jakethesnake:
It seems an artic ploughed into the rear of the minibus pushing it 50 yards! What is going on these days? Why does this keep happening?
Maybe the driver had a medical problem but very unusual. Thoughts are with the seriously injured.
Simple answer to your question why it keeps happening. Go down the m6 through the roadworks and look at all the HGVs 2 inches from the one in front with the driver having some delusional idea that he’s making more progress and getting there quicker by driving like that. Why do trucks keep going into the back of other vehicles? That’s the answer.
is driving close to the one in front a new thing though?
I only started driving HGV’s in 2005 but it was the same then from what I can see now…‘limiter races’. It’s just the roads are busier now so more risk of something hasppening… less fun
jakethesnake:
It seems an artic ploughed into the rear of the minibus pushing it 50 yards! What is going on these days? Why does this keep happening?
Maybe the driver had a medical problem but very unusual. Thoughts are with the seriously injured.
Simple answer to your question why it keeps happening. Go down the m6 through the roadworks and look at all the HGVs 2 inches from the one in front with the driver having some delusional idea that he’s making more progress and getting there quicker by driving like that. Why do trucks keep going into the back of other vehicles? That’s the answer.
I am glad someone else realises the problem.Of course the other problem is drivers not paying attention, looking at screens etc or maybe it’s the badly designed roads that cause all these horrendous accidents or that is what some like to believe.
is driving close to the one in front a new thing though?
No, it’s not a new thing but it is far more prevalent than ever before.In the days before limiters it was quite rare to see a truck following dangerously close but now it’s a common sight.
Of course the roads are a lot busier these days but it all boils down to one thing. Self control, something fewer drivers seem to have these days. They simply do not know when to back off.
I’m not saying the system itself caused the accident. That’s not really possible.
What I have noticed is that drivers on here saying that the DAF system is particularly over-sensitive (compared to say the Merc or the Volvo) and they become frustrated with it and switch it off.
I wondered if a) it was installed on this truck, and b) if it was, if it had been switched off.
I realise that it couldn’t avert a crash in all circumstances…for instance if a vehicle swung out of a stationary queue directly into the path of the truck with no space or time for the system to activate.
Sorry if this is morbid, but I’m of the opinion that the only good thing to come out of accidents is to establish the cause (not the same as the blame) and then seek to avoid the same things happening again. This approach has worked very well in British commercial aviation. Just my opinion but I don’t think that an adversarial court where ‘the state’ seeks to pin the blame on ‘the defendant’ is the right setting for learning how accidents were caused and can be avoided.
jakethesnake:
It seems an artic ploughed into the rear of the minibus pushing it 50 yards! What is going on these days? Why does this keep happening?
Maybe the driver had a medical problem but very unusual. Thoughts are with the seriously injured.
I wonder if the truck had AEBS fitted/active?
People have complained about the DAF AEBS being over-sensitive.
You really think that may have caused this accident?
Maybe it was faulty or the driver just rellies on it to much doesn’t concentrate fully on the road.
In a previous job I drive a Euro 6 daf XF. I always turned off my aebs as it was always giving false alarms and slamming on the brakes. Scared by hell out of me first time it happened. Reacted to street furniture as I went round a sharp bend. Also used to react to some bridges as well.
jakethesnake:
is driving close to the one in front a new thing though?
No, it’s not a new thing but it is far more prevalent than ever before.In the days before limiters it was quite rare to see a truck following dangerously close but now it’s a common sight.
Of course the roads are a lot busier these days but it all boils down to one thing. Self control, something fewer drivers seem to have these days. They simply do not know when to back off.
Gas gas
Re the auto breaking system.
They can be over sensitive I was plodding along the M54 with literally nothing within half a mile of me when the system decided to do a full lock on bringing me to an almost stop before realising nothing there and reverting back to standby mode.
I do wonder if some of these accidents are caused by a veh emergency breaking then plodding on but the vehicles behind are involved in an accident.
jakethesnake:
is driving close to the one in front a new thing though?
No, it’s not a new thing but it is far more prevalent than ever before.In the days before limiters it was quite rare to see a truck following dangerously close but now it’s a common sight.
Although just maybe there’s a case that the old school,often in general through necessity of having less braking power at their disposal and constant mesh gear boxes,realised the importance of reading the road ahead relatively better so in many cases would get on the brakes before the vehicle being followed at least in the case of lower height vehicles like cars and vans.
jakethesnake:
It seems an artic ploughed into the rear of the minibus pushing it 50 yards! What is going on these days? Why does this keep happening?
Maybe the driver had a medical problem but very unusual. Thoughts are with the seriously injured.
I wonder if the truck had AEBS fitted/active?
People have complained about the DAF AEBS being over-sensitive.
You really think that may have caused this accident?
Maybe it was faulty or the driver just rellies on it to much doesn’t concentrate fully on the road.
In a previous job I drive a Euro 6 daf XF. I always turned off my aebs as it was always giving false alarms and slamming on the brakes. Scared by hell out of me first time it happened. Reacted to street furniture as I went round a sharp bend. Also used to react to some bridges as well.
Same here, it used to happen every time going north on the A38 just past fradley park. Scared the ■■■■■ out of me the first time…
Saw an old workmate whose fleet had been replaced by Daf CFs with auto braking. He said a gust of leaves blew out in front of him one night and the truck stopped dead… result? shot load.
Just another thought as to why these horrendous accidents keep happening maybe the tachometer laws need to be changed. With more congestion on the roads and work demands what they are in some companies all it takes is to miss out on a couple of hours sleep, and the next thing disaster strikes. Could happen to any one.
Wondering if the driver’s problem has anything to do with the trailer. Looking at the photo it looks like from the back wheels and the state of the crash barriers, there’s something badly wrong somewhere. The trailer is a Hooteboom but rear-steer are usually marked as such, and while the rear wheels are at 45 degrees the front wheels are directly ahead.
The pictures of the front of the lorry show a straight-on impact, so I doubt that the trailer had anything to do with it. It seems pretty straightforward that the minibus slowed down or stopped and the truck didn’t. Why that happened will come out later.
This section of the M4 is a long gap between junctions, and the road weaves about a bit, possibly having lengths where one might have the sun in one’s face…
Tiredness? Dazzled? No Hard Shoulder to pull up on? Too much reliance on gantry warnings, rather than actually watching the road ahead?
With two people sadly losing their lives - I hope the authorities don’t whitewash this whole thing as being “someone’s fault” so no lessons can be learned after all.
This isn’t the first time an artic has rear-ended a minibus, after all.
A lot of problems in these road works is people weaving in and out of lanes and if coming to a quick slow not using hazards. I had one on the m1 this week lane one queing for slip road so I sat in lane 2 next thing woman cuts across from lane 3 into lane 2 slams on as she didnt want to que if I was looking at a mirror at the time I would have been straight into the back of her.
