Scary motorway join

[Hiijinx]

Those people in the hard shoulder must have been sh*tting themselves I know I would!

[Silk]

...Did anyone on the other forum defend the driving of the camera car?

Oh yes the original poster (who was the driver of the camera car) was quite happy to try and absolve himself of all responsibility and several other forum members came to his defence as well.

The original poster is a fool on this occasion. Unfortunately, he's not alone. All the time he can blame someone else, he won't learn.

What seems to have happened is that both drivers were not paying attention. In this case, as in most cases, either driver could have prevented the situation from developing.

I wonder what would have happened if the vehicles stopped at the side were actually on the hard shoulder. I'm guessing the camera car would have either been side-swiped or caught up in the inevitable carnage. I suppose he could have taken a chance with evasive action by moving to the right and risked a collision there instead. It would have been a mess, that's for sure.

[Silk]

[/quote]
http://www.trucknetuk.com/phpBB/viewtop ... =2&t=98200
So far the truckers have all said the same thing
[/quote]

Interesting that they all seem to be blaming the lorry driver. I'm being hard on the car driver because, although he wasn't technically at fault, he had it in his power to dramatically reduce the danger and chose to not to. This is not the action of a good driver IMHO.

[Silk]

Had I been following the red car I would have wanted a bigger gap in front of me to start with. Seeing the HGV seeking to join the main carriageway, I would have eased off the throttle to increase that gap and let the HGV come in front. At least that's how I would have preferred to see things work.

And risk being 2 seconds late for your meeting?

It's no wonder so many people hate driving. It must be hell having to concentrate so hard on the brake lights of the vehicle in front.

[Ancient]

http://www.trucknetuk.com/phpBB/viewtop ... =2&t=98200
So far the truckers have all said the same thing
[/quote]

Interesting that they all seem to be blaming the lorry driver. I'm being hard on the car driver because, although he wasn't technically at fault, he had it in his power to dramatically reduce the danger and chose to not to. This is not the action of a good driver IMHO.[/quote]
How do you work that out? He was clearly driving inappropriately close to another vehicle. The fact that the driver of the heavy emerged and caused another driver to brake/change direction does not absolve the poster of the video from his responsibility for his careless driving in relation to this.

[Gareth]

1) knowing the inability of lorries to gain enough speed to safely join a busy motorway from standstill, thus not expecting them to give way at the exit of a slip road, I would move into lane 2.

In this case the lorry had gained more speed than the camera car. There was a steady flow of vehicles in lane 2 passing the camera car. When a heavy is passing on your left and about to move into your lane, it's an exceeding brave driver who starts looking for a gap to move into the next lane. Practically the only thing the camera car driver could have done once the lorry started passing was to slow down significantly to make space as quickly as possible.

[Silk]

http://www.trucknetuk.com/phpBB/viewtop ... =2&t=98200
So far the truckers have all said the same thing

Interesting that they all seem to be blaming the lorry driver. I'm being hard on the car driver because, although he wasn't technically at fault, he had it in his power to dramatically reduce the danger and chose to not to. This is not the action of a good driver IMHO.[/quote]
How do you work that out? He was clearly driving inappropriately close to another vehicle. The fact that the driver of the heavy emerged and caused another driver to brake/change direction does not absolve the poster of the video from his responsibility for his careless driving in relation to this.[/quote]

What I mean is, as far as an insurance claim is concerned, he would almost certainly not be held responsible (it's a bit like not looking as you pass a side road and crashing into a vehicle that pulls out in front of you , also without looking). As far as I'm aware, driving too close to the vehicle in front isn't actually an offence, although it should be - how you'd prove it is another matter.

[Kimosabe]

1) knowing the inability of lorries to gain enough speed to safely join a busy motorway from standstill, thus not expecting them to give way at the exit of a slip road, I would move into lane 2.

In this case the lorry had gained more speed than the camera car. There was a steady flow of vehicles in lane 2 passing the camera car. When a heavy is passing on your left and about to move into your lane, it's an exceeding brave driver who starts looking for a gap to move into the next lane. Practically the only thing the camera car driver could have done once the lorry started passing was to slow down significantly to make space as quickly as possible.

Which is why I would already be planning a lane 1 to lane 2 exit strategy before the slip road joined. Perhaps the camera car's driver treated the concept of ipgsA a little too dogmatically (sigh) and could have instead applied its counterparts ipsgB, where B=braking, or ipsgD, where D=decelerate? So instead of intentionally maintaining or closing the gap between themselves and the car in front, they could have extended it to greater than the (minimum) 2 second rule? I see forseeable options which negate a reactionary response and which help to lighten the load on Lane 1 around slip roads.

Also, if anyone reads the replies to this video on the Trucker.net site, you'll be better able to gauge a possible attitude problem from some truck drivers. How does driving a big vehicle equate to possessing an overblown set of violent responses to mistakes? An equivalent might be car drivers attacking lorry drivers at service stations for overtaking (I use that term very loosely) uphill and thus causing three lanes to become 1 by blocking Lanes 1 and 2 for a few miles.

[Ancient]

What I mean is, as far as an insurance claim is concerned, he would almost certainly not be held responsible (it's a bit like not looking as you pass a side road and crashing into a vehicle that pulls out in front of you , also without looking). As far as I'm aware, driving too close to the vehicle in front isn't actually an offence, although it should be - how you'd prove it is another matter.

From http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/road ... d_driving/

Careless/inconsiderate driving

This offence is committed when the defendant's driving falls below the standard expected of a competent and careful driver (section 3ZA RTA). In determining what is to be expected of a competent and careful driver the prosecutor must take into account not only the circumstances of which the driver could be expected to be aware, but also any circumstances shown to have been within the driver's knowledge.
[...snip...]
In some cases, particularly where there has been a collision, the evidence will show that more than one driver was at fault. It will be necessary to establish that there is evidence from an independent source against any driver who is to be charged, but the possibility of charging more than one driver remains if both have failed to comply with the statutory standard.

There are decided cases that provide some guidance as to the driving that courts will regard as careless or inconsiderate and the following examples are typical of what we are likely to regard as careless driving:

overtaking on the inside;
driving inappropriately close to another vehicle;
inadvertently driving through a red light;
emerging from a side road into the path of another vehicle;
tuning a car radio;
using a hand-held mobile phone or other hand-held electronic equipment when the driver was avoidably distracted by that use; and
selecting and lighting a cigarette or similar when the driver was avoidably distracted by that use.

These examples are merely indicative of what can amount to careless driving.

There's a few things there that fall directly within the guidelines for careless driving, some for the heavy, another for the driver with the video. The 2-second rule is well-enough publicised and AFAIK taught as part of preparation for the basic driving test; it is something a reasonably competent and careful driver should be aware of and adhering to. The video looks like independent evidence to me, now it is in the public domain.
Of course with the entire lack of interest in prosecuting all but the most blatant driving offences (apart from where a fine is extracted), all this is academic.

[Big Err]

It's good to see that on here there is a consensus that "blame" can be attributed on both drivers - the HGV driver who's joining the mainline not merging safely and the driver filming for not leaving adequate space. Although I'd suspect that in court it would be the HGV driver who would shoulder most if not all of the blame had a collision occurred.

What I find interesting is drivers habits when merging, for example;

The convoy of vehicles driving bumper to bumper up a slip road at peak times. Do they seriously expect there will be a ten vehicle gap on the mainline for them all to merge into at once?

The driver who races up the slip road, comes up along side you then expect you to move.

And in the case of the filming driver, when approaching a slip road merge, does not allow any gap infront of them. Not only does it prevent safe merging but increases the risk of shunts occuring as traffic flows breakdown following busy merges.

[Silk]

Legal stuff

Goodness me. I think you're pushing it a bit if you think anything would be done about the driver of the car if the worst had happened. You'd also have to extend it to most of the other drivers in the clip who were driving too close and not paying attention. I really don't believe anyone would go to the bother of hauling everyone within a hundred yards before the court. The lorry driver would have been held 100% responsible and everyone else would tell the story from a blameless point of view and carry on driving in exactly the same way as before.

As I'm not a lawyer, I don't have a clue about the finer points of law, I can only draw on hundreds of thousands of miles of motorway driving experience. This kind of thing happens quite a lot and is usually mitigated by another driver taking avoiding action. What's thankfully quite rare is for two people not to be paying attention at the same time, as we see in the clip.

[ScoobyChris]

What's thankfully quite rare is for two people not to be paying attention at the same time, as we see in the clip.

I'm quite surprised by this conclusion - the driver in the camera car was pretty much past the slip road entrance before the lorry appears at speed alongside him (with nowhere to go!). Presumably he was expecting the lorry to slot in behind him rather than accelerate past into a non-existant lane/space, although without a rear-facing camera we can't really see the build up to the event or what was following the car and how closely...

Chris

[GJD]

In this case the lorry had gained more speed than the camera car.

Important point that I think tells us a lot about the relative fault of the two drivers.

The camera car driver looked like he was being belligerently unhelpful. Perhaps I'm misinterpreting, but some of the discussion in this thread appears to be judging the camera car driver as if he was being belligerently unhelpful towards a lorry driver who was trying to do the right thing. It looked to me that the lorry driver was doing nothing of the sort, and if we're talking relative fault - whose driving was worse - that distinction matters a lot.

The lorry driver appeared to have no interest in matching the speed of the traffic he intended to merge with, an intention to use the hard shoulder almost as a matter of course, and no interest in basic stuff like looking where the f**k he was going. Don't think I am defending the camera car driver's decision - he seems to have chosen to make a bad situation worse not better - but I think the far, far greater menace here is the reckless lunatic driving the lorry.

[Ancient]

Legal stuff

Goodness me. I think you're pushing it a bit if you think anything would be done about the driver of the car if the worst had happened. You'd also have to extend it to most of the other drivers in the clip who were driving too close and not paying attention. I really don't believe anyone would go to the bother of hauling everyone within a hundred yards before the court. The lorry driver would have been held 100% responsible and everyone else would tell the story from a blameless point of view and carry on driving in exactly the same way as before.

As I'm not a lawyer, I don't have a clue about the finer points of law, I can only draw on hundreds of thousands of miles of motorway driving experience. This kind of thing happens quite a lot and is usually mitigated by another driver taking avoiding action. What's thankfully quite rare is for two people not to be paying attention at the same time, as we see in the clip.

No I don't think anything would be done, especially as the behaviour here http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/progin ... ivers.html (as reported in this forum and elsewhere - I don't have a TV thankfully) apparently doesn't attract summonses in the post! However the standard of driving in that video (yes including most of those in lanes 2 and 3 also) falls far below what I believe is expected of a competent and careful driver. It should be used as evidence to hall at least the videoing driver (and of course the heavy's driver). Even though motorway driving is not taught at basic level, the lack of gaps as evidenced on the video clearly falls below basic DSA standards and should be prosecuted.
As I also said, I don't expect it to happen any time soon. Lorry drivers who drive with failing eyesight into pedestrians on crossings are allowed to go on to drive over cyclists, drivers who simply don't look - none of it is as easy or cheap to administrate as speed cameras... But given evidence like this, yes it should be prosecuted.

[TripleS]

Had I been following the red car I would have wanted a bigger gap in front of me to start with. Seeing the HGV seeking to join the main carriageway, I would have eased off the throttle to increase that gap and let the HGV come in front. At least that's how I would have preferred to see things work.

And risk being 2 seconds late for your meeting?

It's no wonder so many people hate driving. It must be hell having to concentrate so hard on the brake lights of the vehicle in front.

Yeah, I know. I really don't know how I manage to cope with it all: maybe it's partly because I'm not overly fixated on doing everything in complete accordance with the AD fashion.