M25 near miss

Admittedly its been rather a long time since I hauled 44 tones and 50 feet up the motorway,
But a couple of things occur to me, had that driver braked, hard at the point of impact
the weight shift would have dipped the nose sufficiently, to have flipped the car over as it nose rose again.
Had the lorry driver "dived" for the next lane out , they can't nip out you know, not like a car, they are a tad longer
the car would have most likely hit the side bars of the trailer and most likely spun,
I assume side bars had fitted,
if not the car would have ended up under the trailer and rear wheels.
Neither of those two scenario's bare thinking about.

As for the Video clip, I've seen that banded about a few times,
those mirrors are incorrectly set up, to try and prove a point,
no driver of an (artic certainly) HGV would have his slip/ wide angled mirror that close in,
its a "blind side" mirror to show you the world while you are going back "blind side"
the way they are set up you would soon lose the view you needed
Oh and a slight error on their part, what's that I see bottom left?
A lurking cyclist perhaps ? ;)

View attachment 23525

Oh and one final thought, if you do see a trailer waging its tail very slightly,
specifically box or curtain siders
just a few inches will do it ;)
They are looking for coppers cars sat right up their arse.
There is a few feet directly behind the trailer that is also a blind spot while travelling in a straight line.
as the trailer comes back straight its easy to see the stealth guys in the N/S mirror .

Disclaimer, I have never done that nor discovered
"someone" following so close it was dangerous ;)
Not even when I was hauling fuel :rolleyes:
(you have to get even closer not to be seen, due to the elliptical shape of the tank)
 
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overbez said:
51mph given we don't know how the screen camera gets its speed data... GPS or directly from the truck, it could be on the limiter.

And a correctly adjusted downward facing mirror should give a field of view 2 metres wide from the nearside of the lorry, 1 metre forward of the drivers eye line and 1.5 metres behind it. So I would say the car could have been visible in a correctly fitted and adjusted mirror.
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And as the car crossed from the inside lane of the slip road would be approximately 4 meters away, which is outside the view of your properly positioned mirror, I would say you are wrong, the car would not have been visible.
 
at the point below, prior to the impact it should have been visible in the mirror, whether the driver was looking there or not at that moment we do not know. I would imagine they were more intently concentrating on the truck 15 metres or so in front

OnepSl8.jpg
 
Please explain how a mirror can reflect what is in front of the lorry.
What the video shows is the view from the top centre of the screen not from the right of the cab and several feet back and a lower line of sight from where the driver would be sitting.
The car can already be seen driving over the dividing section between the two lanes of the slip road when it enters the view of the camera.
 
overbez said:
at the point below, prior to the impact it should have been visible in the mirror, whether the driver was looking there or not at that moment we do not know. I would imagine they were more intently concentrating on the truck 15 metres or so in front

OnepSl8.jpg
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Which mirror? The one on the lorry in front?:p
 
Convex mirrors, positioned as below.

in_content.jpg


in_content.jpg


But nobody except the driver can say what they did or didn't see in any of their mirrors..
 
overbez said:
Convex mirrors, positioned as below.

in_content.jpg


in_content.jpg


But nobody except the driver can say what they did or didn't see in any of their mirrors..
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Do all lorries have those mirrors? Maybe cars should have them as well......but then again, many of the car drivers I come across don't use the ones they have already.
 
overbez said:
Convex mirrors, positioned as below.

in_content.jpg


in_content.jpg


But nobody except the driver can say what they did or didn't see in any of their mirrors..
Click to expand...
None of those mirrors will show the car crossing the dividing section on the slip road nor will they show the car appear in front of the truck. The mirror on the front of the can was obviously not on this particular lorry or else it would have been visible in the camera footage.
 
Why not ask Bernie, he knows everything about everything.

The sort of guy that makes NARPO meetings as dull as bloody dishwater.
 
Interesting, just watched the vid again
At 8s in the car looks very much like it is passing the lorry at a good pace and if it maintained speed would make the gap.
At 10s it is clear the car backed off on the power too much.
At 13 the car made contact with the truck after crossing the line.

I have questions for those who know what driving an artic is like.

1. If you ease off the throttle a little at about 50mph how long does it take for you to start seeing a significant change in speed?
2. Would that change in speed be enough to significantly widen the gap in approximately 5 (maybe 7 or 8) seconds to avoid this incident
3. How often do you see drivers slipping into small gaps on slips?

I mention 5-7 seconds. If you consider that the time from when the car reduced speed to actual impact we are talking nearer 3 seconds.

How anyone could be suggesting that the lorry driver is in any way responsible for what happened here is beyond me. He may not have reacted to the car - he may have eased off the pedal - we simply do not know. But he is not at fault.

The car driver on the other hand slowed down to a speed lower than the motorway traffic just prior to crossing the line onto a motorway. They stuffed it up and as a result made contact with a lorry.
 
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As I see it, regardless of what we all do and don't think, it's irrelevant. Given the absolute terror the person/people in the car must have suffered, HAD the lorry driver been to blame, I think it's fair to say the Cars insurers would have done a damn sight better and got a claim against the haulage company even with the video footage. They didn't, car drivers fault, repair the damage, get some motorway driving lessons, move on.
 
RichardtheSane said:
Interesting, just watched the vid again
At 8s in the car looks very much like it is passing the lorry at a good pace and if it maintained speed would make the gap.
At 10s it is clear the car backed off on the power too much.
At 13 the car made contact with the truck after crossing the line.

I have questions for those who know what driving an artic is like.

1. If you ease off the throttle a little at about 50mph how long does it take for you to start seeing a significant change in speed?
2. Would that change in speed be enough to significantly widen the gap in approximately 5 (maybe 7 or 8) seconds to avoid this incident
3. How often do you see drivers slipping into small gaps on slips?

I mention 5-7 seconds. If you consider that the time from when the car reduced speed to actual impact we are talking nearer 3 seconds.

How anyone could be suggesting that the lorry driver is in any way responsible for what happened here is beyond me. He may not have reacted to the car - he may have eased off the pedal - we simply do not know. But he is not at fault.

The car driver on the other hand slowed down to a speed lower than the motorway traffic just prior to crossing the line onto a motorway. They stuffed it up and as a result made contact with a lorry.
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You must be seeing something different to me. The car drivers approach is too slow, he has failed to judge the gap completely. His lack of speed is the cause of that collision. The lorry driver maintains a consistent speed. The commentary states that "both vehicles were doing 50" When two converging vehicles approach each other at the same speed there is only ever going to be one outcome - a collision. It's basic physics.
 
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Yv said:
As I see it, regardless of what we all do and don't think, it's irrelevant. Given the absolute terror the person/people in the car must have suffered, HAD the lorry driver been to blame, I think it's fair to say the Cars insurers would have done a damn sight better and got a claim against the haulage company even with the video footage. They didn't, car drivers fault, repair the damage, get some motorway driving lessons, move on.
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You don't think for that criminal display of driving from the Honda driver they shouldn't get done for dangerous driving. It's an appalling bit of driving.
 
ST4 said:
You don't think for that criminal display of driving from the Honda driver they shouldn't get done for dangerous driving. It's an appalling bit of driving.
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I agree with you in this case, the car driver clearly caused the collision by not driving at the appropriate speed for the conditions.
 
But as they say, LGV's are slower to react...well why was it so close to the lorry in front, slip streaming perhaps :)
 
Blank_Canvas said:
You must be seeing something different to me. The car drivers approach is too slow, he has failed to judge the gap completely. His lack of speed is the cause of that collision. The lorry driver maintains a consistent speed. The commentary states that "both vehicles were doing 50" When two converging vehicles approach each other at the same speed there is only ever going to be one outcome - a collision. It's basic physics.
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Look again. Initially the car driver was coming past the lorry, so was clearly going quicker - but slowed down at the timings I mentioned. Do you not see that?

There is no question the lack of speed is the cause of the collision, however the car slowed down shortly before crossing the line.
 
This tickled me, the comment on the BBC Article
The footage was used by the haulage company to prove that the driver was not to blame for the collision.
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Well, how about leaving a safe distance between himself and the lorry in front? That wasn't a safe distance. It was a dangerous distance that I see day in and day out by all motorists (Not just HGV drivers, although they should know better).
Yes, it is the responsibility of the joining vehicle to match the speed and flow of the traffic that he is joining. Even still, when you've nowhere to go and your lane is running out.....
I'm not advocating that the car driver is blameless at all, and I see that what the lorry driver did in coming to a slow controlled stop was commendable.

That said, I wonder what was behind the lorry? Why did the car not pull in behind? Why did he choose to try and squeeze infront of it?

PaulF said:
.....those slip roads are quite long and they could easily of hung back a bit and filtered into traffic correctly.
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Not necessarily. Now I'm not familiar with all the junctions on the M25 (Only driven on it once!), there's a few junctions I know of that have dangerously short slip roads.
There's one up here from the M62 Westbound joining the M60 clockwise. As soon as you round the bend and hit the sliproad, it's almost run out, you get approx. 1 or 2 seconds of visibility in your offside mirror before you have to join. Bloody dangerous.
Not saying that's the case here, but I'm just saying they're not all sufficiently long to make an informed choice.

PS. I'm an ex-bus driver, so I usually err on the side of the large vehicle driver, knowing full well what they have to contend with.
 
Cobra said:
Admittedly its been rather a long time since I hauled 44 tones and 50 feet up the motorway,
But a couple of things occur to me, had that driver braked, hard at the point of impact
the weight shift would have dipped the nose sufficiently, to have flipped the car over as it nose rose again.
Had the lorry driver "dived" for the next lane out , they can't nip out you know, not like a car, they are a tad longer
the car would have most likely hit the side bars of the trailer and most likely spun,
I assume side bars had fitted,
if not the car would have ended up under the trailer and rear wheels.
Neither of those two scenario's bare thinking about.
Click to expand...

Thanks for explaining that :thumbs:
I saw the posts mentioning him slowing down and that the fact he didn't anchor up was a good thing, but I didn't actually understand what would happen if they had (and why).
 
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