Making my way back from the Ferry this afternoon. M25 just short of J9- Outside lane - Fairly busy but moving well, indicated 75ish on the speedo as I'm in a queue. Quick moment of "Thats odd" - glimpse of headlights on the inside lane about 30 yards in front of me. Followed 1/2 a second later by a glimpse of "smoking sideways rear of car" arcing gracefully in and out of view in my lane (Outside 4). React with anchors immediately, next view is of whole car in front of me in slow mo' hitting the inside armco with a considerable "Whump" lifting the rear wheels 3 or 4 feet in the air. I think the whole thing took about 4 seconds in total, but it seemed like a fucking age. Couldn't stop as everything else around me was still travelling at speed, and the accident was still happening as I passed it, no one else involved as far as I could see, the car just appeared to all of a sudden veer across the lanes. Didn't see what the cause was, as the car appeared from the inside lane, so there wasn't imo a need for me to stop as others closer and directly behind had already started to stop. Fucking impressive though, didn't half give me a Thumpity Thump as the "What if ?" things started to wander into my grey matter.
Reminds me of those t shirts with "You're just jealous 'cos you can't hear the voices too" -- Steve Parry BMW R45, 01 Kawasaki ZX12-R, 07 K1200GT SE 95 BMW F650, 87 Yamaha FS1, Sukida SK90PY, 91 Kawasaki AR50, 07 VW Passat SE Estate for comfort www.gwynfryn.co.uk
Mine was more like a not again. I was on the freeway and noticed a smallish car in the mirrors gaining rapidly. It flew past on my left, smashed into the center divider, started shedding parts and then started right across both lanes. It finally stopped a mile or so down the road with both right-side tyres flat. I stopped to check on the driver who's first words were, "I fell asleep".
Brownz (Mobile) wibbled: How about when an artic decides to jacknife about 300 yards in front of you? I just missed the back end of the trailer. It was trouser change time.
I watched what turned out to be a huge multi-vehicle pile-up happen behind and around me a few years back. At the time I was banned, but Jude had just fucked her right knee really badly and couldn't drive, and our two friends were concerned that they weren't insured, so wouldn't risk it. So it was left to me to drive home unlicensed and uninsured. Oh, and it was in Jude's dad's volvo estate that we'd borrowed. We were driving north on a 3-lane section of motorway somewhere north of Lyon and I moved from lane 1 to 2, then to 3, to overtake slow traffic as it appeared ahead of me. At this point the road was doing a RH turn, and suddenly as I got visibility of lane 3 there was a solid wall of stationary traffic across all three lanes. Of course, I had plenty of space in front of me, 'cos I'm not French, so I hit the (non-ABS) anchors, practised some cadence braking to moderate the smoke from the tyres, and watched in my mirrors as all the tailgaters started to panic. The car behind me left an impressive smoke trail, and I briefly considered moving into lane 2 to give hime some space, but the RH mirror showed the inadvisability of that, as another screaming smoke-trail came flying past me. Thankfully, the guy behind me did manage to stop, but the one behind him did not, and I watched as he slewed sideways before the inevitable imact, then got shunted from behind too, and then all hell broke loose. At this point the traffic ahead suddenly started to move, so I took the opportunity to get the hell out of there - it was unlikely that serious injuries were occuring, but in any case there was no way I was sticking around. We heard on the radio later that up to 20 vehicles had been involved, and the tailbacks went back 15km or more. The adrenaline surge wore off about half an hour later, at which point I turned into a gibbering wreck and had to stop for coffee. Trouser change? Well, not literally, but the bogs at the service station were definitely put to their proper use. -- _______ ..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com) \`\ | /`/ `\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2, IBB#10 `\|/` `
Once i was driving up the M6 near Stoke on a pissing down Friday afternoon when a fecking great lorry came flying down the slip road in front, he just carrered across all three lanes & hit the Armco barriers at some speed (for a lorry) missing every car on the road. **** knows how 'cos the driver had died of a heart attack. Scared the shit out of me.
Or when an artic trailer tyre pops just as you're passing it in lane 2a? Trailer weaved like **** and I got out of there like ****. -- Dave GS850x2 XS650 SE6a "It's a moron working with power tools. How much more suspenseful can you get?" - House
Hmmm. Was tooling along the M5 some years back. Everyone stands on the anchors, I stopped about 2ft from the car in front and watched the VW behind me smoking like my Mum as it tried to stop. Luckily it did. Turned out to be a suitcase in the middle of lane two. I was a (fair distance) behind a van on the M4 when one of the tyres blew out and it veered across the road. God knows how it didn't clip anyone. I've twice watched a caravan coming towards me starting to weave like a bastard. The one on the M5 I think must've had a window open because it suddenly started disintegrating. I didn't see it happen but the most bizarre thing I've come across was a van upside down on a road near Stow-on-the-Wold. It was just after a bridge and I still have no idea how the driver managed it.
Even the plod get it wrong. Also M5, on the steep hill up from Portbury J19 towards Clevedon J20 back in the late 80s. I was in lane 3 in the wife's week old shiny new specially adapted Rover when everything comes to a tyre smoking halt. Maybe 10 seconds later I see Plod in the mirror on Blues&Twos and in a hurry. One new Rover and one patrol car written off, two of a major pileup that must have wrecked at least a dozen other vehicles. To give them credit, they admitted the obvious error of their ways and managed to coordinate dealers and adaption specialists to build a replacement in around 10 days instead of the usual 3 month wait. I was not quite so lucky, apart from a slight dose of whiplash I was given earache for months from the wife because the replacement was the wrong colour. Sometimes you just cant win.
I remember going up the A1(M)/M25 junction on the way to a French run when everything became a blur and I can't remember much after that. The V-Max was in bits and I ended up in hospital. Er, hang on, this is WUN's story.
Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Cab LOL. Channelling me, eh? I'd be afraid IIWY. Very afraid.
A few years ago, I saw, in the mirror, the car behind me become airborne and land, windscreen down, on the hard shoulder, after a sudden braking manoeuvre. M4 near Cardiff.
I've seen something similar, to be fair: I was on the way home from the ObPub, ~9 years ago, making significant progress through heavy traffic up the A1. I noticed that the car-full of Toon fans I was overtaking had a very flat-looking rear tyre, so I was going to sound my horn and make appropriate hand gestures, whatever they might be. Before I had a chance, it slowed drastically, and in my mirror I saw it wobble, swerve across the hard shoulder, dig into the verge and flip. Spectacular to watch in the mirror, but I've often wondered what the outcome was.
I came round a bend on the M5 a few months back near Droitwich to find a shed-dragger facing the wrong way in the middle lane. Looked like the van had spun the entire ensemble around 180 degrees. Amazingly it was all in one piece and still connected together.
