What an horrific tragedy ...

http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16103903

... I hate getting up to news like this. :(

I hope all of you in the Southwest were safe at home at the time.

 

It is quite horrendous. The Police have just given a press conference and at least 7 people are confirmed dead and they fear there are more bodies in the wreckage. The motorway won't re-open either way until tomorrow. Sadly for us in North Petherton (between Taunton and Bridgwater) the annual carnival has been cancelled tonight for obvious reasons. There is a very subdued atmosphere here and our thoughts are with all those involved.

 

Yes a terrible tragedy, many folks lives and family's will never ever be the same again, has a huge knock on affect .. sorry to say that a lot of accidents are simply down to speed, and i hear the government are seriously considering raising the speed limit up to 80 MPH .. crazy
Micky

 

My Boy was going to Bridgewater last night, he wasn't very happy to get a call off me first thing this morning to make sure he was ok. he'd left a couple of hours before it happened.

A terrible tradgedy. I hardly use the M5 if I can help it, I prefer to go across the Levels to Bridgewater.

 

Yea very sad that could have been any of us that use a motorway....
Did not know 7 people have been confirmed dead either :(

The speed limit is fine at 70, fair enough brakes and car safety are a lot better now a days but there are millions of more cars on the road now!! If the limit was 80 now there mite be more than 7 dead in this pile up. Good for the economy, no.

 

Its not as daft as you think. (Man on the radio explained)


All vehicles can stop if the driver is watching what is happening, trouble is on long journeys drivers get tired, so nod off and cause accidents.

By allowing some one to travel at 80 it reduces the time spent driving, so they will arrive at the destination quicker, and so are not as tired.

You can drive as fast as your vehicle will go, you wont die from it. What will kill you is when some one does some thing because they have nodded off even for a second because they are too tired.

You could of course educe the speed limit to say 40 on motorways, journeys would take almost twice as long, drivers would be very tired, but hey, you were only going 40

 

The cause was mostly due to weather conditions, we've had fog and rain in this region for over a week now and this was just waiting to happen.

 

Well as you know the Autobahn in Germany has an un- restricted speed limits on a lot of their freeways .. i can tell you when things go wrong at 130 mph or more it's total wipe out .. years ago they always said that speed kills and it's as true today IMO.. of course you will always have the Jeremy Clarksons in this world that floor it every where they drive putting their own lives at risk and other road users... micky

 

The man on the radio is talking rubish :D

 

Bad weather may have been the 'cause', it is also very likely that bad driving will be found to have been involved.
Accidents are often the result of careless drivers who fail to take into account the road and weather conditions prevailing at the time and adjust their driving accordingly.
The tragedy here is that one person's carelessness or stupidity may have resulted in the death or injury of many others.

 

Only asking.

To anyone who says its wrong, Why do you say that?

The speed is of no relevance in this case, it does not matter what speed you are going, if you can't see, you can't see, you will still hit something.

If the drivers had been paying more attention to what they were doing and the road conditions it would have not happened.

Imagine this:

1) You are driving along at 70mph on a strait dry motorway in broad daylight.

2) You are driving along at 70mph on a strait dry(ish) motorway in fog.

Which is the stupid one? It has to be 2. it's not the speed that is wrong since it was agreed the stupid option is 2, it's the fog and driving at that speed that is the problem. Just because a speed limit is set for a road, it should be noted it is a LIMIT not an INSTRUCTION.

So raising the speed limit would have made no difference. As the old "joke" says: it's the nut that holds the wheel that is the problem.

 

Gentlemen.

I can understand feelings running strongly in a discussion about driving conditions and speed.

But please lets not let a thread about a terrible accident turn into an arguement.

As a mark of respect for all those involved.

Thank you,

Ziggy, Moderator.

 

It is a terrible tragedy. And we shouldn't really be drawing conclusions about the cause, because unless we were there, it is impossible for us to say what the cause was.

 

I'd tried posting at 6 o'clock. Must have not clicked right button. On North Petherton Carnival night (after Bridgwater) we normally have lots of people on the back roads walking to carnival. Many people have pre-carnival parties. At 6.00pm tonight there was silence - Respect. It is now 7.45 and it is eerily(?) quiet. Just a few random fireworks. Even my "girls" {Fairyfeet & Marmie} aren't looking to go out.

 

In heavy fog, I often pull over into a lay by or find a service station with an all night coffee shop ... I am a fairly competant driver, but fog scares me big time ... nothing worse than driving and you cannot see

I've had some scary moments in South Africa on B roads, where you could not even see 20 meters ahead and I used to drive at very slow speed using the cats eyes on the tarmac as your guide (those green shiny lenses that they place in the tarmac)

always had the feeling that someone not as careful as me would ram me from behind if they were driving too fast

I have a pair of really good sunglasses (Serengeti drivers) ... the lenses are brown in colour .... you can see a bit further in heavy fog but it's still very dangerous to drive in the fog


I feel really sad for those hurt and lost

:(