In the avoidance of accidents

[azekeil]

On our way back from Crawley yesterday afternoon, we were turning onto the M4 from the M25. The gantry signs had recently flashed 60, and were now displaying 40 - accident on slip road. I slowed right down as I could see stationary traffic, but it turned out to be on the slip road going into London, not the opposite way that we were going. Some cars were trying to cut across the hatching.

I could see a car approaching in my rear view mirror, and I thought they were going a bit fast. I was going fairly slowly by this point, but the approaching car didn't seem to have realised I had slowed down and there was other stationary traffic.

I repeatedly pumped my brake to flash my brake lights at them, at which point the driver slammed on their brakes and locked up their wheels, the screech audible and smoke visible in my mirror. As I had slowed down I now had space in front of me, so I started accelerating to escape. As it turned out, I didn't really need to, thankfully. I also let in one of the people trying to cross the hatching.

With a bit of foresight through experience, it is possible to avoid some accidents. Always leave yourself an escape route.

Comments

[serena-lesley.livejournal.com]

Someone ploughing into the rear of your car when you're in stationary traffic (having left yourself just enough room so that you don't, in turn, plough into the stationary car in front of you) isn't really that avoidable, though. Not unless they actually look where they're going, anyway. Bah.

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

No. Some accidents are avoidable, not all of them.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

It's also a horrible feeling of impending doom as you watch your rear view mirror as they get closer and closer and closer....

[gerald_duck]

Then again, you could also have avoided trouble simply by continuing in the direction you were going at a steady speed rather than slowing down when the obstruction was in a different lane? It sounds as though that's what the driver behind had been expecting you to do…

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

I did think about that. However, I didn't want to get pushed into a space with no escape route, and certainly not while there were people trying to (dangerously) cross the hatching in front of me. When I say slowly, I mean around 30-40 - not that slow at all, and the speed that the gantries were indicating should be the maximum.

Accidents are caused by large differentials in speed. I was reducing mine - I didn't want to go roaring past a stationary line of traffic at 60, when there were clearly people trying to cut into the lane I was in.

People shouldn't go by what they expect others to do - they may not have all the information (e.g. I may well have been obscuring the cars trying to cut across the hatching), especially if it doesn't leave them an escape route. A lesson as a motorbike rider I've learned all too well.

[invisigoth51.livejournal.com]

Here here, i was slowly approaching a 'my right of way bottle neck' up a hill at about 1am and saw a car coming just a bit faster than i would have thought of someone about to give way just judging speed by headlights on hedges... i put my headlights on full beam to make sure they saw me and slowed down a bit but continued up the hill as he was not at the top yet anyway, sure enough he comes whizzing round the corner and down the hill straight for me.... i am prepared however for possibly stupidity and quickly hit my horn and my brakes and aim my bonnet for the soft hedge. He realises his mistake and brakes hard and we end up 1 inch away from writing off our wing mirrors.
I am blocking the road so i make him roll down his window and there is a little 17ish kid looking terrified and his very pale girlfriend.... i explain about the right of way and the signs he just passed pointing that out... he was really sorry.
Tom meanwhile is having a heartattack because he nearly drove home and had no clue the guy might not stop... we would have had a head on collision in this instance. Experiance teaches you about stoopid people. Even very good inexperianced drivers often miss them.

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

You just get to know when people are going to do stupid things. I guess it's a modern day survival skill.

[malcygoff.livejournal.com]

strangely I was at the same junction yesterday - not sure what time you were there but I saw the fire engine go down the left hand fork toward the accident. Small world? Seems that way.

anyway, I'm glad that you managed not to get involved in a collision, it seems strange to me how people don't seem to pay attention on the the motorways. I spend vast amount of my time driving and I'm used to seeing people not paying attention - still gets me wound up every time when there's a near miss though :/