she didn't want an ambulance, calling the police seemed pointless, and the car looked in amazingly reasonable shape, I followed her down the hard shoulder to J8 services. When we got there, she thanked me for stopping and helping, and assured me she would call her husband for help, and didn't need any more assitance.
Now, going back to the concerns I had about illness/medical conditions, it was very obvious and I realized that the woman had just fallen asleep at the wheel, and the crash was a very rude awakening!
Looking back on it tonight, I am not sure letting her drive to the services was a great idea, but on the other hand I could see little benefit to sitting on the hard shoulder in poor conditions where there was an option to remove them to the safty of the services?
The other thing that really annoyed me was at least 10-15 cars and trucks must have seen the accident happen, yet ONLY I stopped, which I think is disgraceful really, especially considering the way it happened.
But, on the upside, it seems the woman and her child were AMAZINGLY lucky, not only to escape without a scratch, but also with a car that seemed largly ok bar scrapes and dents etc??
What else could I have/should I have done? Very eye opening on how quickly things can go wrong, and that having an escape plan should a crash or somthing unusual happens is vital, and should be hammered home to drivers like it is when you do your bike licence!
I'm open for criticism and discussion, as every day is a school day!
Edited by RWD cossie wil on Tuesday 14th September 03:54
Get your arse into the biker forum on here
Edited by Vidal Baboon on Tuesday 14th September 09:16
You did the right thing in getting her off the motorway (and well done for thinking quickly in clearly in pretty shocking circumstances).
Personally I would have rang the cops and let them know what had happened and where she was parked up in the Service station, but if you got her registration number it's not too late. Even if not, you might want to give them a ring to cover yourself and if nothing else to inform them of potential damage to the central reservation.
Personally I would have rang the cops and let them know what had happened and where she was parked up in the Service station, but if you got her registration number it's not too late. Even if not, you might want to give them a ring to cover yourself and if nothing else to inform them of potential damage to the central reservation.
The Wookie said:
You did the right thing in getting her off the motorway (and well done for thinking quickly in clearly in pretty shocking circumstances).
Personally I would have rang the cops and let them know what had happened and where she was parked up in the Service station, but if you got her registration number it's not too late. Even if not, you might want to give them a ring to cover yourself and if nothing else to inform them of potential damage to the central reservation.
As said in another thread, that would have resulted in the motorway being closed for n hours and everyone parked up with no water, sandwiches or loos.Personally I would have rang the cops and let them know what had happened and where she was parked up in the Service station, but if you got her registration number it's not too late. Even if not, you might want to give them a ring to cover yourself and if nothing else to inform them of potential damage to the central reservation.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Best to do as everyone else did, see it's all ok and carry on as normal business
saaby93 said:
As said in another thread, that would have resulted in the motorway being closed for n hours and everyone parked up with no water, sandwiches or loos.
Best to do as everyone else did, see it's all ok and carry on as normal business
Best to do as everyone else did, see it's all ok and carry on as normal business
Of course it wouldn't. Whilst the driver would have been spoken to either on the hard shoulder or at the next junction, there would have been no reason to close the road. Highways Agency staff could have checked the armco in their own time and with minimal fuss.saaby93 said:
As said in another thread, that would have resulted in the motorway being closed for n hours and everyone parked up with no water, sandwiches or loos.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Best to do as everyone else did, see it's all ok and carry on as normal business
If the barrier's damaged it needs to be fixed, and if the authorities don't know there's been an accident then how will anyone know it's damaged?http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Best to do as everyone else did, see it's all ok and carry on as normal business
Would they really shut the whole motorway to repair it straight away? Surely they would just do a quick visual check under cover of traffic womble and if necessary close a lane overnight to repair it?
saaby93 said:
The Wookie said:
You did the right thing in getting her off the motorway (and well done for thinking quickly in clearly in pretty shocking circumstances).
Personally I would have rang the cops and let them know what had happened and where she was parked up in the Service station, but if you got her registration number it's not too late. Even if not, you might want to give them a ring to cover yourself and if nothing else to inform them of potential damage to the central reservation.
As said in another thread, that would have resulted in the motorway being closed for n hours and everyone parked up with no water, sandwiches or loos.Personally I would have rang the cops and let them know what had happened and where she was parked up in the Service station, but if you got her registration number it's not too late. Even if not, you might want to give them a ring to cover yourself and if nothing else to inform them of potential damage to the central reservation.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Best to do as everyone else did, see it's all ok and carry on as normal business
The other side of the coin is that the Op did more than most would, and if it was one of my friends or family I'd be more than happy of his actions!
I think you did a very good job overall, but I wouldn't have let her drive away as neither she nor the car would have been 100% reliable after the incident - she must have been a nervous wreck and the car would almost certainly have sustained some sort of damage to its steering or suspension.
More importantly she needs to be dealt with by the police in an effort to stop her from doing this again.
More importantly she needs to be dealt with by the police in an effort to stop her from doing this again.
Rouleur said:
I think you did a very good job overall, but I wouldn't have let her drive away as neither she nor the car would have been 100% reliable after the incident - she must have been a nervous wreck and the car would almost certainly have sustained some sort of damage to its steering or suspension.
More importantly she needs to be dealt with by the police in an effort to stop her from doing this again.
How can you stop someone from driving away? Unless you can make a citizens arrest all you can do is phone the police, you can not stop anybody from proceeding with their journey if that's what they want to do. More importantly she needs to be dealt with by the police in an effort to stop her from doing this again.
I'm not sure what you're supposed to do, but I guess I would have used the SOS phone and asked them. If there wasn't one available then I think you were right to let them carry on. I thought Police were needed even if nobody was injured just to make sure? They would do a breath test and all that stuff.
Larry Dickman said:
Rouleur said:
I think you did a very good job overall, but I wouldn't have let her drive away as neither she nor the car would have been 100% reliable after the incident - she must have been a nervous wreck and the car would almost certainly have sustained some sort of damage to its steering or suspension.
More importantly she needs to be dealt with by the police in an effort to stop her from doing this again.
How can you stop someone from driving away? Unless you can make a citizens arrest all you can do is phone the police, you can not stop anybody from proceeding with their journey if that's what they want to do. More importantly she needs to be dealt with by the police in an effort to stop her from doing this again.
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