Safe Speed Forums

Not good news. I was hit from behind on Thursday afternoon.

Not a lot I could have done about it. However I do not blame the driver behind too much. Yes he should have stopped short of me, but he did not instigate the accident, he was just too slow in reacting to the situation.

I was sitting at a set of lights here (top right where the 3 cars are) waiting for a tram to cross.

The Lights went green. This should have meant the lights on Gravel Hill for the right turn had gone red. I pulled off to travel down from Coombe Lane to Gravel Hill. However this is not what happened.

As I was approaching the Roundabout junction (the lines on the image have since been removed) a car coming up Gravel Hill came through the red light to go down Shirley Hills Road. Taking it right across my path. I reacted to it and braked fairly sharply to a stop. The car that had busted the light had realised its mistake and had also braked to a stop. This put it in front of my car. Its nearside front to my offside front. The van behind did not react as quickly and used me as a buffer. Crunch. I had managed to stop far enough away from the trafiic light buster to not get shunted into it.

The most annoying thing is the red light buster seeing what they had caused drove off towards Shirley. I did not have a chance to get their number

Luckily the tow bar saved my car from too much damage, unfortunately I was not so lucky (a tweaked back was very sore), the van was also not so lucky.

What a bummer.

Three immediate thoughts:

1) Is it possible that your tow bar has exacerbated the shunt to you - and to the one that hit you for that matter - your back taken the hit instead of the crumple zone on the rear your car?

2) Well done for keeping your eyes peeled for the light-jumper. You MIGHT be lucky in that there might be a light camera on the junction. If you get a note off to the scamerati they may be able to identify your missing "witness".

3) If you 2rerun" this - and know there is a risk of a rear end shunt - was there potentially room for you safely to do a sharp left turn and accelerated hard instead of stopping? On a few occasions in my motoring life I have deliberately gone the wrong way to avoid an ultication.

Possible. But it was fairly low speed having just left the lights. The front of his van looked a mess though.



Unfortunately no camera there. In retrospect I wish there was as it is not the first time it has happened to me or the first time I had seen it happen. Maybe previous experience had forewarned me. The view to the lights on the up slope from where I was is not clear. The whole level crossing, junction and roundabout is on the brow of a hill. This is why I do not wholly blame the driver behind.



From the terrified look of the guy driving the peugeot 1007 next to me no there was no escape route. I am usually in the left lane if it is clear. This time I was in the right lane.

I suppose one way for the future is to leave those lights with less verve. Less verve that is until you know there are no jumpers (ie until visibility is better).

The tank (volvo s70 2.5 10 valve) is not that spritely at the get away and the way I drive away from those lights it would almost be quicker to walk.

But seriously. There is not a lot to be done barring maybe a re-engineering of the junction. That has been tried already (the lines being removed). It was just my turn to get caught I suppose. At least it was not my fault. Still not happy though.