news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4569832.stm
"Two Britons have been killed in a car crash on a motorway in northern France. The man and woman from Stafford, in Staffordshire, were travelling at about 120mph (200kmh) when their Audi A8 overturned at 1215 GMT, police said."
200kmh? in freezing rain? I have sympathy for any family left behind, but what planet was this driver on?
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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as wife says thank god they didnt hit anyone else.
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Another festive time spoiled for two families..
Takes you back to previous discussions about do all the toys etc in modern cars lull the drivers into false sense of security and think they are safe in all conditions? Like 4x4 drivers who think they will stop on ice and snow quicker than others?
Proabably not fair to comment on this any further than to say what a tragic waste of life.
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Pretty nasty conditions in N France today. It snowed quite heavily late morning, temps about minus 5, then the snow turned to rain which fell on v. cold surfaces. Some roads v. icy indeed but didn't look it. We parked car at lunchtime and 30 mins later came out to find it was completely covered with a layer of clear ice.
Don't know the circumstances of the accident near St Quentin but most people were driving very circumspectly in Calais area - and quite right too - much worse than snow because ice was clear and therefore invisible.
Phil
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Maybe they were confused and thought the signs saying 120 meant 120 mph not 120 kmh? If they had been driving for a long time and tiredness set in anything is possible.
teabelly
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Maybe they were confused and thought the signs saying 120 meant 120 mph not 120 kmh? If they had been driving for a long time and tiredness set in anything is possible. teabelly
Still not an excuse, given the weather as well.
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"driving for a long time and tiredness set in anything is possible."
From Disneyland Paris? St Quentin about an hour or so?? Mind you, they could have been tired for other reasons. Wonder how the police knew they were doing that speed? Find it hard to believe they mistook 120mph for 120kph limit (limit is 110kph in rain/poor visibility, bit of difference between 70 mph and 120)
Having said that, there were clearly quite a few people on a dark, crowded M20 this evening in very heavy rain and blinding spray who thought 100mph was reasonable, oh and some of them without headlights on, just parking lights.
Phil
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There is no explanation for the crash. A lot of high-speed crashes must be like that. Someone might know but no one listens to them. It isn't always obvious.
On the way to Prague a couple of years ago in a quite slow car, but looking forward to the German Autobahns, I was disappointed to find people pulling out into the overtaking lane and slowing down immediately, as they do here, and horrified by trains of cars 20 or 30 feet apart doing something like 130mph in the rain. It was obvious that if anything went wrong, and it easily could, the whole thing would become a pool table, with crushable balls. Later we saw the result of just such an event, fortunately in the opposite carriageway. One person I complained to about this very mad driving said: 'They trust each other'. Speed is one thing, total insanity another.
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If the road was "slippery and covered in melting snow" I would have thought reducing the speed limit only to 110kmh(69mph) would hardly have sent out the right messages.
I am also surprised that the French police saw fit to state that the car was going at 120mph. It probably was simply the opinion of an overtaken motorist. Much like speeds claimed for the Merc in the accident with Princess Diana in Paris; which subsequent tests showed to be vastly exaggerated.
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Having crashed a modern car, i can say that when the airbags deploy, the speedo "sticks" at the current given speed.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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The evidence of speed is taken from a number of things, witnesses, forensic marks at the scence, dunno about sticking speedos (although I do remember a case where this evidence was put forward in a fatal accident but was considered unreliable) dunno about ECU evidence either, I know that evidence from BMW and Audis have been recovered in the past. I couldn't see the British Police making such a comment to the press though.
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I did think that some sort of 'chip' in a modern car's electronics recorded the speed, and maybe 'g' forces, that caused the airbags to deploy. This information is of interest to the makers re the correct operation and effectiveness of the airbags.
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Nothing that sophisticated fitted yet,the speed will go into the module but it won't be recorded.Speed was probably estimated by witnesses they'd overtaken.
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Report in today's paper says the Police 'tracked' the car at 200KM/h.
Don't know which model of A8 it was, but they're very well 'insulated' cars and it may well have been a big engined, 4WD version, in which case 120MPH would be a breeze.
Wonder what the car crashed into - it must have been pretty catastrophic for both occupants to have been killed (in an A8). I've seen film of a Merc crashing at 150MPH in Germany and the driver walked away.
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I think French TV said the car hit the central crash barrier.
Don't forget French law works the opposite way to the UK - you often get even murder cases reported in full on TV as soon as the 'assumed murderer' is arrested, complete with quotes from local prosecutors, even barristers. It all seems amazing to a British journalist (me) who had to go to college to learn enough law to know not to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, thereby prejudicing a case.
The travel conditions even in SW France on Friday were the worst I have ever come across. Early morning was OK, then about 10am or so everything froze suddenly. Roads that looked just wet were actually like skating rinks. No-one around here could move and the motorway traffic just stopped. Everyone is talking about it today so it must be pretty unusual.
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Don't forget French law works the opposite way to the UK - you often get even murder cases reported in full on TV as soon as the 'assumed murderer' is arrested, complete with quotes from local prosecutors, even barristers. It all seems amazing to a British journalist (me) who had to go to college to learn enough law to know not to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, thereby prejudicing a case.
It is exactly the same in the USA.
I watched a local TV reporter on the scene of a fatal crash, that had occured an hour or two earlier, reporting that a driver(who was injured)was at fault in that he was speeding and crossed into the path of the other vehicle. He also added that this man had been drinking heavily and had a long police record for substance abuse.
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Wonder what the car crashed into
>>
One report in the press said
"It appears that their vehicle ran off the road...
There was a lot of ice about.
There does not appear to have been any other vehicle involved.
Their speed was tracked at more than 120 mph.
The A26 had been salted but that icy rain was falling at the time of the accident"
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"It appears that their vehicle ran off the road...
I guess if it ran off the road and dug into a field (or some similar scenario) then the sudden deceleration from 120MPH to 0 wouldn?t do you much good, even if the car remained relatively intact. Of course there?s always the possibility that the occupants were not wearing seat belts, but I would guess unlikely given their ages.
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Hangabout. ..´Their speed was tracked at 120mph`..
Does that mean they were being chased by French police? Or, as TVM suggests, are they going on the speedo? How do they know these things?
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Is this road a toll road ? Maybe speed was worked out via the timed tickets.
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I doubt it - they never made the checking out toll booth.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Surely what the limit is or was, is irrelevant.
Driving requires adult behaviour and taking responsibility for yourself and others . If you drive as was reported you deserve what you get and it's a great thing that apparently no-one else was affected by this selfish mornic behaviour( except of course, the emergency crews who must have had to deal with the mess)
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"no-one else was affected by this selfish mornic behaviour"
and anybody in the car that had no control over their destiny.
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I for one Adam are very much offended by your post, to disagree is one thing to slander is quite another.
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Mods - This is likely to degenerate - I suggest you pull the plugs.
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I hope they're insured, the french may zap them for the emergency services call out etc.
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You have no reason to be offended Carl - it wasn't directed at you.
That being said, I apologise for the way I put my comments across. This is not the forum for them and whilst I find Greenhey's comments disagreeable, that is no excuse and I should not have posted in the way I did so, sorry.
Adam.
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Consider this Adam, although nobody else was hurt, it is bad enough that there is at least one innocent victim of the accident, in the form of the driver's wife. Having said that, if my wife is with me when I am driving in bad conditions, I am left with no illusions about what speed I should be driving at.
If the estimate of the speed is anywhere near correct, it was surely an example of driving at a speed that was well in excess of what was safe in the conditions, never mind the fact that it was well in excess of the speed limit for the road in good weather conditions. Now, if another vehicle had been involved in the accident, what would we be saying about the driver of the Audi?
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Tensions seem to be running high in this thread.
Out of respect for the relatives and loved ones that are connected with this accident, I think it's time to lock it before any further speculation and opinions are voiced.
I have removed Adam's initial comments that some people took offence to, but as he has since apologised for them, I will leave his apology in place to clear up any misunderstanding.
DD.
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