mikewhi:
“I bet you can safely assume every MATRIX Board on the 6 was telling you what was going on . I know the ones on the 5 did”
No good if you can’t speak english.
Then I suppose all the flashing signs should have made some sense…
As in danger …
The language of flashing lights on any motorway in any part of the world should mean the same to anyone…
Even the ones in the central reservation posting a reccomended speed.
In reply to this, How many of you have seen part of the matrix with the RED X showing…AND STILL people are driving up that lane
Happens all the time on the Dartford bridge, just cos some bozo wants to gain a few spaces (Even truck drivers do it English and foreign )
Terrible tragedy, apparently one of the dead was a big name in Wakefield for playing rugby league and one was a small child. Its wrong to speculate but with the number of CCTV cameras around these days hopefully the situation will be resolved fairly to all concerned.
Whilst on this topic, truckers are getting some fearful clog on here; timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u … 983370.ece . Its mainly in the ’ your comments’ section at the bottom.
The usual well-informed stuff - keep us all in lane 1, we think we own the road, truckers are bullies, they should put all the European freight on the railways.
Thank you Smart Mart I know what the law is here, but as you have read the posting you would have noticed that I did put “Spain and possibly other countries”. I have just googled the information and found that in Spain “It is expected and legal that in the event of traffic suddenly slowing you will use hazard warning lights to indicate the hazard to following drivers”.
Just making the point that it would seem to be a good idea, not asking anyone to break the law here. Info found on Eurolegal.com (driving in Spain).
Big Jase:
the point I was trying to make is here we have a mulitple fatal caused by ■■? so lets try and prevent another one by either shaming or making aware that taking pics, resetting sat nav or whatever you do while driving a killing machine is a NO NO then we might be able to prevent this happening again.
Apologies for going off topic.
FFS get off your high horse, we all understand the point your making but this is not the thread for it, start a new one.
Ooh hard nut. im not on my high horse. Got the point thanks. Of course im the only one who has ever gone off topic arent I.
Big Jase:
I can only hope the ones who take pics, vids and talk on the phones gets whats coming to you.
I agree 100% - driving requires 100% concentration. The problem is these idiots may eventually get what’s coming to them, but as this case has shown they usually take the innocent with them.
Reading the posts above kind of worries me. Yes there does seem to be many accidents on this stretch of the M6 - I just can’t understand how this can be because ‘the road’ is dangerous, or because of the M6 toll - it’s a motorway, one of our safest roads.
‘Accidents’ happen because someone is not concentrating - not always the person involved in the crash, but that’s the reason. If all driver of every type of vehicle were to concentrate on their driving there wouldn’t be posts like this one.
It is almost 24 hours since this tragedy occurred. A family has been wiped out. An HGV driver is in custody. Another person is dead in an accident which led to this one happening.Some people on this thread have made personal comments about each other. Off topic Insults have been bandied about. Is it not time that the dead were allowed to rest in peace; and that this topic be, as they say in the print industry,“Put to bed”?
a very sad day indeed, my sympathies to all concerned.
On the point of the matrix signs it’ll help if they was relevant to what is actually going on. The other day i passed a truck that’d had a blow out, bits of rubber everywhere. For the next 10 miles the matrix’s said “slow debris in the road”
jammymutt:
ITs not the best bit of road in the country and they will never improve it so we just have to live with these events when they happen.
I have driven that strech many times since starting my driving career so I know what it is like but tell me this you see a bank of red lights ahead of you would you notice it■■? At the helm of a vehicle weighing more than 14tons and traveling at 55mph I hope you would.
and as for the above quotes why should we have to live with it■■? it shouldn’t happen especially a lorry driver suspected of being the root cause. Every week we hear about another accident involving foreign drivers, I have even witnessed myself a foreign driver trying to park in a space already occupied by an artic in swindon truckstop, but as has been said many times before its not just foreigners there are bad apples within the british driving circle too. But its all well and good for me to winge and its all well and good for the older drivers to say how good it used to be, because no one has the balls to rat on poor or dangerous drivers and the police wont do anything about foreign drivers with windows covered in banners and laptop screens driving way over their hours with as much training as I have had on piloting commercial aircraft. I am sorry for this rant but this has just really sickened me.
It’s terrible what has happened. A family that takes the time to spend time together which dosn’t seem to be the norm these days, and end up dead.
Unless i’ve missed something the driver who was arrested was Portugese not Spanish.
But more importantly he has been arrested on SUSPITION of causeing death by dangerous driving. He has not been charged with any offence, He is a driver in a foreign land, How would you feel if it was you in a spanish or potugese jail.
Lets face it, The police are bound to arrest the foreigner, If they don’t it could be a right pain and a lot of paperwork to get him back here for questioning.
There have been a lot of comments in the past about hgv drivers being hated by car drivers. Some of you want listen to yourselves. Bloody good job justice isn’t left up to some of you lot, He’d have been hung, drawn, quartered, tarred and feathered by now.
Total tragedy thoughts go out to all concerned. In quite a short window of time there were three seperate accidents and seven people lost their lives, one being what seems to be an entire family. A guy was shouting over the CB this morning in his words “another Johny foreigner causing carnage” but as i pointed out to him without knowing all the facts you simply can’t speculate like that. Let the accident investigation people answer the questions? I understand the media putting their focus on the two fatal accidents but what about the driver involved in the third bump by Keele services, all i’ve heard is the driver had to have his right leg amputated, but there’s been no further mention on his condition?
I think the rants about foreign drivers are justified
Information from the DFT website and from a survey by Liverpool Victoria shows that in 2006 there were just over 2000 accidents resulting in injury involving a HGV with 1366 of those being foreign lorries.
And 31% of foreign lorries failed a VOSA spotcheck in the past 5 years compared to 25% or British lorries.
Why didn’t HATO or the police shift those news people from the bridge, the rubber neckers caused huge tailbacks and there could have been more accidents.
DABenji:
I think the rants about foreign drivers are justified
Information from the DFT website and from a survey by Liverpool Victoria shows that in 2006 there were just over 2000 accidents resulting in injury involving a HGV with 1366 of those being foreign lorries.
And 31% of foreign lorries failed a VOSA spotcheck in the past 5 years compared to 25% or British lorries.
i prefer more up to date data
The UK government has begun its biggestever clamp down on unsafe lorries after a roadside campaign found 52% of vehicles targeted were operating illegally.
The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (Vosa) carried out spot-checks as part of Operation Boston at 97 locations around the UK between 1 and 5 October.
The agency issued 1,889 prohibition notices, targeting operators that scored badly on its operator compliance risk score (OCRS) system that assesses the past record of transport operators.
Inspectors seized unsafe trucks and prevented drivers from continuing if they were found to be breaking working hours regulations.
Vosa CEO Stephen Tetlow said: “Our officers dealt with a staggering 3,628 vehicles and prevented a lot of accidents waiting to happen. The number of offences was unacceptable.”
Of the 3,628 vehicles stopped, 2,273 (63%) were foreign-registered and 1,206 were breaking the law. Out of the 1,355 UKregistered trucks, 683 were breaking the law.
i’m no mathematician but i make that about 53% of foreigners breaking the law and 51% of uk registered, i’d say that means there’s very little difference between the two
My my ,the self righteous,do nothing wrong EVER have come to the fore yet again,get over yourselves FFS,it was a tragic accident that happened BANG quick as a flash,nobody upto the final seconds of impact was aware of what was gonna happen it was just a normal Monday night…nobody plans these things they just happen…I bet some of you were loving the fact that he was foreign,so you could throw the’watching a film on his laptop’accusation around (yawn).
thing is…not many of you are any better than the foreign drivers,you like to think you are,calling yourselves professional all the ■■■■■■■ time…,you’re all as bad as each other.
Tobyjug:
Grown men? You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Six people killed, a fellow driver possibly unlikely to see his home again for some years and you lot squabbling like a load of silly teenage girls.
SHAME ON YOU ALL.
Just a quick aside with regard to tobys comment, sorry if it’s a bit immflammatory, but do you as GROWN MEN? think it’s right to abuse the people on the closures, because your sad little journey to deliver the next day has been held up, has your opinion changed now you know the reason for the closure or are you still happy with your conduct.
On every closure i have been on i have had quick banter with drivers, quick detour etc and can’t ever remember any abuse, so why do some truckers (a small minority with small brains continue to do it) it is a last resort to close a motorway, do you think i/we want to risk our bollox doing it on a dark unlit stretch of motorway in the middle of the night running about with cones and then stand in the p***in rain for hours with cars and trucks flying at you ?
Ps we are working on junction to junction diversion routes for every motorway in the country, hope they helped some of you lastt night.
bikemonkey:
My my ,the self righteous,do nothing wrong EVER have come to the fore yet again,get over yourselves FFS,it was a tragic accident that happened BANG quick as a flash,nobody upto the final seconds of impact was aware of what was gonna happen it was just a normal Monday night…nobody plans these things they just happen…I bet some of you were loving the fact that he was foreign,so you could throw the’watching a film on his laptop’accusation around (yawn).
thing is…not many of you are any better than the foreign drivers,you like to think you are,calling yourselves professional all the [zb] time…,you’re all as bad as each other.
my heart goes out to the grieving families.
I’ll second that, BTW does anybody know what actually caused the smash, I mean the real cause? No, I thought not, there’s only one bloke that knows that & he’s in the nick, I agree with all the xenophobic laptop & flag stuff that’s been said & I also think that the driving standards of some nationalities is awful, unfortunately the British are fast becoming one of those countries, with the aggresive driving styles that are favoured by so many nowadays.
Also while we’re on the subject there are plenty on this very site that have a windscreen full of ■■■■ & silly curtains obscuring their side windows, but I suppose that’s ok, you’re British! ■■■■■■■ hypocrites the lot of you…
Everyone who complains about the foreign lorry driver is a hypocrite…everyone who complains at the people complaining at the foreign driver is also a hypocrite. Lets face it, we all have our heads screwed on wrong sometimes, who knows when such a nasty incident is going to happen? No one! So what gives everybody the right to whinge and whine about somebody else?
In saying the above, i’m as guilty as the rest, ive driven whilst texting and eating. Who hasn’t? Its not something i do often, and i dont drive a truck but whats the difference? I think if you/i had hit anything and put a premature end to the person/animal/object…its going to affect you, whether white, black, young or old, spanish, british, french, or from the south pole!
The authorities will find appropriate answers and i hope justice is served…but in the meantime, lets think of the parents who have lost their children and grandchildren, the family who lost their son/father/brother/husband.
I hit a car up the arse in traffic once because I was looking at a bird in a mini skirt at a bustop, what a ■■■■■■, mind you she did have amazing legs! The bloke in the car was ok, the car was finished though & I had to drive around with a mangled front bumper for ages, BUT what if it was a kid that walked out in front of me rather than a car that stopped? Then I would have deserved to go to jail & be condemmed by you lot, as it was it was just a bump.
There but for the grace of God go I.
I know I’m getting biblical, but it does convey the message well.
To be biblical would also include, “also follow the laws of the land”
Accidents happen, whatever the reason…its happened…we cant turn back time. Lets spend some time thanking God we are here to talk(or complain) about it…you just never know whats going to happen in the next five minutes…life is too short to blame everyone and everything…
(Even truck drivers do it English and foreign 
