albion1971:
As a professional driver for over 30 years it is blatantly obvious why there are so many accidents involving LGVs.
Far to many do not know how to keep a safe distance or if they do they choose not to bother.It used to be the odd truck driver followed too close but now it is the odd one that keeps a safe distance.Too many drivers are just accidents waiting to happen.Is it ignorance or arrogance or do they think it will never happen to them?
But no surprise the authorities are selective in looking at all the reasons for the cause of the issues where they don’t suit the political agenda.
I think I made my point quite well, the pic posted is pretty much an average day on most autoroutes in France. The usual city jams on ring roads but outside cities I’ve almost never been stuck in a jam on a French motorway, and I have driven quite a lot in France. Like I said, same amount of people in twice the space, just a fact of physics really coupled with the fact they are mostly tolled keeping local motorists to other roads so no junction hoppers.
albion1971:
Definately agree with one and two but not three and four.
Yes some foreign trucks are involved in accidents but most are Uk vehicles.
Regarding the police I think they have a very difficult time.
So what does that tell us…? I think compared to other ‘Johnny foreigners’ the standard of driving in the UK is pretty poor & I think it’s partly down to the cocky/know-it-all attitude Brits exhibit (that’s why they never win anything in sport) & general lack of driving skill…
The police here are muppets & if you’re a muppet then life generally tends to be difficult for you!!!:twisted:
Johnny Foreigner can be relied upon to whizz past you in the roadworks, crawl past you in the middle lane on the open motorway, insisting one drops a couple of notches to let him past (which I do, for the sake of other road users!) and of course they are invariably in “nodding dog” state when driving, and hogging all the laybys when not.
Can’t say I’ve ever seen a group of foreign drivers having a meal/tea/laugh & joke when parked up. They all keep themselves to themselves, not speaking each other’s languages in many cases.
Note you don’t see a lot of German & Scandinavian drivers compared to eastern European as well. It’s all about “how low can you get away with paying these people” alas.
Plod/Vosa don’t just shut the motorway for “fatals” btw.
You could get a lot of death off the roads if you charged every vehicle a road tax that is a paradigm of (value of vehicle divided by driver’s wages of person driving) If you’re not paid as a driver, your wages count as “1” of course. It’s gotta be fair that an investment banker driving a Bentley pays an arm and a leg to ‘get in the way’ on the M25 all morning when he can take the chopper, river boat, Saturn V rocket, or whatever on his wages…
Thus, British Hauliers right now would get a discount, foreign drivers less so, and private flash cars end up copping most of the charges, bearing in mind I observe that every private car involved in a smash-up is of considerably higher value than mine…
THEN there’s the E reg first-time around fairground lorries with big steering wheels and crash boxes still… How TF do they get MOTs if it’s not having some “unkel” who writes them out when required, him owning the scrapyard & MOT business and all…
Why do we automatically assume that because trucks are involved in X amount of accident that its somehow the trucks fault by default? When you have the congestion that you do in the UK and the ever worsening driving standards which probably arise from a whole host of reasons its not surprising that the outcome is increasing accidents. Many of the accidents could just as easily be caused by a car cutting a truck up at the last minute, or undertaking and being in the trucks blind spot etc. At sea, idiots in yachts or rubber dinghies who cause havoc by getting in the way of merchant shipping are prosecuted for unsafe navigation, yet on dry land it always seems to be the trucks responsibility to account for and avoid accident that are often caused by idiots in cars who themselves choose to act dangerously around large, ■■■■■■■■■■ vehicles which much poorer visibility.
I suppose it all boils down to the fact that it must be the truck drivers fault 100% of the time because if freight was carried by rail and narrow boat then dangerous juggernauts would not be on the road in the first place.
I do have one thing to say against road transport though, and thats that each time I visit the UK it seems that more and more trucks are being driven by what can only be described as a car driver, with a car drivers mentality who also happens to have somehow obtained a class 1 licence but failed to adjust their driving from that of a VW Golf or similar. Perhaps I’m just imagining things.
Winseer:
Can’t say I’ve ever seen a group of foreign drivers having a meal/tea/laugh & joke when parked up. They all keep themselves to themselves, not speaking each other’s languages in many cases.
Are you serious? Where have you been for the past 20 years?!?! Eastern Europeans in particular are often found parked together, trailer box open, food cooking and an all round good time had. I’ve often had the misfortune of being parked near to them on an evening and having to tell them to shut the F up because they’re making too noise. Of course they park with their own nationality, but then that would no different to if you went to Italy. You’re not going to flock to the Latvians or Portuguese and have a bonding session purely because you’re both foreign to Italy.
The cause is simple, complete failure to drive according to conditions
No matter how much traffic is on the road the conditions remain the same for lorry drivers. I.E. their vehicles are all limited to within a few KMs of each other, so they end up bunched together. On open traffic free roads it doesn’t cause so much of a problem, but when it is busy…BANG
It happens in every country in Europe, when it is busy there are lorries embedded into other lorries day in, day out
This isn’t unique to the UK either. Way before speed limiters the German Police had those boxes painted on the road surface, two lorries in the box and the second one was getting nicked. It’s no coincidence that everyone was doing the same speed as the then 80km/h limit was vigorously enforced.
A nicely spread out line of lorries bunched up at the first hill and stayed that way until the green and white car was spotted.
The whole box thing was put into practice to put a stop to tailgating.
I first came across this in the mid 80s, so tailgating as a cause of accidents is nothing new, it just seems that way because of the social media highlighting it all over our phones etc.
That said, some drivers do appear to have a death wish, with all the photos plastered all over the internet, they still drive right up the arse of the lorry in front, it isn’t caused by JIT, speed limiters, traffic density or anything else, it is caused by reckless stupidity and nothing else. HTH
And whats up with the particular section of the M25 on the North side - around Potters Bar? It is now little more than a daily occurence for a HGV to have come unstuck there. Iv done that stretch whilst the roadworks have been on, and it was a tedium, but an accident waiting to happen - I didnt think so. I know that it may have been fatal, but when an accident does occur, shutting the road seems the easiest option to take. I passed a smash just south of Rouen, on Wednesday. The truck had left the road, gone down a ditch and overturned. I ll assume it was fatal, as the cab was covered. The gendarm was there, as was a wrecker, a crane lifting the pallets off the crashed truck,an artic taking the pallets, a fire engine and several white cars and vans ( presume ministry?). They had only one lane closed with a go-slow regime in place for traffic management purposes.
lightning:
And whats up with the particular section of the M25 on the North side - around Potters Bar? It is now little more than a daily occurence for a HGV to have come unstuck there. Iv done that stretch whilst the roadworks have been on, and it was a tedium, but an accident waiting to happen - I didnt think so. I know that it may have been fatal, but when an accident does occur, shutting the road seems the easiest option to take. I passed a smash just south of Rouen, on Wednesday. The truck had left the road, gone down a ditch and overturned. I ll assume it was fatal, as the cab was covered. The gendarm was there, as was a wrecker, a crane lifting the pallets off the crashed truck,an artic taking the pallets, a fire engine and several white cars and vans ( presume ministry?). They had only one lane closed with a go-slow regime in place for traffic management purposes.
Another day of Chaos today, M25 again,
I do feel sorry for people who are killed or seriously injured,
but I also feel that when they close off the road for whole days, the traffic starts finding other routes & then there are more accidents caused by the chaos
Today the A14 was a nightmare, big queue to get on it - then the inevitable accident.
I got caught up in a tight squeeze through Welford, as we all tried to get round Cathorpe.
Oh and on the way up - got cut up by some twit in a Black T cab Scanny
He did not want to wait in the queue with the rest of us, he went up the outside lane (for M1 North)
Got to the front as I did, Went around me nearly taking my mirrors off, then cut in & went up the M6
lightning:
And whats up with the particular section of the M25 on the North side - around Potters Bar? It is now little more than a daily occurence for a HGV to have come unstuck there. Iv done that stretch whilst the roadworks have been on, and it was a tedium, but an accident waiting to happen - I didnt think so. I know that it may have been fatal, but when an accident does occur, shutting the road seems the easiest option to take. I passed a smash just south of Rouen, on Wednesday. The truck had left the road, gone down a ditch and overturned. I ll assume it was fatal, as the cab was covered. The gendarm was there, as was a wrecker, a crane lifting the pallets off the crashed truck,an artic taking the pallets, a fire engine and several white cars and vans ( presume ministry?). They had only one lane closed with a go-slow regime in place for traffic management purposes.
Another day of Chaos today, M25 again,
I do feel sorry for people who are killed or seriously injured,
but I also feel that when they close off the road for whole days, the traffic starts finding other routes & then there are more accidents caused by the chaos
Today the A14 was a nightmare, big queue to get on it - then the inevitable accident.
If the above black scanny was towing a skelly, then one of ours had a run in with him a few weeks back.
I got caught up in a tight squeeze through Welford, as we all tried to get round Cathorpe.
Oh and on the way up - got cut up by some twit in a Black T cab Scanny
He did not want to wait in the queue with the rest of us, he went up the outside lane (for M1 North)
Got to the front as I did, Went around me nearly taking my mirrors off, then cut in & went up the M6
Police & Plastic Police (Traffic Officers) making a drama out of a crisis
They seem to love putting out 7,000 cones for a tyre change, or closing a road all day causing chaos, when they could just clear it up & get the traffic moving again
Definately agree with one and two but not three and four.
Yes some foreign trucks are involved in accidents but most are Uk vehicles.
Regarding the police I think they have a very difficult time.Safety has to come first.If they do not act properly and soneone is killed or injured they will be responsible so they do not take any chances.Would you?
When they shut the road for hours instead of letting traffic flow again it is usually a fatal which needs to properly investigated.
Well regarding point 3 - On the way back down the M1 yesterday there was Johnny Foreigner on the hard shoulder just by J 12, having just taken out 5 cars - all standing around waiting to be rescued,
3 were on the hard shoulder, and 2 were still between lanes 2 & 3 wrecked, whilst the traffic was weaving around them.
As for point 4, I am all for safety and well being, but I also think a bit more common sense should prevail. Only last year, I was on M6 between J1 & J2, we all know the bit - where hard shoulder widens out - looks like there was going to be a off slip that never got completed.
Well, just past there is another wide bit - like there should be an on slip.
Well there was a car there with a flat tyre - a good 30 feet from the Motorway, the guy had it jacked up, changing his wheel - there were 2 plastic plods there - standing there arms folded in their immaculate Hi-Viz jackets watching him - Land Rover Discos lit up like a funfair, and the ■■■■■ had coned off lanes 1 & 2 for about half a mile and everything was having to merge into Lane 3,
That’s what I call making a Drama, Tha Hazard was nowhere near the motorway
It’s gotta be fair that an investment banker driving a Bentley pays an arm and a leg to ‘get in the way’ on the M25 all morning when he can take the chopper, river boat, Saturn V rocket, or whatever on 
