M5 crash

[Bibs]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8871553/M5-crash-several-dead-in-worst-ever-smash-in-Somerset.html

Thoughts with those involved and their families

[Greenfort]

.... No words....

[mayevora]

Terrible tragedy. Not often both sides of a motorway are closed for this length of time. Horrible wet and foggy weather last night. Local news already saying won't be re-opened before tomorrow at the earliest due to the sheer number of vehicles involved and the heat generated from the burnt vehicles.

[MPx]

Used J25 today. No problem going south this morning, but about a 2 mile queue coming north so we were stuck getting off when I was coming home. Couldn't see anything from the motorway so presumably some way north of the junction.

Tragic for those involved. Still dont understand why it takes so long to put 27 cars on the back of low loaders and reopen the motorway. Priorities seem all to pot on this to me. Presumably they need to take lots of time to find someone to blame so that we know who's insurance company has to take the hit. Instead it should be 1. Save the injured, 2 Move the dead, 3 Find the quickest way to reopen the road. 1 and 2 might take an hour or two. 3 should be poss in another hour or two. All the rest is p****ng in the wind.

[Bibs]

Don't they have to resurface some of the road after the fires?

[mayevora]

2. Move the dead,

Thinks that's the problem Mike, according to a Police mate of mine, they can't find them/identify them all yet.

[Stirling_Villeneuve]

A terrible tragedy, deepest sympathies to all.

[Paul C]

Still dont understand why it takes so long to put 27 cars on the back of low loaders and reopen the motorway.

I think the fact that bits of people, dashboard and the road surface itself are all melted together in a kind of big roadside crematorium is what makes it a bit difficult to move quickly. And i'd assume the road underneath all that stack of burnt up petrol and people won't be in exactly tip top condition.

It's a weekend, if it's shut until monday does it matter much really? Any one of the people dead or injured would have gladly taken the diversion, given the chance.

Edited November 5, 2011 by Paul C

[simonb]

Would have thought you should be able to get the other direction divided into 2 lanes each way within 8 hours of a crash

[ramjet]

Really hard to know what to say.

I noticed in the report that an eye witness said cars were driving through the fog at normal M5 speeds. Do people just not understand the risks or consequences?

[MPx]

Thinks that's the problem Mike, according to a Police mate of mine, they can't find them/identify them all yet.

Don't they have to resurface some of the road after the fires?

I think the fact that bits of people, dashboard and the road surface itself are all melted together in a kind of big roadside crematorium is what makes it a bit difficult to move quickly. And i'd assume the road underneath all that stack of burnt up petrol and people won't be in exactly tip top condition.

It's a weekend, if it's shut until monday does it matter much really? Any one of the people dead or injured would have gladly taken the diversion, given the chance.

If all that's right...then I've got my priorities wrong. But I'm afraid I dont believe it. There have been multiple pile ups on motorways since I was a boy. They are obviously very bad things and I certainly didn't mean to belittle the tradgedy for those involved if that's what came across. Thing is this multiple pile ups have only turned into roads shut for days at a time in very recent years. It used to be a priority to get the road open again. I doubt they used to have better tarmac or were any quicker out of the blocks to fix it. I am convinced its because every detail of every car and every person has to minutely examined before anything can be moved or the clear up begun. Is this for the benefit of the dead and injured or their families? Not really - its to find out how it happened, and most often that's only important cos it gives us someone to blame. We need someone to blame so that we know who pays... and finding that out is apparantly worth the many millions and all the ag it costs to close a major arterial route for so long.

[USAndretti42]

I would certainly hope that the police would take the time and effort to find out what happened, how the crash progressed, why there were so many fires, etc. to try to find a way to prevent such a crash happening again. I'm sure they also have to treat it as a crime scene as people have died and there could be criminal charges brought if they find that someone did something stupid to set off the chain of events that lead to this.

Or would you prefer them to take the attitude that that's life and just get the road open?

[IanQ]

One report suggested the accident MAY have started because some drivers were distracted by watching a fireworks display in a location relatively close to the motorway instead of watching the road. I guess we will never know. A terrible tragedy.

[andydclements]

And now it seems the M6 has also been the scene of a fairly large accident.

[ramjet]

I was travelling back from Melbourne to Geelong today and about 6 cars ahead of me (100 metres) a guy with an overloaded trailer sped up a bit and changed lane, the trailer got out of control, spun the car right around over 3 lanes of a 4 lane freeway and somehow missed everything and hit the freeway centre bollards and the entire load from the trailer somehow ended up all in the safety lane.

Broad daylight and a miracle that everyone missed it.

What's worse is that just prior he was being shadowed by a police car who stopped to help someone stopped in the emergency lane and let him go.

Split second is all it takes.

[MPx]

I would certainly hope that the police would take the time and effort to find out what happened, how the crash progressed, why there were so many fires, etc. to try to find a way to prevent such a crash happening again. I'm sure they also have to treat it as a crime scene as people have died and there could be criminal charges brought if they find that someone did something stupid to set off the chain of events that lead to this. Or would you prefer them to take the attitude that that's life and just get the road open?

Hmmm - time and effort to find out appears to mean stop the music for a few days - that's the bit I disagree with. The criminal charges thing is just another avenue of the blame thing coming out. It will be done, but in reality there will be many many contributing factors and very few (if any) completely blameless victim drivers. Even some of the passengers (eg screaming kids, argumentative partners, or even sleepers, etc.) will all have made a contribution however minor. On the basis of no knowledge, it would be easy to write the report because we all know what was going on because we all do it when we drive and we are just lucky most of the time.

1. One (or all) of the drivers was driving at a speed in excess of which they could safely stop in the distance they could see to be clear. A fact otherwise they would have stopped. This is breaking a basic rule of the road. We all do it.

2. One (or all) of the drivers was at least partially distracted by a fireworks display at the side of the motorway. This took attention away from the road in front and the traffic around. It is very difficult to maintain lane discipline when looking out of a side window.

3. Fog and Bonfire smoke reduced visibility on that section of motorway and the change of visibility may not have given time for drivers to reduce speed to that where they could stop in the distance they could see to be clear before they came across a stopped (crashed) vehicle.

There may have been the odd car with insuffient tread depth on its tyres, there may have been a driver driving away from a tempestuous relationship break up, there may have been an Esprit with the top fuel hose hardened and perished spraying fuel on a hot engine. If we find out which it was, do we do something to prevent it ever happening again? Ban firework displays? Ban Esprits? Ban relationship break ups? Jail someone for life because they killed everyone having driven 10 miles on a bald tyre ? Given how we deal with such things nowadays I expect we will. I can see I'm pretty much on a limb with a different opinion here. Maybe its cos I dont see myself as completely blameless whenever bad things happen around me - and I dont think that I should be banned, jailed, hung drawn and quartered or whatever.

[Bibs]

Accidents happen, fact of life. It's just this one has taken quite a toll.

Everyone thinks it will never happen to them, that's the h&s 'cotton wool' culture we're lead to believe we live in today. That's why someone would have been tailgating in thick fog, why someone was watching fireworks rather than the road.

I'm still amazed that in general, when accidents happen, they're not tented off and dealt with with the minimum of distraction. Too many times have we all sat in traffic jams for 10 miles just to speed up once we've seen the twisted remains if a car on the opposite hard shoulder.

[ramjet]

On a tangent, but related. I don't know the speed limit on the M5, nor do I know if they have those automated traffic signs run by the traffic control guys.

You are driving along the road yourself. The conditions change to foggy (as described by an eyewitness "Your lights just shone straight back at you"), do you

1) Just continue on because you are a good driver?

2) Slow down but continue on relying on your reflexes and slower speed? (also risk getting rear ended by driver #1 above)

3) Pull over to the shoulder to wait it out?

Are yellow fog lights on cars over there? When I was younger, even the street lights in parts of Melbourne were yellow to penetrate the fog.

[Dave Eds]

The fact is that it could have happened to any one of us to some degree on many different occasions. Sometimes we get lucky, sometimes we won't.

What I will say, and this is my very recent observation on returning to a daily motorway commute, is that the standard of "rush hour" motorway driving has diminished beyond belief in the 18 months since I last had to do it. I've seen drivers changing lanes across the hatching on slip roads, lorry drivers wandering across lanes while texting and speaking on mobiles, people travelling at 50mph in lane 3 of a 4 lane motorway whilst lanes 1 & 2 are empty (thus people feeling the need to undertake at speed), with sidelight or no lights in driving rain, tailgating at speeds in excess of 80mph, the aftermath of LHD trucks taking a car with them as they pull out to drive next to another truck for miles..........

And I've only been back at it for a week!

[ramjet]

It's not only where you live David. It's like that in Australia as well. Lane changes crossing intersections, lane changing on bridges. I'm waiting to see a case in the news where a driver will be proven to be at fault due to the timestamp on either a call or a text which will be used as proof of neglect.

I hate to say it, but a lot of this blame finding and delay is driven by insurance companies that will not pay up without all the information.

Invariably, that also causes affected families etc more stress.

[molemot]

Nearest I have ever got to a giant pileup was on a French Autoroute heading into Paris from Boulogne. It rained so hard it was truly like a waterfall...the Esprit wiper flat out couldn't cope; neither could the wipers on any other vehicle; there seemed to be a telepathic group decision that conditions had become undriveable,and everyone turned on the hazard warning lights,slowed down, pulled on to the hard shoulder and stopped! Nothing came past for about half an hour, and most of us gave it 45 minutes before venturing out again. No crash, fortunately, but the chances were very high...it would only have taken one idiot to start it off....

[simonb]

I'm still amazed that in general, when accidents happen, they're not tented off and dealt with with the minimum of distraction. Too many times have we all sat in traffic jams for 10 miles just to speed up once we've seen the twisted remains if a car on the opposite hard shoulder.

Amen to that

[Stirling_Villeneuve]

Nearest I have ever got to a giant pileup was on a French Autoroute heading into Paris from Boulogne.

I got caught in the aftermath of a pile up in Belgium a couple of weeks ago. Sitting in the traffic for an hour wasn't my idea of an fun afternoon's drive but driving past the scene is something I'd rather not have done. One tanker had driven smack into another, the cab was compressed to maybe 2 feet deep, the driver was still hanging out of it... about 3 feet from line of traffic driving past. It's a site I'll never forget.

It'll take as long as it takes to clear up the M5, I can't imagine anyone wants to be there any longer than necessary.

[Dave Eds]

Rugby Club Firework display is "main lead of Police enquiry"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-15612315

[MPx]

On a tangent, but related. I don't know the speed limit on the M5, nor do I know if they have those automated traffic signs run by the traffic control guys.

You are driving along the road yourself. The conditions change to foggy (as described by an eyewitness "Your lights just shone straight back at you"), do you

1) Just continue on because you are a good driver?

2) Slow down but continue on relying on your reflexes and slower speed? (also risk getting rear ended by driver #1 above)

3) Pull over to the shoulder to wait it out?

Are yellow fog lights on cars over there? When I was younger, even the street lights in parts of Melbourne were yellow to penetrate the fog.

For Info Michael:

Speed Limit on all Motorways and Dual Carriageways is 70mph unless otherwise shown. It would have been 70 where the accident happened on Friday night.

On that section of motoway they only have very basic matrix signs every mile or so which may have said something like "Fog" or maybe an advisory speed limit like "50". Dont know if they were on at the time.

I'd be a 2 on your list above unless it went completely impenetrable in which case 3.

All cars have to have a rear Red fog lamp. They have to be lit if visibilty falls below 100 meters and they must be switched off when visibility is greater than 100m (rule 226/236). Very few people know or obey the rules. Some cars have front (white) fog which can only to be used in reduced visibility and in any case Headlights have to be used if visibility is less than 100m

There are only a few stretches of the motorway network that are lit and most - particularly away from the major city junctions are not lit at all. I'm pretty sure that that part of the M5 is not lit. Recently some councils have taken the rather bizarre decision to NOT use street lamps that are already installed as part of their Green/Energy Reduction credentials. Its seems H&S concerns dont outweigh running costs and light polution concerns for some. HTH