Safe Speed Forums

Over the past few weeks there has been a spate of incidents on the M54 which have left HGVs through the central reservation, in the central reservation, in the armco beside a slip road and others.
3 in two days and now 2 in 36 hours, the last which occured this morning has taken all day to clear up. These on top of the 4 fatalities on dual-carriageways around Telford in 48 hours last week.
Most of these incidents seem to have occured near to junctions in the morning dash to work, but I still can't understand why there have been so many. What the heck might be going on? Is the number 9 bus syndrome -nothing for ages then loads all at once?

It might just be the no. 9 bus syndrome, but the chances are if the accidents are happening at junctions in the rush hour then its down to tired, rushing car drivers either overtaking said HGV and then cutting across to leave the motorway, or trying to join the motorway too close infront of the HGV causing the wagon driver to brake hard. Did they happen at the same junction or several?

Don't forget its been dry for a long time, and now its rained hard so the roads are extremely greasy. (as I found out yesterday morning on the bike )

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

This gets my vote. People do not appreciate how DRAMATICALLY worse braking performance is in the first rain after a long dry spell, particularly and cruelly worse where heavy braking may be the norm.

And made worse by lack of attention, which means that by the time people realise that there's something going on up ahead they have little option but to brake hard.
Heavy braking should be the exception rather than the norm.

Cheers
Peter

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

On the drive home today I had the misfortune to see this in action only a few feet from my car. As usual, the M25 was being a bit stop start between junction 21a and 22. I'm in lane 2 trying to keep moving, leaving a reasonable gap and not accelerating hard each time the car in front moves. Suddenly I hear the unmistakable sound of a skid coming from my right and look in my wing mirror to see white van man number 1 in lane 3 closing far too quickly on white van man number 2, fronts locked up with smoke pouring off them, swiftly followed by a dull crunch as both white vans got knackered. I'd guess he needed another 5-10 metres to have stopped safely.

I was fortunate enough to be fractionally in front of the chaos this probably caused, otherwise my journey home would have been even more delayed. It did make me even more nervous of the large Renault HGV that was rather close behind me until I left the M25 though.

Those slip roads aren't very long and the road is only too lanes. But trucks should never have accidents because they can't exceed the national speed limit...