Just to pick up on a couple of recent threads; coming into work this morning on the M62 showed how right many are in this forum:
Weather wet, mist and spray but visibility not too bad, traffic doing about 65, lots of LGVs road long gentle climb on the top of the moors between J23 Hudderfield and J22 Ripponden, heading west. On the bike in the 3rd lane leaving about 3 seconds gap by the lampposts. Brake lights start to come on in the line of traffic ahead so start to slow down. The car I am behind (Silver Vectra) no brake lights. Suddenly brake lights come on and it swerves violently into lane 2 undertaking traffic in lane 3 at a rate of knots, just lucky that no one is already in lane 2. Fish tales a bit then back in control but going very slow. Me braking hard and looking at mirror and rhs of car in front to go between it and barrier if any cars too close behind, none. Traffic picks up speed Vectra stays in lane 2 doing about 50 with double the safe distance to car in front. As I go past have a quick peak, he is either chewing his nails, eating his breakfast or on the phone. Overall the accident that got away, but if lane 2 had of been full god only knows what would have been the result.
Morale:
Don?t drive to close, keep the speed to the conditions, look after your tyres.
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A good description of what might be happening, on any road in the country, on this gloomy, misty morning. Without doubt, as autumn gives way to early winter, here we will go again with the multiple shunts and motorway mayhem, just because of those drivers who think that it is still high summer and that visibility and wheel to road adhesion are the same as it has been for the past few months. Bill's advice on "Don't drive too close", if heeded by everybody, would be one the best life saving tips for all of us as the season of carnage and crumpled tin, opens up on our roads. I don't want to see those media pictures of the early morning mists swirling around an instantly created scrap yard on some motorway but, sadly, I probably will.
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I couldn't agree more.
This is exactly what happened to me about six weeks ago. Same situation. Me driving on the M4 keeping a 3 seconds gap, traffic in front stops, I slow to stop and stop safely. Car behind me, fantails, swerves and hits my nearside rear corner and ends up in Lane 2. Car behind him has no chance and ploughs square on into my boot.
Result: Three write-offs including my very squashed car.
Thank God they were only an Astra and Clio.
Moral: Keep your distance and check where the driver behind is.
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Maybe what's needed is a gadget that measures your own speed and the distance to the car behind. If it gets too close, a warning sign in the back window lights up.
Failing that, a couple of fifty calibre machine guns in the boot would make an ideal deterrent.
Andy
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So the car two cars back couldn't stop in time either?
Does this mean that the car behind you braked very late and hid you from the car behind or that there was a serious bit of tailgating going on?? (er.. or both)
Dan
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Without being flippant in the light of recent events, tailgaters are highway terrorists who are responsible for the majority of motorway accidents. Yet I have never seen a report of a court case where anyone has been charged with an offence resulting from following another vehicle to close, despite traffic police having video equipment in their cars. Too much more effort than nicking speeders, I suppose.
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I used drive up the M62 to Rochdale from Urmston every day until I moved jobs and the worst section was, and continues to be, the stretch between Eccles ( Junction with M602 ) and Whitefield. Not just for sheer traffic density and the number of junctions, but for a road surface which turns lethal after the first fall of rain due to the amount of rubber and oil deposits which build up in dry conditions. Even with a normal stopping distance clearance of 3 secs. which most following vehicles won't allow you to maintain, emergency braking under these conditions is very hazardous. Just to make matters worse, the Highways Agency has started a programme of refurbishment of seven bridges betwteen Eccles and Worsley which is scheduled to last for the next six months - lane/slip road closures et al. Avoid if you can!
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I used to live in Urmston, and have heard that stretch referred to as Death Valley due to the high number of accidents there. As well as the reasons you mention, another factor is the mixture of junction types - some normal ones where a separate slip road leaves the motorway, some where the inside lane itself becomes the exit slip, and that Eccles M602/M62/M60 interchange where 2 of the 4 lanes leave the motorway, and then almost immediately they divide again.
It's actually all very well signed/roadmarked, but there are plenty of drivers who are just too stupid to understand it or simply can't be bothered, and hence middle-lane hogging, panic braking and last-minute lane changing are even more prevalent there than they are in the rest of the country...and that's saying something!
Then, just past Eccles, there's the Trafford Centre junction, where stationary traffic sometimes queues right back up the slip road and into the inside lane. Occasionally you get people deciding they don't want to wait their turn and pulling out into the middle lane at 5mph to try and push in further down. A real test of reactions and brakes for vehicles passing by at 70mph.
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There is tailgaiting, and there is physics. 60 mph = 88 feet per second. Good reaction time for someone expecting an incident is 0.3sec. If you are not expecting it, it must be 0.5sec. Thats 44 feet travelled before the brake is even on. Thats getting on for 4 car lengths, and theyr'e up your jacksy much closer than that. Then, over-react in panic, lock up, busy motorway, Goodnight Vienna! Did anyone see the prog on Ayrton last night. 1/10th sec. to react to a slide as measured by telemetry. That's super-human!
Regards
Mike
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Is there an offence for following too close to the vehicle in front or is it a case of only after the accident has been caused? Another problem is how do you police this? I agree wholeheartedly with Bill, maintaining your distance would cut accidents dramatically but the majority of drivers seem to fit the 'I have the best reflexes, brakes, tyres' etc. and can handle anything, until called upon to do so. Not understanding the wave effect is part of the problem. The car a qtr mile up the road lifts off momentarily, the one behind him brakes, and the driver a qtr mile further back has to carry out an emergency stop. One of the worst roads that I frequent that has this problem is the M42/A42 Leicestershire/Derbyshire. As it is only 2 lanes, the morons insist on sitting in the outside lane, half a car length from the one in front. It's usually like Blackpool illuminations with the old brake lights and inevitably ends up slower than the inside lane.
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There's tailgating and there's tailgationg. If you tailgate a car which you can see through and you're on the ball then you will probably spot the hazard ahead before the driver in front does. If you tailgate a van or a high 4x4 you can't see through it. If you are tailgated by a van, remember the van driver can see right over the top of your car and will be aware of a hazard ahead long before you see it.
HJ
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To pick up on a comment I made in another thread, high level brake lights were brought in to try and stop nose to tail shunts by giving earlier warning. Seems like an expensive option when stopping tailgating is a better one.
And as for lorry drivers tailgating each other my mind boggles. Why do they do it?
Recently just after 4am on the motorway heading for the airport motorway was nice and empty, plodding along nicely at a true 70, cruise control engaged, (Heeeeelloooooo Mr Paul "Perfect" Ripley ;-) anyway there were two HGVs just feet apart, why??
Is it to try and slipstream and reduce fuel con?
Forward control vehicle (when its a cab over), usually no seat belts, no crumple zone, sitting right in the front of 40 tonnes which could hit another 40 tonnes and its only you in the middle thats got any give.
All the people who say that because we are safer in our cars we take more risks, and then say a spike on the steering wheel is the answer should look at these HGV drivers.
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Dear John,
Although l quail in terror at the mere thought of casting doubt on your observations, l'd like to respond to some of what you say.
Justifying tailgating with the see-through car idea seems a little unsound. Expecting to see a hazard through the windscreen of the car in front before he does indicates a low level of confidence in that drivers concentration and possibly his skill. This would incline me to stay well away rather than tailgating and squinting through someone elses windscreen. I imagine its a bit like watching a small portable TV through a neighbours dirty living room window.
As for being tailgated by a van; for starters this behaviour by larger road vehicles is essentially threatening and thoughtless. The higher seating position can help in high traffic density/overtaking situations but there will be events where this has no advantage. In these circumstances you've got a bloke who may/may not be concentrating (after all this is a day-in-day-out job), in a knackered old van loaded to the gills with heavy consumer goodies up your @rse. The upshot is: you brake nicely upon seeing the danger ahead, and even if Mr Van behind matches your response "two become one..." (as the Spice Girls so aptly put it).
IMHO of course!
Dan
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Phil...
Think such conduct is still covered under the Road Traffic Act of driving a motor vehicle without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road/careless driving.
Now, fewer Traffic cars about and its not picked up by camera:-<
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Tom and others,
There are very few police patrols on the M62 these days. Normally the only time I see the busies is when they have the lights going trying to get to the accident. I do 60 miles a day going to and from work of which 54 miles is motorway. There are no police cars anymore. In some ways I find this an advantage, in others such as tailgating or more extreme antisocial actions its a poitive disadvantage. I do agree with HJ on the fact that you can see over or through other vehicals or even round either side on the bike but some drivers will always amaze me in how they react.
Bill
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A great deal of experience displayed in these posts and a lot of common sense responses. They all lead me to think that we need a complete overhaul of our driver training and testing. Are we the only country in Europe that does not have Motorway training? An essential I would have thought.
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"And as for lorry drivers tailgating each other my mind boggles. Why do they do it? "
They do it Stuart because some of them, and it is, thankfully, only a few, bring their inane, inexplicable, juvenile, and potentially murderous habits, out on to the road, having abandoned any pretence at the practice of "roadcraft", a practice which gave their predecessors in the haulage industry, of a generation or so ago, such a high standing in the eyes of other road users. When out of the cab they can be seen, leading their Rotweiller dogs, and wearing the obligatory vest, where the absence of sleeves or collar, reveals the latest disgusting display of the tatooist's "art". The tailgating is a "macho" thing, appealing to simple and moronic minds and, quite often, when you are on some motorway, travelling at around 60 mph, you will catch sight of one of these Cretins in your rear view mirror. As his 35 Tonnes of tin is likely to be only three feet from your rear bumper, you can make a leisurely study of his tatooed torso so that you you will, in future, be able to recognise his pathetic plumeage and take swift avoiding action. Perhaps, with luck, and some action from the Police, his kind might be an endangered species but, I fear, the only endangered species now are his fellow road users.
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HJ
A good definition of tailgating would seem to be being closer than your reaction time, so that even if the two vehicles decelerate at the same rate a shunt will occur.
I agree that whether you can see through (or round or over) the vehicle ahead has a bearing on the distance that you leave. In my case I work on the principle that if you can't see what is going on in front of the vehicle ahead then leave an extra long gap.
Being tailgated worries me, in case I have a situation which requires me to brake and I know that the pr@ behind won't be able to slow down in time. Best to let them pass.
A few years ago I was going along the North Circular Road and some silly billy was steaming up behind other vehicles and braking down to their speed at the last minute. I overtook him a mile or so further on, with his car mated with another.
Bill and Michael:
Similar thing happened to me on the M1 when a car undertook a group of cars in lane 3, the lead car in the group hadn't seen him coming and braked when the undertaker pulled back outin front of him. Result was brakes lights all over the place. I stopped safely, the car behind locked up and spun 180 degrees, coming towards me backwards scraping the central crash barrier, grinding to a halt a few feet behind me.
Regards
Brian
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