Near miss on M9 - car stopped in overtaking lane

mazza111

I remember my first major journey on motorway when i first passed my test. Driving Brighton to Glasgow, on M6 and alternator packed up. Therefore no power to anything. Was rather scary sitting on hard shoulder with no hazards on. Especially as the weather was like described, pelting down with rain and visibility poor. Luckily a passing police car spotted us and pulled in behind us until the pick up truck arrived. If you think it gave you a fright, I imagine they were pretty scared too

almillar

That's scary stuff, unless the engine or gearbox siezed in heavy traffic, I can't think of a fault that would leave you in the outside lane, and even in the examples above, put your foot on the clutch pedal, and coast until you can get to the hard shoulder.
Imp - unless you really are the first (or second, or are a doctor or whatever) or you really think you can be helpful, you should NOT stop on a motorway. If you see that someone has stopped and the emergency services are on their way, drive on.
Also, there's a junction called Knocktopher? Knocked over? I'll get my coat...

Cash-Strapped.T32

I've had a piston hole while in lane 3 of the m1 roughly J28, I was on a 400cc touring scooter at the time.
(Bike can handle it, will do an easy 85 all day long but I since learned that when you spend all day at motorway speeds it has a habit of drinking oil *much* quicker than if you were town riding, requiring weekly, not every-few monthly oil checks).


It took a second or two to determine that yes, I had just lost all power and that no, it was not going to kick back in.

Another second or two frantically indicating left-left-left to try & get to the left hand lanes in the fairly congested traffic, in the end I had to make a rather sharp cut back over, I was highly aware that I was losing speed all the time & the longer I left any manoeuvre, the faster the other cars would be in relation to me.
You don't phrase it so clearly in your mind in the moment, but you're very aware of what will happen if you don't quickly find room to move left.


I'm sure the cars behind me were annoyed at what appeared like a typical bike-hoonish manoeuvre but it would have been terrible to have rolled to a stop in ln3 in the evening rush-hour, don't bear thinking about.. :eek:

photome

Cant belive all of you who say why didnt the car get back to hard shoulder what if the driver wasnt able to

I was on a dual carriage way the other day when a car swerved from nearside lane and ended up against the central reservation barrier nearly taking the car in front of me with him, the old guy who was driving, had collapsed at the wheel


How do we know something similar didnt happen here?

Hermione_Granger

Originally Posted by Imp
Don't be silly. Nobody stops. My wife recently witnessed an accident on a busy M25, with a car shunted into the central reservation by a lorry. She pulled over, took our 10 month old child out of the car, called the police and went to offer any assistance. Other than the vehicles involved and one lorry driver, no-one else from the hundreds of cars passing stopped, but they did slow down to drive around the strickenned car and driver.

Crabman wrote: »

It seems common for drivers in such circumstances to commit the offence of failing to stop under S170 of the RTA 1988.

An offence is only committed if someone who was involved in an accident fails to stop.
There is nothing in S170 which states that another motorist should stop to offer assistance, and in many cases stopping could cause further accidents.

In many cases it would be far safer to not stop on a motorway to give assistance but to just call the police and advise them of the incident. (you are not breaking the law if you use a mobile whilst driving if you are calling 999 and you consider it unsafe to stop your vehicle).

Crabman

Hermione_Granger wrote: »

An offence is only committed if someone who was involved in an accident fails to stop.
There is nothing in S170 which states that another motorist should stop to offer assistance, and in many cases stopping could cause further accidents.

It's difficult to instantly assess who is and isn't involved in an accident. Just because someone's vehicle wasn't damaged in an incident doesn't necessarily mean they weren't involved.

Always best to stop, if not simply to cover yourself against prosecution for not stopping, it's what those of us who were brought up properly consider to be basic manners and concern for others.

Hermione_Granger

Always best to stop, if not simply to cover yourself against prosecution for not stopping, it's what those of us who were brought up properly consider to be basic manners and concern for others.

Even if it puts your life at risk and creates the possibility of further accidents or casualties or creates more of a traffic problem so that the emergency services are delayed?

I would say that it's only best to stop if you can do so safely and providing that there is a definite need for you to do so.
There may be 20 or 30 cars a minute going past the accident scene and by stating that you consider that it is "Always best to stop", do you think that every driver should be obliged to pull over and offer assistance?

Crabman

Hermione_Granger wrote: »

Even if it puts your life at risk and creates the possibility of further accidents or casualties or creates more of a traffic problem so that the emergency services are delayed?

I would say that it's only best to stop if you can do so safely and providing that there is a definite need for you to do so.
There may be 20 or 30 cars a minute going past the accident scene and by stating that you consider that it is "Always best to stop", do you think that every driver should be obliged to pull over and offer assistance?

You're being silly - read my post again, properly this time

Wig

If the car had no lights on and it was dark/dusk it is quite feasible for OP to have been driving according to (expected) conditions and only seen the car when it was almost too late.

When you drive at night you have your dipped beams on they illuminate a limited section of the road and will not reflect any light out of a rear reflector far off in the distance, if you have your full beams on then you would see reflector light from a good distance but the OP would not have full beams on on the motorway with traffic infront of him.

Driving at night you are looking out for (in the dark distance) illuminated cars, not unlit cars. In this example it was not something that was expected or could be expected, it would have just emerged out of the dark very quickly. Even at 60 mph there would be little more he could have done.

eamon

Going back to the OP. Motorways in the Republic of Ireland are for many people a new experience and hence the rules are still being learnt. Saying that though it is perfectly possible for a vehicle to experience a failure that can leave it stranded in an inapproriate lane. Some years ago it almost happened to me when the fuel line in my car failed. At the time I was in lane 3 and luckily I was able to coast to the hard shoulder. Scary stuff!