Near miss

[219]

Had a close one yesterday .

I was on the A540 just outside Chester , busy-ish A road , not particularly wide with a narrow grass verge and a stone wall on my side , road restricted to 50 mph with lots of signs about accident statistics and fatalities which have taken place .

A car coming towards me decided just to stop abruptly to let a passenger off ; no advance warning - the signal just went on as he braked to a halt .

I don't think he was even aware of the truck behind him who had no chance to stop . There was no time for me to brake as I'd have ended up opposite the stopped car , all I could do was move as far left as I could and breathe in as this truck missed my mirror by about an inch !

While it is all very well to say the trucker should have left sufficient distance to stop behind the car , I didn't really blame him as much as the car driver who really just jammed the anchors on with no warning whatsoever when no one could reasonably have expected him to .

The truck driver did very well making a sudden evasive manoeuvre without turning it over or losing control .

Could have been a very nasty head on for me , and even a W124 would not fare well against what was at least a 7-1/2 tonner .

 

[LTD]

Glad to hear that you are here to tell the tale.

 

[st4]

That sounds properly nasty. Glad you are here to tell us.

 

[markjay]

Good to hear that no one was hurt.

You are right about culpability.

The law is (in most cases) binary. But this is for practical reasons, while the reality is that in most cases more than one party is that fault.

For example, if you speed into a junction as the light is yellow and about to turn red, and then hit by a car jumping a red light, the law (and insurance company) will be on your side.

However a reasonable observer would probably conclude that your actions were not safe and contributed to the probability of the accident happening.

The notion that the at-fault party is the driver who had 51%-or-higher culpability is there simply to simplify the proceedings.

This has been raised in another thread where the discussion is about why insurers deem those who had no-fault claims as behind higher-risk drivers.

 

[MercFanUk]

Sounds like it was a definite brown trouser moment, glad you're okay.

It never ceases to amaze me how little attention some drivers pay to those that are behind them, and how they will need to react. I guess a lot of people just have the opinion that if someone shunts them from behind, it'll automatically be their fault and so they just don't give a s***.

 

[Magoo]

You do get some proper pillocks!

 

[Apial]

You say the car stopped abruptly. How do you know this as you could not possibly see the brake lights?

 

[trapperjohn]

Thank God it was a near miss. Any "hit" to your rolling stock would be an absolute tragedy. Then there would be the human cost.

Apial. I only know Pontoneer through his posts and I think he knows enough to spot the difference to a car coming to a controlled stop and an abrupt halt.

 

[TDE1]

A fortunate outcome for all involved thank goodness.

Wouldn't have blamed the truck driver or you for coming to a stop and giving the other driver a piece of your mind.

Why dash cams aren't compulsory, I'll never know. Don't know how they work exactly, but if they only saved their recording up to a few minutes before an incident / impact (the driver could have a button for non-impact incidents like this - an impact should automatically save the event to a disc or whatever), then the roads would be a better place.

If that's been said before, then apologies. But such a system might have seen the driver of the car issued with a careless driving ticket.

 

[MercFanUk]

Don't know how they work exactly, but if they only saved their recording up to a few minutes before an incident / impact (the driver could have a button for non-impact incidents like this - an impact should automatically save the event to a disc or whatever)

That's exactly how some work: Black Box Recorder | Roadhawk DC1 Camera - RoadHawk UK

From what I hear, a lot of haulage firms already install these as standard now after so many crash for cash problems, amongst other things. I doubt it'll be many more years before these are options in cars rather than accessories.

 

[Apial]

Thank God it was a near miss. Any "hit" to your rolling stock would be an absolute tragedy. Then there would be the human cost.

Apial. I only know Pontoneer through his posts and I think he knows enough to spot the difference to a car coming to a controlled stop and an abrupt halt.

It makes no difference. If the car driver had lightly applied his footbrake to start with it would have indicated to the truck driver of his intention to stop. The truck driver should have allowed sufficient stopping distance. Pontoneer was not in a position to see if this was what happened and can only offer an opinion based on his perspective. Could it be the truck driver was travelling too close/not paying attention? The only excuse for the truck driver that I can think of is if the car driver had overtaken him first before braking sharply, otherwise he was culpable.

 

[st4]

You say the car stopped abruptly. How do you know this as you could not possibly see the brake lights?

The angle of the nose digging in, the visible rate of decelleration etc. You can tell when an oncoming car is slowing down or accelerating.

 

[markjay]

It makes no difference. If the car driver had lightly applied his footbrake to start with it would have indicated to the truck driver of his intention to stop. The truck driver should have allowed sufficient stopping distance....

Could be. But a careful driver would check his/her rearview mirror before stopping, and if the view is obscured by a very large 'Volvo' logo then perhaps rethink the planned stop to allow the passenger off.

Hence my previous post regarding degrees of culpability...

 

[Apial]

The angle of the nose digging in, the visible rate of decelleration etc. You can tell when an oncoming car is slowing down or accelerating.

Yes, yes, but what about the moments before this happened? Were the brake lights on? You have to expect the unexpected, so keeping within your safe stopping distance is very important especialy for a truck driver.
What if a child had run out?

 

[Deleted member 65149]

I'm with Apial on this one. Truck drivers are always too ready to blame car drivers for everything that goes wrong, and very often they're right. But they also like to adopt the big bully tactics of filling your rearview mirror with a large Volvo logo even though your braking distance is much less that theirs. Pontoneer's account was of a lucky escape for all involved, but I suspect it could have been avoided entirely had the truck driver been more alert and following at a safe distance.

 

[markjay]

I'm with Apial on this one. Truck drivers are always too ready to blame car drivers for everything that goes wrong, and very often they're right. But they also like to adopt the big bully tactics of filling your rearview mirror with a large Volvo logo even though your braking distance is much less that theirs. Pontoneer's account was of a lucky escape for all involved, but I suspect it could have been avoided entirely had the truck driver been more alert and following at a safe distance.

For those with a scientific mind:

http://www.jmu.edu/safetyplan/vehicle/generaldriver/stoppingdistance.shtml

 

[Deleted member 65149]

For those with a scientific mind:

Ratio of Speed to Stopping Distance

Thanks Markjay - QED

Especially frightening when you've had 20+ tons of truck hanging onto your rear bumper on the Florida Turnpike at 70mph: car stopping distance 387ft, truck stopping distance 465 ft = a long way splattered on truck's radiator grill

 

[Apial]

I am acutely aware of extended stopping distances when driving a horse lorry because using full braking force with horses on board is to be avoided. One thing I really hate is being overtaken into a roundabout entrance and the overtaking vehicle cutting into my lane and braking hard. I know who will get the blame if there are no other independent witnesses.

 

[markjay]

...I know who will get the blame if there are no other independent witnesses.

You'll probably get it even if there were...

 

[Benzmanc]

Pah a 7.5tonner is just a tiddler usually driven by people with no HGV experience at all.