Safe Speed Forums

Per "M.E.N" Dean Kirby reports on page 2.





A nine year old boy is fighting for his life in Alder Hey Childrens' in Liverpool afer his father's car ws hit head on on the M6 motorway in Wigan. The Vectra was hit by a Megane driven by a 45 year driving at 70mph northbound on the southbound carriageway at 8.30 pm on Saturday.


The Megane driver died on impact and the boy's father is now stable but has both arms and legs broken and the 11 year old sister suffered just bruises but I fear when they say "shock" - this is probably the more serious of her injuries here.

Another driver swerved out of the way of the Megane moments before the crash. he was travelling with his wife and 4 year old when he saw the Megane aiming towards him on the wrong side of the motorway.

In the outside lane




Indeed.

Others say they saw this same car joing the M6 at Bamber Bridge and heading southbound on the northbound carriageway.

Polce received a number of 999 calls over it and electocnic warning signs along the M6 were activated.


Yeah ... right ... automation... yeah - yeah - yeah! - that just about solves it

The signs told the dirvers to slow to 20 mph.

Yeah - slow down ... that solves the problem. NOT! He'd still hit the guys and at the slow speed - would they have been able to have swerved outa the way [i] dfast enough?

OK - in fairness - so Lancs finest caught up with this maniac and signalled for him to stop.

He refused to do so

So he's likely to take much notice of a speed camera then? Hah! Like he took note of the 20mph signs and a policeman wiht blue flashing lights? NOT!

He hit the Vectra despite the policeman's frantic signals to stop. Other drivers helped the stricken family in this car and the Army - just happened to be army medics - kept the boy and his father alive until teh paramedics arrived.

A post mortem of the maniac of the year was due today - and this explains why the M6 was closed until 4 am yesterday.

If you saw this maniac at any one time between Bamber Bridge and Wigan driving the wrong way on each side of the carriageway - please contact police on )161- 856 1550 as they need to phiece each stage of this tragedy from start to finish to work out how on eart someone could drive along the wrong side of the carriageway for such a long time before eventually causing the accident wating to happen to some poor bloke and his family. Could have been me, you or anyone caught out by this one

And the paper named the maniac. He was English and from the Walkden area of Manchester per the paper. As I have referred to him as a maniac in this piece a few times - I shall not name him.

I think we will all suspect dring/drugs/family tiff as basis for his behaviour and our thoughts will go to the family hit by this - and hope and pray the boy and his father pull through this.

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How do you do that? Serious question...

I just can't imagine any (even remotely) safe way of stopping someone going the wrong way down a motorway. Wave at him from the other carriageway? Shoot the bastard? What?

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Paul Smith
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I'm with Mad Moggie on this one.

Why instruct all drivers to slow to 20 mph? If this car was driving the wrong way in the outside lane then the gantry signs should have cleared that lane - an instruction to leave outside lane clear would have been far more sensible. Can't these idiots think about driving in terms other than speed?

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Malcolm Cooper

A million pound question. We'll never know why he did this - suspect cocktail of rage, drink and drugs as I really cannot think of any logical reason for a 45 year old to do this.

How the hell you stop them? Signalling and gesturing to appeal to his human nature - consider the cop did the right thing as he was travelling at 70 mph and he'd also be putting himself in great danger to try to negotiate with him.


I think they should have tried to close the motorway completely - and directed traffic off and sealed him in. 20 mph gantry signing from Bamber Bridge to Wigan would not have conveyed the serious danger of the situation to drivers and their families and friends travelling with them.

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If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

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It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

The only overhead message to convey meaning here would have been "Car coming toward you on your side of the road". After all, he might have been in the fast lane, middle lane... shoulder - unpredictable.

The trouble is that such a sign could well have caused panic braking and a multiple shunt in itself.

To try to answer Paul's question - how to stop him... I have no idea. One vivid memory in my past - a few years ago - was when I was going home and a car, eveidently fleeing a heist by the blues and twos behind it - came at me on the ON slip of the A12. I decided to outrun it. It was a splitsecond call on my part which pedal to hit - but I had the power and did not want to get involved. I didn't look at the speedo but am sure I was into three figures by the time I'd got past the on-slip - a second or so before the entourage hit the main carriageway. There was a lot of smoke behind me from screeching tyres, but I think thanks principally to the blue lights people all missed one another. I never heard any more about it so I'm guessing that crowd were given their just desserts.

So this guy was TRYING to hit people?!?? Was it some sort of terrorist attack or something? An attempted suicide-murder? Please keep us posted on developments in the enquiry...



WHAT?!??!? I think "Stop, get the hell out of your car and run for your life" would have been more appropriate.

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First of all, stop all traffic entering the motorway. Second, stop all traffic already on the motorway or set up a rolling roadblock. Then maybe use a stinger to burst the tyres of the offending vehicle.

And yes, if the guy still refuses to stop, I'd say that guns would be an acceptable option, as long as he didn't have any innocent passengers in the car with him.

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How about: "Emergency - park on shoulder" for the message?

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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

That somewhat ignores the laws of physics.

If two cars travelling in opposite directions at 70mph collide it does not make a 140mph collision. Unless one is considerably tougher and heavier than the other.

The impact on each car is the same as hitting a stationary (but immovable) object at 70mph.

Still not a lot of fun.

An invisible preceding "In" would be assumed by most, me included - and think it was another Maudlin comment like "Tired? take a break".

Firstly, there may or may not be message signs on the stretch of motorway in question.

The signs cannot display free text; there's a specific and approved set of messages, one of which is "ONCOMING VEHICLE".

The signals were set to 20 presumably in the hope of reducing the closing speed of the rogue car and the flowing traffic.

It's fun and easy to denigrate the use of the motorway signalling system, but it's just one component in an integrated response which, of course, culminated in the presence of trafpol on scene.

Did I hit a nerve, CJ? I was not denigrating the signs per se (goodness, I used to design and make them!). "ONCOMING VEHICLE" would've covered it nicely. However, I can understand reticence in barking out the order to display it - for reasons as stated above. One has to be bloody sure it's right as it would in itself surely generate a chaos of immense proportion.

Many people talk a lot of tosh that they heard down the pub about the motorway signalling system; they discuss messages and speed settings that I know cannot possibly ever have been set - a classic one is someone saying that they saw "70" set on a signal. No, it wasn't; type 421 and 450 lane signals physically cannot set 70 - the signal driver simply hasn't got the facility. Type 409 carriageway signals are similarly restricted.

As I work in this field, and am familiar with how it works in practice, I'm perhaps over-sensitive to perceived slights.

It's my experience that there is enormous reticence on the part of the police to set ONCOMING VEHICLE - as you say, setting the message could conceivably cause more chaos than the actual oncoming vehicle itself.

I was caught in a similar situation in 1966. Returning from hols in Clacton in a Mk 1 Ford Consul, kids asleep on back seat, overtaking a convoy of army 3-tonners on the 2-lane A1M Doncaster by-pass; long left-hander, 11.30 pm, me slightly drowsy, waiting for a break at Skellow. I suddenly realised that the lights coming towards me were on my side of the road. I braked viciously and swerved left, the bonnet going under the tail of the wagon I had started to overtake. Pure instinct! (or luck?)

I never heard the outcome.

It is still the narrowest escape I've ever had in over 2 million miles.....

If he had managed to get on the wrong carriageway by mistake, he would have been in the nearside lane. I wonder if it is possible for a driver to make a genuine (if unbelievably stupid/negligent) error, realise thr mistake but become so stressed/confused that driving on the nearside of the wrong carriageway and continuing to the next junction can appear to be the right corrective action?

I don't know how I would react if I saw "ONCOMING VEHICLE" on a sign. I'd probably be looking as far in to the distance as I could trying not to panic. If I saw it pick any lane it is not in. The signs would have to be turned off as soon as the vehicle passes each one though. Quite complex.



I don't know the type number of the sign, but I actually saw one saying "70" myself recently. I would describe it as one of the older style square message boards in the middle of the motorway which usually display 2 digits for a speed limit or "fog" or a lane closure picture. It was flashing on and off like there was a signalling fault though.

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Andrew.

I remember many moons ago designing and building a prototype CMI - the ones above the 25 near Heathrow. That could display 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, all optionally with or without a red ring, with Wig Wags in orange and/or red.

As to whether the remote in the policeman's hand can make itr show 70 .. no idea.

If the motorway was fairly quiet when he joined, he might have dived over to the offside lane under the illusion that was the left side of a single carriageway road.

As I'm sure this individual would have been out of his head on drink or drugs, or suffering from some kind of psychosis, he was probably very far from anything resembling rational action.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Absolutely right. It would need to be: "Emergency. Park on shoulder NOW!"

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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

I still think it's too long-winded - as was mysuggestion. I truly doubt people would do it.

The one CJ quoted - "Oncomiong Vehicle" is the least ambiguous, least distracting (at least insofar as eyes-to-the-sign is concerned), but possibly the most adrenaline-stirring too.