Safe Speed Forums

Another sad story of a lorry crashing into back of stationary traffic with fatal consequences.

What happened
Also at
and

Location of accident;
http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2& ... 520here___

It seems that there are still long skid marks from where the lorry was trying to stop. The suspicion would seem to be another case of loss of attention and not realising the traffic ahead was stationary. There is no suggestion that the lorry was speeding.

This is the third such incident in recent times in the eastern region of a lorry crashing into the back of a car in stationary traffic, killing the occupants.

It is also the second case of a lorry overturning at this roundabout in the past few months. On the previous occasion it was going in the opposite direction and fell over onto a barrier and into a ditch, next to Waitrose, and no one was hurt.

What precautions can a car driver take to prevent having a lorry run into the back of them.

Stop well short of the queue and monitor the mirror. If trouble appears drive away.

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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

Does anyone know if this was a normal roundabout or did it have high kerbs?

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

What do you mean by high kerbs? It's just a normal roundabout as far as I can remember, the ones with the sloped sides and white/black chevron things painted on.

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Carl Prescott

We watched a lorry turn over at 1mph in nursling industrial estate on those 18" kerbs you see in motorway service areas

He tried to do a u turn around the raised mini roundabout.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

A couple of problems with this.

1) If everyone did this, imagine the lengths that current traffic jams would grow too.

2) If you're in, say, L2 of a 2-lane dual carriageway with a fence or hole separating you from the other carriageway, then L1 fills up with cars after you've stopped. Where exactly are you going to drive to?


I would suggest that standard mesaures against rear end collisions are about the best you can manage. eg don't stop 3' past the crest of a hump backed bridge. Leave your brake lights on, and hazards if appropriate, until the vehicle behind has obviously seen you. Also leave enough of a gap that you can make a lane change if necessary (which you should be doing anyway, incase an emergency vehicle needs to get through)


If this fails to work, you're screwed. If you're lucky enough to have somewhere to move then great, it just means the car in front gets smashed in instead.

Visited the site this morning. A picture of the roundabout and skid marks have been sent to Paul.

The skid marks, which had been outlined with pink dots, appeared to be from the nearside lorry wheels. These indicate that the lorry was on the nearside lane of the dual carriageway, with NSL, when approaching the roundabout, but just continued straight on and collided with the high sloping side of the central reservation. This then appears to have toppled the lorry onto its nearside, crushing the Volkswagen and occupant as it did so.

It looks as though the skid marks where quite short, quite light and only for the nearside wheels, although they may have worn away a bit since the accident.

How the Volkswagen came to be in the position it was is a matter of speculation. The driver may have just been following the outside lane of the roundabout when the lorry came along and fell on top of him, or he may have seen the lorry coming and tried to get out of the way by moving over to the left. Unless he had a very good awareness of what was about to happen, there doesn’t seem much the car driver could have done.

With respect to Lum, you only need to leave a gap in front of you until there are a few vehicles behind you. Then you can close up the gap to normal, so it would only make the queue a few car lengths longer at any time.

When approaching a roundabout, where there is no queue, you tend to be looking for traffic from the right, rather than behind you.

I also recall an accident some years ago at a roundabout on the southbound A11 dual carriageway Thetford bypass. An articulated lorry on the nearside lane rolled onto its offside on entering the roundabout to crush a police officer in his car entering the roundabout from the offside lane. The car may have caused the lorry to pull a tighter left-hand turn than expected as it entered the roundabout.

Only those at the tail end of a queue need to leave much extra space. Once there has been a reasonable build up of stationary or very low speed traffic behind you, you can then close up the gaps to something more normal, so the jams need not get much longer.

I must say I like the thinking that goes on and the exchanges in these forums - well, most of it. What we need is more of the driving community looking in here and joining in.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

Be nice, wouldn't it? The trouble is that a good proportion of drivers don't take enough pride or interest in what they're doing to go out of their way to read it.

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