Car driver should have got a move on with their manoeuvre instead of easing off.
Truck driver should have anticipated the merging car and either backed off or changed lanes.
It’s the selfish attitude amongst all drivers that causes this.
Hopefully both drivers learnt a valuable lesson.
Obviously the car driver can pull out, safe in the knowledge that in the impending carnage, if he/she survives, he/she can put half the blame on the truck driver.
Suspect the car driver has pulled this off a number of times before but the trucks have always given way.
What would have happened had it been another truck and not a car merging?
Isn’t it good manners to give way? Don’t trucks expect everyone to give way to them? Oh I forgot, they force their way in regardless.
Or as I said what would have happened in the event of the truck in front needing to make an emergency stop considering the speration distance shown in the video before the car was even involved.
billybigrig:
Sure the car driver was ultimately and legally responsible but the lorry driver could have done a lot to prevent that accident. Better to be the “bigger man” so to speak than trash your wagon and deal with the paperwork and aftermath. We’re supposed to be the professionals here after all
Common sense at last!
Clearly none of your fellow drivers are professionals or want to be the “bigger man” (waist size excluded).
Rather than prevent an accident, they’d rather cause one to teach the car driving prat a lesson. Pathetic and sadly not uncommon.
I think you must have missed my comments.
Yes, you’re right. I’m still wading through the crap and missed your posts.
Simon:
Where do you get “so called priority” from Carryfast?
The Law is perfectly clear, it states that traffic on the road being merged with has priority, there is nothing “so called” about it.
Fair enough. I shan’t bother making room for HGV’s that are merging. After all, I have priority.
I guess I should expect to be forced out of the way, and get the full red faced jumping up and down light flashing horn blasting heart attack waiting to happen reaction? But hey, I have priority!!
In France, when you take a cat C or C+E driving test, one of the possible subjects (which you have to know) is about anticipation. To anticipate well you need to predict trouble and to predict trouble, you need to look ahead.
Secondly, when you do your FIMO (the DCPC) you are taught that we are the professionals and it is up to us to try to prevent accidents, by anticipation amongst other things.
Finally on the autoroute radio (normally FM 107.7), there are numerous articles about road safety, and it is often mentioned how HGV drivers reduce accidents by their actions in making up for the foolish actions of car drivers, that otherwise would have much worse consequences.
So on all these counts the HGV driver in the video was IMHO equally to blame, yes the car driver misjudged it, but the HGV driver could almost certainly have avoided the accident, possibly just by easing off the juice.
FarnboroughBoy11:
But how man times do you see a car in lane 1 and a car on a slip road both break simultaneously and ending up at about 20 mph. Fact is motorway traffic has priority and no matter how you try and butter it up, it’s down to the vehicle merging from a slip road to join safely… No one else on the live carriage way should have to bat an eye lid.
I wouldn’t like to bet on it in a case such as this one bearing in mind the seperation distance between the trucks which the car trying to merge got caught up in the middle of.Which still leaves the question of wether you’d take the same view if it was a truck in a similar situation that the car was in,of which I’ve seen plenty of times in my time and luckily for all concerned had made allowances for accordingly.Although the option of not batting an eyelid was always there.It’s my bet in that case that most of those truck drivers who wouldn’t bat an eye lid and who’d put a car into the same situation as in this case wouldn’t do the same thing if it was a truck instead.Unless they’ve got suicidal tendencies. In which case it all then becomes a case of double standards and bullying concerning car drivers because the results would obviously be a lot different in the case of the vehicle entering from the slip road being a truck.
In my experience this hardly ever happens with a truck instead of a car because of the simple fact that a truck driver forward plans and reads the speed and traffic flow far better than an idiot car driver who gets the end of the slip road then actually brakes when he/she realises she has just drove blindly into a developing hazard.
And anyway, sometimes this does happen with other trucks, for example jct 22 northbound on the M1, massive uphill climb and when there is a truck wanting to enter the carriage way if we end up side by side before the end of the slip then he will have to ease off and tuck in behind.
And the same goes when I want to enter a motorway, I don’t expect anyone to adjust for me because its my prerogative to adjust to the carriageway.
FarnboroughBoy11:
But how man times do you see a car in lane 1 and a car on a slip road both break simultaneously and ending up at about 20 mph. Fact is motorway traffic has priority and no matter how you try and butter it up, it’s down to the vehicle merging from a slip road to join safely… No one else on the live carriage way should have to bat an eye lid.
I wouldn’t like to bet on it in a case such as this one bearing in mind the seperation distance between the trucks which the car trying to merge got caught up in the middle of.Which still leaves the question of wether you’d take the same view if it was a truck in a similar situation that the car was in,of which I’ve seen plenty of times in my time and luckily for all concerned had made allowances for accordingly.Although the option of not batting an eyelid was always there.It’s my bet in that case that most of those truck drivers who wouldn’t bat an eye lid and who’d put a car into the same situation as in this case wouldn’t do the same thing if it was a truck instead.Unless they’ve got suicidal tendencies. In which case it all then becomes a case of double standards and bullying concerning car drivers because the results would obviously be a lot different in the case of the vehicle entering from the slip road being a truck.
In my experience this hardly ever happens with a truck instead of a car because of the simple fact that a truck driver forward plans and reads the speed and traffic flow far better than an idiot car driver who gets the end of the slip road then actually brakes when he/she realises she has just drove blindly into a developing hazard.
And anyway, sometimes this does happen with other trucks, for example jct 22 northbound on the M1, massive uphill climb and when there is a truck wanting to enter the carriage way if we end up side by side before the end of the slip then he will have to ease off and tuck in behind.
And the same goes when I want to enter a motorway, I don’t expect anyone to adjust for me because its my prerogative to adjust to the carriageway.
I’m not saying anything about side by side traffic ( the car didn’t hit the truck in a side by side type collision ).My argument is one of it all being about anticipation on the ‘approach’ to an entry slip road in which case it’s not rocket science to work out that traffic merging from the slip road will need the ‘space’ to merge safely ‘between’ the vehicles on the road being entered.
In this case it’s obvious that the truck driver in question was not only tail gating the truck ahead,to the point of not being able to stop in the event of the truck ahead needing to make an emergency stop,but the same lack of seperation distance also caused the accident in which merging traffic ( car ) was left with no space between the vehicles to merge safely.
The accident in question was inevitable from the start of the video ( at least from 0.04 and before that ),long before the car actually collided with the truck,in large part caused by the tail gating shown on the video from that point on and the total lack of anticipation shown by the truck driver on approach to the entry slip road.Priority in that case means zb especially as I’ve said if the truck driver hadn’t have been so lucky in that firstly the truck ahead had needed to make an emergency stop for whatever reason and secondly if the car’s wheels had ‘dug in’ as it was being pushed sideways and then rolled.
But exactly what do you mean by ‘adjusting to the carriageway’ from an entry slip road assuming that ‘carriageway’ is full of tailgating tossers.
Secondly, when you do your FIMO (the DCPC) you are taught that we are the professionals and it is up to us to try to prevent accidents, by anticipation amongst other things.
Finally on the autoroute radio (normally FM 107.7), there are numerous articles about road safety, and it is often mentioned how HGV drivers reduce accidents by their actions in making up for the foolish actions of car drivers, that otherwise would have much worse consequences.
So on all these counts the HGV driver in the video was IMHO equally to blame, yes the car driver misjudged it, but the HGV driver could almost certainly have avoided the accident, possibly just by easing off the juice.
I think that’s a reasonable view of the difference between the continental attitudes in regards to driving anything not just trucks.Such as in Germany on unlimited stretches of autobahn where it’s ok to drive at 150 mph + but it’s no good just relying on ‘having the priority’ at those types of speeds on the approach to entry slip roads etc etc in just the same way as when driving anything here.
commonrail:
so why didnt the car back off and drop in behind....thats what i`d have done.
2 stubborn drivers not willing to concede
yeah but there was only ever gonna be one loser here.
you see its all about defensive driving(especially when you are a more vunerable road user)....it makes no diference who is in the right or wrong when youre dead
commonrail:
so why didnt the car back off and drop in behind....thats what i`d have done.
2 stubborn drivers not willing to concede
yeah but there was only ever gonna be one loser here.
you see its all about defensive driving(especially when you are a more vunerable road user)....it makes no diference who is in the right or wrong when youre dead
If the truck in front had needed to make an emergency stop for whatever reason from the start of the video on the truck driver in question would have become the more ‘vulnerable road user’ very quickly considering the seperation distance shown regardless of what the car driver eventually did.Strange how so many truck drivers seem to be a bit selective concerning the issue of seperation distances ( tailgating ) which is ultimately more like the main contributor to the accident in question.
Carryfast is right about hgv drivers and separation distance. How many of the nasty and often fatal accidents posted on here stem from trucks tailgating each other on the motorway.
Yes we get the but maybe this that and the other might have caused it but 99% of them are caused by driving to close to one another.
People can blame speed limiters but the fact is they have been with us for a good 15 years now and it’s not going to change but the mentality with to many is on the limiter switch on cruise and just sit there wether there’s a 3 foot gap or 300 foot gap.
i agree…but in this case,i think we have 2 totally different levels of bad driving.
yes,the truck driver is a ■■■■…but the car driver is in a different legaue altogether
kr79:
the mentality with to many is on the limiter switch on cruise and just sit there wether there’s a 3 foot gap or 300 foot gap.
^ This.
But obviously they think that having ‘the priority’ at slip roads gives them carte blanche to do whatever they want.Until the day when that type of accident shown on the video results in a crushed rolled car full of occupants that then goes up in flames and the driver in question then shows the law that type of video showing that type of seperation distance and anticipation leading up the accident and then expects to be cleared of all responsibility because the road had the ‘priority’.
I agree and it’s a big thing I’ve noticed over here no one either on the motorway or slip road speeds up or backs off to merge in the traffic flow.
I always try to move in to lane two if someone’s coming down the slip but its obviously not always fees able to do. At first I’d back off so the vehicle in the slip could merge but the don’t and will come to a halt rather than merge which was something I rarely found back in England
