Safe Speed Forums

I was involved in a near miss today on the way to Inverness in the fog.

I'm driving on a single carriageway road in fog. There's nothing ahead and a couple of vehicles behind. I'm doing about 50-55 mph which I judge to be the safe maximum for the visibility.

I'm amazed when a small red car behind pulls out looking to overtake. I do nothing. He starts to overtake and I start to brake lightly. He's 1/3rd of the way past when the worst happens. An oncoming truck appears out of the mist. There's nowhere near enough room. I'm extremely concerned that the red car and I might brake side by side and I'll hang him out for the truck to destroy. I brake a bit harder watching intently to see if the overtaker is looking to try and drop in behind. It's working. He isn't. I brake much harder and steer left making more space.

It fits. Just. I'm down to 10mph, the truck is down to what? 25mph? And there's less than half a second to spare when the idiot pulls in front of me.

Can anyone think of anything more I could have done? Should I, perhaps, have blocked the idiotic overtake before it started?

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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 don't think so. The most likely outcome is that you would have made him even more determined to overtake, and even more likely to throw what little caution he might have possessed to the wind.

I would have braked hard - that way there's a good chance that the overtaker would be ahead before he even realised the need to brake.

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

I think you did the right thing under the circumstances. If you had braked to hard, you stood the chance that the cars at the back of you being involved.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Well done, Paul. Not that I can hold a candle to your jusdgement in such matters, I think I;d have done the exact same thing as you.

I might just have braked harder to minimise side-by-side time as soon as he'd started to overtake. However, if he'd then thought the better of it, to use your phrase, you'd have hung him out.

What a plonker. Did he "path find" for you after that, ie, clear the mist in front as he forged ahead allowing you to creep up a little in speed , or did this incedent put the fear of Christ into him and make him slow down?

Problem is you don't have much thinking time in such a case.

Sitting here safe from involvement in such situations it's easy for me to say the thing to do would be to move left and brake fairly firmly, once you're sure he's going ahead with his overtake.

Glad that no harm resulted Paul, but there's always something new to learn isn't there!

Best wishes all,
Dave.

I would agree Paul that you did the right thing.
The only mistake you could have made was not carrying spare underwear.

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

I doubt that! Although it's kind, nay overly kind, of you to say so.



Nope. He vanished into the mist in no time flat. I saw no indication that he recognised that he'd been in a life or death situation. The incident took place a few hundred yards before a layby. I nearly stopped in the layby for a little 'recovery time'. Nitwit didn't.

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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 had plenty of spare underwear in the campervan I was driving.

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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

The hope is that last time's hindsight is next time's foresight.

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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 know it's an incredibly stressfull judgment call to make, but we don't do the math consciously - we just do it, and are glad we made the right choice after the event!
1. Keep at same speed & let other driver brake or accelerate.
2. Accelerate & let them brake (hopefully) & slot in behind faster.
3. Brake & hope to hell that they keep going past & pull in. (just as bad!)

Getting yourself out of the way of any resulting impact is also an important consideration. If I have to choose between saving myself and saving the other guy then sorry chum you're toast. If an accident seems inevitable the the least destructive one seems the one to aim for as it is better to hit something travelling in the same direction than a solid object or an oncoming vehicle.

I assume he thought as you were in a large camper van you must have been dawdling along but didn't have the sense to see what you actual speed was.

I have had to do similar things (but not as severe) a couple of times for nitwits. Worse thing is they never realise what you have done. It's a shame there isn't in car video of it then you could find the person in the red hatchback and show them what would have happened had you not braked.

Refer to the first post.

I was there again yesterday. I estimated the carrigeway width as 22ft between curbs. There's an edge marking white line that gives the appearance of reducing the carriageway width to about 20ft.

With:

My vehicle 6ft
Oncoming HGV 8ft
Overtaking idiot 5.5ft

Total width of vehicles: 19.5ft

If we'd all had the presence of mind to make the most of the space we could easily have got away with the worst. Even with a lack of precision, a head on could have been reduced to some mirror banging or minor side scraping.

But I have to say, although I already knew that the space available was greater than it looked, squeezing through wasn't an option that I fully considered.

The moral is: never ever forget that you might be able to thread the needle...

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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