Many many crashes

[gr1nch]

Leave a bigger gap.

No, I don't think so. I said safe gap. If someone moved into it, I'll move back. You sound like someone that wants big gaps all over the place!

What do you do near exits...still leave a 2 second gap and get all offended when someone fills it because they want to leave the motorway? No one owns the gap between them and the vehicle ahead...so be astute and leave a bigger gap.

Again, no.
2 second gaps? You are confusing what I said with another member. To be clear if someone goes into the safe gap (ie recommended space, depending on speed and conditions) with a view to moving out of it, then I have no problems with that of they do it safely. If a driver really cares about safety they won't cut others up and will calmly slow down and go behind you to get to the next lane/exit.

Odd that when some members are clearly advocating driving safely by leaving larger gaps than most, a minority want them to do even more.

 

[lfckeeper]

The fact that so many managed to plough into each other in the A40 pile-up yesterday is confirmation that people were driving inappropriately for the conditions, but I do have some sympathy in that assessing the conditions is not always as straightforward as it could be and the council does have a role in that.

In the run-up to Christmas when temperatures were high enough that there was little or no chance of frost or ice, the roads in this area were absolutely plastered in salt (the state of my car is testament to that ), yet on the coldest, dampest, night of the month a major trunk route clearly wasn't treated. While making no excuses, one of those who had managed to avoid the carnage and stop commented that when he walked on that section of road it was difficult to actually stand up, let alone walk. Clearly, based upon a not unreasonable assumption, people were driving on the basis that the road had been gritted. Add in the isolated nature of a modern car - do you still notice the tyre noise diminish when you're driving on ice? - and you have a recipe for disaster.

It's easy to say that if conditions are indeterminate that you should drive assuming them to be in the worst possible state, but many drivers have no perception of what that actually means because they never encounter such conditions. As always when things go nastily wrong there are a whole chain of contributory factors, and it's important that we think about, and take learning from all of them.

This is why I suggested maybe the councils share some responsibility. Im lucky as theres a roundabout on the way out of my estate that marks the start of gritting. Id noticed on this particular morning nothing had changed on the road (no gritting had been done) so took even more care. On a frozen morning I would have expected the road to be gritted.

 

[renault12ts]

No, I don't think so. I said safe gap. If someone moved into it, I'll move back. You sound like someone that wants big gaps all over the place!


Again, no.
2 second gaps? You are confusing what I said with another member. To be clear if someone goes into the safe gap (ie recommended space, depending on speed and conditions) with a view to moving out of it, then I have no problems with that of they do it safely. If a driver really cares about safety they won't cut others up and will calmly slow down and go behind you to get to the next lane/exit.

Odd that when some members are clearly advocating driving safely by leaving larger gaps than most, a minority want them to do even more.

If the lane is busy, leave a bigger gap so traffic can move over without filling your safer gap. Maybe there is a long line of safe gappers...where does the middle laner go then?

 

[RyanMuller]

Agree with what's been said. People are always on each other's bumpers, even when it's icy.

Was driving through the new forest with wild horses on the road and some van overtook me with about 50m visibility. Don't really get it.