After a crash in a tunnel close by to me the media have gone on a witch hunt against “Terrorist Truckers”,and you wonder why after this TV crew captured this crash;
ninemsn.video.msn.com/v/en-au/v. … aid=100981
Typical, before me and my missus got together, she was afraid of trucks, why? Well she had a bad experience, but in that video the driver should have seen the Merc, should not have been tailgating that woman and with modern technology should not have taken that long to stop. My tga stops as quick as a mondeo.
Kev
By the sound of that video, they would be better off chasing chefs! As the trucker in it said, there are cowboys in every walk of life!
How many times have you seen the gap ahead that you created, filled by three or more cars, impatient at your lack of progress? How often have you artic boys seen your turning circle invaded by someone not watching your indicators?
I still think the majority of British truckers are considerate, and responsible people.
I’d call that a 50/50 both vehicles changed lane at more or less the same time , there are no blind spot mirrors on that truck and thats where the merc appears from . It’s the speed of the merc that ensures it only gets tapped on the back end .Both vehicles are already committed to change lane , the truck starts drifting over which is a good indication of this .
The truckers indication is rather late .
What a balanced piece of journalism that was! Getting the hysterical woman to comment on everything was a masterstroke. “I think EVERYTHING is TERRIBLE and those nasty trucks should be BANNED” etc,etc.
Those wagons WERE too close but the ‘shocking accident’ they witnessed was a 50/50 in anyone’s book. Like someone else said, with no kerbside/blindspot mirror on the truck, how is he supposed to see? If your looking to apportion blame then surely the car driver, with his superior field of vision should be paying more attention?
Tailgating is stupid but how often have those cars slid into the wagons space and then slowed with the weight of traffic? I had one today, in a 40mph dual carriageway. I was doing about 43 and this guy wants to come past - BUT DOESN’T WANT TO GO FASTER THAN ME! So, he speeds in front and then slows to 40…then I’m up his a*se. I know I should back off but its so annoying!
Also, can our Aussie mate tell me if anyone was killed in the other accident a few weeks before? I just wondered if any wagon drivers copped it cos’ I’m sure they just mention car-driving fatalities…
hammer:
in a 40mph dual carriageway. I was doing about 43 and this guy wants to come past - BUT DOESN’T WANT TO GO FASTER THAN ME! So, he speeds in front and then slows to 40…then I’m up his a*se. I know I should back off but its so annoying!..
And thats really fighting our corner isnt it…you muppet
All I’m saying is. If he doesn’t want to go faster than me, why overtake and then slow down? He is impeding me uneccesarily isn’t he? If he had slowed to the speed he actually wanted to go and fell in behind me there wouldn’t have been a problem. Pulling in six foot off my bumper and braking means I’m too close though noone fault but his.
The point I was trying to make was the pics in the video look bad but you don’t know what had happened just before. My situation would have looked bad if you saw it at the right time.
Sadly yes Hammer,3 dead,multiple car and truck collision resulting in fire.
How i read into it a truck stopped in the left hand lane,2 cars behind him were impatient whilst waiting to merge and pulled out in front of a semi which then collided with the cars starting a chain reaction.
But media and armchair experts have already concluded it was “Speeding” truckers.Read the media biased report;
news.com.au/heraldsun/story/ … 13,00.html
Why is she doing the “speed limit” on the outside lane? IF she was a law a biding citizen she should be in the inside lane!
Am not saying tail gating is ok , its NOT , but its so easy to have a dig at the big bad truck driver or the bus driver etc !
its all part of a normal working day
Ps she better never come to london on a driving holiday lol 
I understand what your saying hammer but your missing the point…you openly admitted to driving faster than the set speed limit …I know by only 3 mph but still it opens yourself up to a torrent of abuse from the anti hgv brigade (why not do 45 mph its only 2 mph faster than you were going anyway but saying that if your gonna do 45 you may as well do 50 (its just as illegal) so if your gonna do 50 you might as well drive on the limiter as its more comfortable with your foot flat down on the accelorator and before you know it youve justified to yourself to do 56 in a 40)
Car drivers as a whole have an insatiable need to be in front of a hgv …if you asked them why that is they wouldnt be able to tell you they just need too …also they hate us along side of them they get nervous thats why so many of them speed up once you start overtaking one its the same as when were behind them you can see them getting a bit twitchy when were at least three or four car lengths behind they continually look in the rear view mirror and if we get any closer than that then they get all irrational and start doing silly things like brake testing us …Now we all know this because as professional drivers its part of our job to understand the nature of the beast we are dealing with …So we may not like it or be happy with it but taking into consideration the idiosynchrosies of mr mondeo man or mrs 4x4 on the school run is a very very big and fundemental part of our job and if you are failing to do this then it does not matter how good you are at reversing or how shiny your alloy wheels and tank are or how you can get from maidstone to macclesfield 10 mins quicker than any other driver you know…if you cant understand and adapt to the people and conditions around you then im sorry to say You are not a professional driver
This is the follow up story.Fair unbiased balanced reporting;
I’m not so sure that the accident wasn’t ‘staged’
Initial footage shows shots taken from a 2nd vehicle. Where was that vehicle when the collision occurred, and why is there no footage from that a second angle?
The car in the centre lane dropped back relatively rapidly, as if to enable a rehearsed scenario.
The semi was a ‘cab-over’ so the driver should have easily seen the Mercedes.
The driver of the Mercedes went immediately to full left lock, which suggests a degree of anticipation. But he does not appear readily visible in the driving seat, as if he has leant fully to the left.
The camera angle, unless the footage has been heavily ‘cropped’ was set to cover the three lanes rather than just the view to the rear.
I didn’t see any air bags go off in the Mercedes, which would have been disconnected if the intention was to ‘stage’ the collision.
After the Mercedes hit the barrier, the wheels stop turning, and then begin rotating again, as if the driver is ‘flooring it’ to avoid bouncing back into other lanes.
The Semi took a bloody long time to stop, as if it was both protecting the Mercedes and at the same time bringing it to a controlled stop. Normally, I would have expected the truck to slow much quicker, and the Mercedes to continue to skid, probably ‘digging into’ the barrier and then spinning.
Good T.V., but I’m not convinced that it was merely fortuitous. 
And she had plenty of opportunities to change lanes.
Dave Shimeld:
How many times have you seen the gap ahead that you created, filled by three or more cars, impatient at your lack of progress? How often have you artic boys seen your turning circle invaded by someone not watching your indicators?I still think the majority of British truckers are considerate, and responsible people.
Well said, that man. Very valid points.
I also agree that car drivers, as a rule, HAVE to be in front of any LGV that gets in their way.
One of these days I feel sure I will plough into the back of a car. Don’t want to. But not a day goes by where I don’t have some idiot overtake me on the A14 and then cut into the space in front of me that I (rather naively:roll: ) had been planning to decelerate in, in view of the stationary traffic ahead.
Yes, I’m careful, but car drivers are getting thicker.
Video all looks rather dramatic to me anyway. 
I’ve got to laugh…
She drives into a tunnell, yet keeps her sunglasses on and then starts criticising the truck driver by saying, ‘If I can’t see the truck driver then he can’t see me, all I can see is the grill and headlights.’
Then reality hits home…
What am I saying??
I’ve still got my sunglasses on!! 
I think I’ll take them off now!!
As already mentioned she could have changed lane .
The space beside the truck was at least the length of it , but she persisted on sitting in the outer lane rigidly sticking to 80k .
She used the speed limit as a target that she has already thought she is not going to deviate from if she doesn’t have to.
All she had to do was back down and move over into the middle lane .
It’s safer to let someone who wants to get past regardless of the speed limit get through if it’s possible to do so .
In my eyes she unwittingly contributed to the accident , by useing the speed limits as a target and being too ignorant to move over .
The middle lane of any motorway springs to mind here !!
Reef:
I understand what your saying hammer but your missing the point…you openly admitted to driving faster than the set speed limit …I know by only 3 mph but still it opens yourself up to a torrent of abuse from the anti hgv brigade (why not do 45 mph its only 2 mph faster than you were going anyway but saying that if your gonna do 45 you may as well do 50 (its just as illegal) so if your gonna do 50 you might as well drive on the limiter as its more comfortable with your foot flat down on the accelorator and before you know it youve justified to yourself to do 56 in a 40)Car drivers as a whole have an insatiable need to be in front of a hgv …if you asked them why that is they wouldnt be able to tell you they just need too …also they hate us along side of them they get nervous thats why so many of them speed up once you start overtaking one its the same as when were behind them you can see them getting a bit twitchy when were at least three or four car lengths behind they continually look in the rear view mirror and if we get any closer than that then they get all irrational and start doing silly things like brake testing us …Now we all know this because as professional drivers its part of our job to understand the nature of the beast we are dealing with …So we may not like it or be happy with it but taking into consideration the idiosynchrosies of mr mondeo man or mrs 4x4 on the school run is a very very big and fundemental part of our job and if you are failing to do this then it does not matter how good you are at reversing or how shiny your alloy wheels and tank are or how you can get from maidstone to macclesfield 10 mins quicker than any other driver you know…if you cant understand and adapt to the people and conditions around you then im sorry to say You are not a professional driver
Reef, your probably right in most of what you say. For what its worth, I wouldn’t have wanted to go any faster and couldn’t have anyway as I was pulling up a long drag. I dislike tailgating and never do it in wagon or car. My point was that it would look as though I was tailgating at that point when the driver cut in front of me. If a driver is that thick, he deserves a flash and maybe a toot.
Anyway, I’ve also never been done speeding, so I can’t be that much of a nutter! I’m also fully aware of the stupidity of car drivers, less than 2years ago I was smashed into by a SLEEPING driver and ended up in a tree.
Oh yeah, my reversing is average at best, my alloys and tank are filthy and I’ve never been to Maidstone or Macclesfield! I AM a professional driver, just a far from perfect one!
funny how my computer crashed just before the truck.
Good to see that the same crap happens all over the world and not just in the UK.
As for the chef,frankly he should be put up a wall and shot as he is no use to society!!!
Mind you i forgot to say,travelling south through the roadworks on the M1 between jcn 10 to 9 i saw an outstanding piece of driving by a Fredrick R Miller Scania Artic on Wednesday afternoon.
He was tailgating a car in the middle lane who was doing 40mph overtaking another car when Mr Miller got a bit peed off with sitting 5 yrds off his bumper and overtook him in the third lane.
Thought for a moment about contacting the Police but by the time they would have caught him he would have been long gone,just thought to myself “what a ■■■■■■!”
We have a long way to go to change the public’s view about us whilst there are still driver’s like this about.
COOL Freightliner Argosy, I did’nt get to see more than the first 30 secs of video as the ■■■■ thing kept stopping and strarting and buffering and got sdo up my nose that I turned it off. But thoses COE Argosy’s are made by Meredes and there’s no reason we couldn’t have them instead of the crappy Actros Megaspace.