Safe Speed Forums

Can someone let us all know what are the rules surrounding the now regular closure of motorways following straight forward shunts.
What legal right do the police have and no doubt the newly formed motorway lookalike police but no trungeon brigade have, to shut our roads.
This past week has seen a ridiculous amount of congestion and lost wealth simply because the police want to investigate accidents?
What is going on!! is it the latest unreported instruction from big brother they are following? I presume they have no concept of cost assosciated with their closure decisions or they would be far more circumspect.
Yesterday M1 M6 M42 M5 and god knows where else, no problem with speeding though 4 hrs to do a 2 hour journey and double the C02 at least.
What the hell is going on!!!
RJ

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Too much of our money is being wasted on supposed road safety improvements that are actually making driving more dangerous.

M1 double fatality yesterday details here

I suspect the relations of the deceased would like to know why they are dead.

In addition, it's important to investigate the causes of accidents, as it would be all to easy just to blame speeding (and this from me!!)

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A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

When there are fatalities or injurys likely to prove fatal then there is simply no option but to close as much of the motorway as needed to investigate properly. It's also often the case that they close a carriageway to allow an air ambulance to land. Also, especially when a HGV is concerned they need to close it to allow the heavy recovery vehicles access, for example if it has overturned. This I bet can take some time, and not to mention the barrier repairs etc.

However it's a different kettle of fish when it comes to to damage only accident, and they definately needed to be cleared away a.s.a.p and thats completely off the motorway, not just on the hard shoulder as the ghost jams that are caused by rubberneckers can be just as bad. If this was done more rapidly then delays on motorways would be significantly reduced as very serious or fatality accident are thankfully quite rare.

M1 closed southbound at J21 on Wednesday. Don't know why. Blockage was between 21 and 19...Grrrrrrrr

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Speed camera policy Kills

This is a crucial point, the motorways are our safest roads. When they are closed the traffic is forced onto the side roads that are cluttered with roundabouts, traffic lights, chicanes and traffic calming measures of every kind that the Highways Agency can dream up. It would be interesting to know if anyone has ever looked at the increase in accidents on roads clogged by displaced motorway vehicles following closure. The journey last night from the M42 past the roads jammed by the M5 closure was the closest it gets to dodgems driving on the public roads.
RJ

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Too much of our money is being wasted on supposed road safety improvements that are actually making driving more dangerous.

M275 out of Portsmouth (critical arterial route) was closed for 5 hours yesterday. Absolute gridlock all over the island - it was actually recommended that drivers stay home.

All for a non-fatal shunt !

So much for Portsmouth's new emergency traffic plan

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

From the article on the BBC web site:-

A 40-year-old lorry driver from Essex was pronounced dead at the scene when his wagon ploughed into a group of stationary cars stuck in traffic caused by the first accident.

So in this case the closure may have caused the second fatal. I know you should be capable of dealing with a queue of traffic, but it is a hazard that might not have been there but for the closure.

The prang was south of 20, I drove northbound up to 21 from 20 and didn't pass anything. I did notice the lack of soutbound traffic though!

I'm told the reason why they closed the motorway southbound at 21 was because a better diversion route was available from there, perhaps M69/A5 rather than the poor old single carriageway A426. Although I supposed they could have diverted via Magna Park to avoid some of the 426.

Would be nice to hear some accurate radio information on areas affected too.
Wednesdays accident on M6,said van hit bridge around J2 of M6 and M6B closed J2-3 North till about 1830.I joined M6 at J3 about 1600 to find traffic coming from south and could not see any blue lights in vicinity of j2 exit ( tho wasn't looking to much/long) and traffic exiting at J2.
Concensus was that the accident was on the M69/M6 link

We really do try to get things sorted as quickly as possible. It's reasonable to expect a period of time for evidence gathering after a fatal RTC.

A bigger problem can be if we have leaked hazardous goods or fire damaged carriageway surfaces.

We had one 2 years ago where a fire caused the North bound A74 Cumberland Gap to be closed for over a day. The resultant gridlock caused serious problems. Infact we were sent as a firearms response to a road rage incident resulting from someone trying to extricate themselves from the gridlock, so the problems created (mostly unavoidably) are often worse than the original incident.

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

And I thought HATO were supposed to be the new A team when it comes to clearing the M-way.

Agree with the investigation after a fatal, if it were murder then it would be closed for however long forensics etc needed to be there. Why should it be different for a fatal RTA!

[devil's advocate mode]

Well, there are differences aren't there?

With murder, it's vital to catch the killer because he may well kill again. There's no such imperative with an 'ordinary' fatal RTA and in at least half of the cases the causer is also the deceased so no protection of society issue arises.

Then there's a judgement regarding the seriousness of the crime. Careless driving clearly does not warrant the same depth of investigation as deliberate homicide, even when the outcomes are similar.

Then there's the danger from knock on effects. How do we balance the danger resulting from the investigation (considerable) against the public safety benefit of the investigation (dubious).

[/devil's advocate mode]

Speaking for myself now, I strongly suspect that we're using too many resources investigating road crashes for the wrong reasons and in too much detail.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Yes, very true, another element is that, even after a crash, the results aren't generally published with full details. Many a time, the public won't be told that so & so died because he was tailgating another car and lost control because he subsequently lost control. Many a time, this is done to spare the family of further pain. The trouble withthis, is that whilst a thorough investigation may have been conducted, the public aren't being told of the full facts, you have to look for them generally from a coroners report.

I believe that the number of hours of motorway carriageway closure due to evidence gathering for fatal RTCs is small, perhaps 500-1000 hours, much of that at very quiet times.

The total hours of carriageway closure dealing with obstruction or hazard or surface damage caused by other collisions will probably dwarf the figure for fatal RTC evidence collection.





If I get your drift, I believe that insurance companies pay £70 for accident files. Cheap as chips really!

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

I reckon the police must get sick and bloody tired of having to re-open motorways after inattentive (or whatever) prats have caused the thing to be closed. Perhaps it would be better to direct our ire at the substandard driving of the muppets whose lack of proficiency caused the incident to happen in the first place.

A1, Northbound, Wednesday afternoon. Heavy rain, extremely poor visibility. Standing water everywhere.

80+MPH is obviously safe, innit?

Yes, Mr Green Audi A4 Tdi, I'm looking at you. Hope you didn't soil yourself too badly when you nearly lost the front end under braking at Blyth Services roundabout.

I saw variants of the above scenario played out at least half a dozen times. If any one of these muppets had crashed, it'd have caused mayhem.

This has always irritated me. It’s common sense to try to learn from the mistakes of others. Sparing the affected family from slightly further anguish at the cost of isolating others from the whole truth, so not preventing other families from experiencing the same anguish, is clearly a false economy.

However, such informative actions may not be in the camera partnership’s best interests, which is probably why these crashes are accepted to be somehow caused by speeding

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

If incident involves any hazardous load - we have to close off the motorway.

In the case of some crashes, not just a case of gathering up evidence to work out how the crash happened and piece everything together for vairety of reasons - insurance reports, coroners reports - not to mention our own safety etc. Also we look at the damage to the road surface and barriers and some closures are to ensure the road is repaired to prevent more mishaps.

Agree that a minor crunch should not result in any closure other than a temporary block whilst vehicles is rremoved from the carriageway.

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For "heavy rain" read "thick fog". Some people have absolutely no imagination. I no longer use motorways when it's foggy. Crawling along desperately trying to keep eye contact with those fog lights ahead whilst not driving too fast for the conditions. Stressful to say the least. Then some moron blazes past at 80+. Of course he has radar fitted to the car, so he can see that stationary car 100 yards ahead can't he.

Brian

Hmm, bit like the M4 Friday 22 Oct between J15 and J16 - 7:50 am

Cats and dogs coming out of the sky doesn't even begin to describe it. So much ground water it looked like a lake.

Therefore myself and the other sensible drivers were in the inside lane at about 35-40 mph which was safe enough for the conditions.

Then in the middle lanes you have the the (I am going to get flamed) tw*ts in HGV's who never change from 56 mph spraying water everywhere, and in the outside lane the reps still doing around 70 mph.

So the question is, If I could just see a sufficient stopping distance at 35 mph, what the hell could these idiots in HGV's see at 56, let alone the reps at 70?

Don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for the majority of professional HGV drivers, but for them to just carry on at high speed no matter the conditions is beyond belief. It would have just taken a touch of the brakes and each and every one of them would have jacknifed. Not to mention the spray caused by this.

I won't even start on the idiots doing just about 70 mph - they should be hung, drawn and quartered. I have noticed though, with these people - they seem to think if they turn there foglights on when the roads are like this, magically they can continue driving at whatever speed they want.

Then again, when you hear the local pratnerships strapline "Drive Safe, Drive within the speed limit" you start to understand....."As long as I am not breaking the speed limit, I am safe"

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