We buzzed off to a local shopping centre this morning, because Mrs H needed something for our New Year break. A foul morning it was too. Cold, grey and murky with heavy rain as a bonus and hardly light by 9am.
Driving conditions on the A38 were as poor as expected, but as usual some drivers seem to think they will be fine if they ignore the reduced visibility and standing water on the road. No need to drop below their usual 80mph. It's not so much the speed, as an inability to alter driving habits to suit the conditions. Of course they could have been professional drivers with razor-sharp anticipation and the reflexes of a cat, but I suspect not.
Crossing over the M1 on the way home, we noticed that traffic heading north was at a standstill. Another predictable accident of course. Mrs H checked the traffic news and it wasn’t the only M1 traffic accident either.
At times like this, it is easy enough to imagine how the broad mass of road users must be regarded with a degree of contempt by the police and the emergency services. We may criticise them, but there are times when official contempt for the generality of motorists is not difficult to understand.
13 comments:
In modern cars the driver is cocooned in silent luxury from the outside world.
Power steering, laser lights and anti skid braking and acceleration systems will protect the idiot in good conditions. Stereo banging out Sultans of Swing masks all internal and external noise.
But the big fat tyres will acquaplane very easily.
As you glide into a big sheet of water or black ice all you have going for you are Newton's Laws of motion. Do not steer, brake, accelerate or even think about it.
In the old bangers I drove in days of poverty you learned to heed the sudden loss of tyre noise, the lightening of the non power steering.Then you just steered straight and kept feet off pedals.
I think the most notable event was the 2013 Sheppey Island crossing in Kent, where 100+ cars ploughed into each other for 10 minutes. The cause was primarily tailgating in heavy fog.
You're right about the emergency services. Imagine dealing with fatalities when the cause is nothing more than human stupidity. At least the homicide cops can blame something that is evil, rather than banal.
Buy a Landrover and then you can at least see what's happening in front of the car in front. Moreover the car behind might keep his distance especially if you have a stout tow bar visible.
Abroad most drivers are even worse - our accident record is pretty good by international standards.
True tale: we once went off for a short break with another couple in a hired car. I was the first to drive. After a short distance I said "hold tight I'm about to brake." One of our chums was dim enough to ask "what did you do that for?" Most drivers are chumps.
I'm afraid it's always the 'other drivers' who bother me on journeys like that. The worst times for me to drive is in snow and ice, (when I used to have to for work), because there'll always be a moron doing the wrong thing!
Glad you got home safely, and weren't in New York...
Me and She Who Must Be Obeyed have noticed that the M1 has seemingly had a particularly high number of accidents and blockages over the last couple of months. I've no idea why.
As self identified sensible middle class people, we often rail against patronising authority, but I think we forget that there is a good proportion of the population who need to be patronised and the measures we identify are often not aimed directly at us, but the people who very much require it.
I regularly observe the lack of awareness of so many motorists. I'm old and decrepit but the only driver so I spend a fair bit of time sitting in supermarket car parks watching the daily parade of imbeciles while my daughter does the shopping. The speed some fuckwits drive round these areas - with their everyday targets of pedestrians of all ages, slow-maneouvering vehicles and trolley-loads of groceries - beggars belief. In car parks I trundle around in first or second gear and still have to make allowances for traffic with slow-thinking drivers.
Other joys are the drivers - particularly in grey or silver cars - who don't think it appropriate to switch their lights on in mist and fog. Invisible cyclists and pedestrians wearing black at night amaze me with their survival rate, which cannot be due to their own efforts but must rely on drivers' perceptions and reactions - which surely brings me back to my first sentence!
Doonhamer - I'm sure you are right, drivers seem to think the car will magically take care of a loss of traction and all will be well. Until it isn't.
Sam - yes, if you imagine dealing with the fatalities, human stupidity must become a major aspect of your general outlook. It would certainly affect me that way.
dearieme - on the journey home from work, I occasionally saw a good example of a "keep your distance" Landrover. It was battered and scruffy with a winch on the front and a towing rig on the back complete with dangling chains. Nobody tailgated it.
Scrobs - yes it is other drivers and the only way to deal with it is to assume they are all stupid, because a significant number certainly are.
DJ - I don't know why either, but you are right. We see lots of accidents reported for our local M1 stretch. Maybe the problem is tired drivers who have come up from the south without a break.
Tammly - that's it. All the regulation is annoying and it gets worse, but watching loons risk their lives and the perspective becomes more nuanced.
Jannie - we see many examples of poor driver awareness during the school run. Little kids all over the place and some drivers seem to think 30mph is the compulsory speed. Lots of examples of slow thinking too - you can almost see the mental cogs clunking round.
The Spouse and I have covered a fair few motorway miles recently for various family commitments. Our observations suggest that lane discipline seems to have gone out of the window since Covid, with cars frequently undertaking or weaving through traffic at high speed or swerving across three lanes to an exit ramp. In the same way, a large roundabout near us has become a white-knuckle experience because of the number of cars and vans driving straight out without stopping.
We’ve been wondering whether it’s a legacy of lockdown, when people, especially relatively inexperienced drivers, got out of the habit of dealing with busy roads or even driving on a regular basis.
Macheath - it's been said before, but maybe modern cars really are too isolating and reassuring. Old bangers create a much more immediate sense of limitations, both mechanical and personal.
@AKH: especially the sort where you can see the road through a hole in the floor. (Guilty m'Lud, but I was young.)
dearieme - in those far off days, my cousin had a car where the road could be seen through a hole in the floor. Eventually a wheel fell off when turning a corner, so he sold it for 50p. Having been given a lift in the thing, I always thought the price was a little high.
Not that I ever wish to top your stories, AK, but a friend of mine sold his car to another chum for a pint of beer, which back then, was 1/7!
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