Awful smash on the e25 on wednesday am, thick fog so was trucking down from dunkirk(english spelling). Got as far as the services near gate13 stopped. Drat needed to be in henin beaumont for 2pm this was at eleven. Ah well not a problem i thought, 2hr later we moved passing the debris of what i can only say was a white lorry.Poor sole must be dead. The problem is the french what ever the conditions just wont drive slower, so we carried on only to be taken off at 13,and that was it back roads all the way to lille, everytime i tried to get back on mway police said no. So at 5pm i arrived at my collection got loaded fellas where ok no problem. Deliverd mcburneys liverpool yeaterday and there was another brit there he asked if i was caught in the accident apparently there was 7 different accidents hence m`way being shut.
7 - i beg to differ, i was caught up in it too, i was well past the services by 2 junctions. there was an accident right in front of me involving at least 20 cars and 5 trucks, i sat for 2 hours looking at cars that had not long passed me but now they were unfit for driving.
behind me was another brit who i was talking to on the cb, he was at least half a click behind me and he was stuck behind another accident, there was another brit came on who was involved in an accident who was further back, a truck had shunted him up the rear, another truck had jacknifed at the side of him, catching his front bumper and he was sitting in his cab talking to us and listening to the crashing sounds of other vehicles hitting each other.
when i eventually got moving i squeezed past the accident in front of me on the hard shoulder, as soon as i was past the cars behind pulled out and started overtaking only to be met be a very angry gendarme at another accident where they had to get back on the hard shoulder, we squeezed by that and then had to go into the outside lane past yet another, then back to the hards shoulder past yet another accident - more cars and trucks entwined together, then out onto the outside lane again as i passed what was left of some sort of medium sized van with the front end sitting in the loading compartment and all of the right side ripped away, onward past a couple of cars a little further up and then off the motorway and around via the national to the next junction which was open lille bound but they were taking stragglers off it dunkerque bound, the same at the next junction and the junction after that was closed too but this had about 6 k of traffic queuing through lille ring road.
once past lille the fog had lifted.
whilst driving along i had at least 5 cars pass me with no lights on whatsoever, is it any wonder they end up like this?
there were dozens of cars travelling in excess of 100kph.
one car came past me on the back of a recovery truck whilst i was waiting, it was a little citroen saxo medical car (smur) and there was hardly anything to look at, one side was completely crushed, it looked like it had been in a stunt show.
the last time i saw wreckage like this was about 15 years ago on the tangenziale around milan, thick fog and drivers hurtling along like it’s a summers day, there was a few lucky ones that managed to squeeze through the wreckage by sheer luck but only the first few cars, the rest just piled into the already crashed cars and all i remember hearing was crunch after crunch after crunch behind me as cars piled into each other, i was lucky there too, right at the front and no damage.
Sounds damned scary, Johnny