Driving into work this morning I was involved in an accident.
I see that the Escort size van that is two cars ahead of me is braking sharply and the car in front of me probably isn't going to stop.
I look in the mirror and see a Renault too close for comfort on a wet road and behind him a transit that is going way too fast.
Everyone is now slamming on the brakes and I see that the Renault is probably going to hit me and be hit by the Transit.
I move out across the white line and the Renault is shunted from behind and goes sailing past me into the back of the car that was in front of me
Everyone pulls over ie four or five cars and we start to piece it together. Except.. the car that was in front of me and was hit with real force by the Renault which is really badly crumpled has disappeared and no-one can remember what it was or can remember it driving away.
What I find weird is that the sequence of events took place over maybe three seconds and I could see exactly what was going to happen and the actions I took didn't seem particularly hurried but how can I not even tell you what colour, type or make of car it was that was in front of me and which must have been hit and which has driven off?
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These things do seem to happen in slow motion.
Did your nifty side step keep you out of the mess?
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Car in front of you that disappeared probably had no insurance!
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Did the car in front which you said probably wasn't going to stop before hitting the escort van in fact manage to do so? Or was it damaged front and back yet still drive off? Why would that be - stolen, drunk, drugs, uninsured ?
Was the escort right at the front hit? If not, presumably he might not even have known about the mayhem behind and just driven on.
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>>and no-one can remember what it was or can remember it driving away.
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Well memory often behaves in strange ways.
Many years ago a great friend and his wife were second in a queue of traffic going , at no great speed, up a slight rise on a snow affected road.
The car in front suddenly veered right into a truck.
With many vehicles behind ( and with no first aid experience) they drove straight past to try to get help ( pre mobile phones).
At the inquest another driver stated that he was immediately behind the car that crashed prior to the impact. A nervous friend then had to give his version of events.
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I saw a prog on TV, which was about police officers' recall of events in shooting incidents. Even in simulated incidents many couldn't remember immediately afterwards how many shots they had let off, nor exactly who was doing what or when, and statements taken did not match up. It seems that the brain goes into info overload, and only works on what it has to, then makes the rest up to suit what it thinks was happening. I suspect that same sort of thing happened here. Nice move onto the other side of the road - good job there was nobody coming, or you'd have been a Renault sandwich!
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RichardW
Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
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My nifty side step did indeed keep me out of trouble. Felt a bit guilty that my actions kept me out of the doo-doo when others were geting shunted and then half a nanosecond later that feeling went away.
The escort van was hit - bit of a crumpled bumper but no damage to rear doors so the mystery car was hit front and back.
I keep thinking that maybe there wasn't a mystery car but the damage to front of the Renault and the damage to the Escort van were not consistent with the Renault hitting the van.
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To the OP. Firstly, well done on avoiding the accident, nicely done. There is one thing I want to point out though...I put it to you, that you were yourself driving WAY too close for safety...if you had left a safe following distance you would have been able to reign your car in at a sensible pace, giving the cars behind you time to stop also, instead all you had time to do was to dive out of the way. I would have done the same as you (except I wouldn't have been driving too close). No sympathy for vehicles behind you as they themselves would have been fine if they had a safe following distance also.
Idiots, the lot of them!
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I once shunted an Orion (IIRC) at Chiswick Roundabout in my new company Cav, minor scrape on the Cav's bumper though the Orion (or Escort) had some damage, bent rear panel, two blokes got out, looked at the damage, said "dont worry guv" or words to that effect and drove off, I reckon the car was stolen or uninsured etc.
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I was able to stop in time. The reason I moved out was simply to avoid being hit from behind by cars who were approaching way too fast.
The Renault behind me might just have been able to stop in time but the Transit that hit him was what shunted him past where I stopped and into the mystery car.
I put it to you....that on a busy arterial road you cannot always adjust your speed and distances to vehicles two cars behind you approaching a situation that is happening a full five cars and maybe 150 metres ahead of them.
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Quick thinking on your part Nsar. You probably did the Renault and the other vehicle that hit them a favour. If they could not stop in the distance to the mystery car then they would have hit your car with even more force had you not got out of their way!
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Excellent piece of defensive driving there....well done! Whilst others behind you were asleep, you were awake, switched on and able to assess and make the right decision in an instant. What on earth was the Transit driver up to? Certainly not looking ahead at the road I guess, with a view like his he ought to have seen the brake lights in front. Anyway, you did well and very pleased you got out of a potentially nasty situation which sounds like it would easily have written your car off if not worse!
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Its called Perceptual Distortion. In that split second the audiotary and visual senses home in on the immediate threat and distort the reality, For example a gun barrel could appear the size of a dustbin lid.
Independent evidence could dispute an Officers truthful recognition of the event. Before this phenomenan was understood the accounts were often seen as lies.
Consequently 48 hours should elapse before accounts are given to allow the Officer to work round the effects.
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Fullchat
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This reply should have tagged onto RichardW's post above but for some reason did not.
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Fullchat
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This reply should have tagged onto RichardW's post above but for some reason did not.
Actually it did.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=53942&...t
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This is similar to an accident I was involved in the M4 coming out of London just after the elevated section. I saw what was happening and darted right, however being the outside lane I couldn't go very far because of the armco. I ended up going between the car in from and the armco but the gap was about a foot smaller then I needed. The car behid me then shunted the car that had been in front of me. There was no way that that car was leaving the seen on anything but a flatbed truck!
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nsar this accident didnt really happen
its friday the 13th
you were in the twilight zone
dont dwell on it
theres a full moon tonight ;-o
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>>you were in the twilight zone<<
Collyhurst actually, much more scary - the rats go round in pairs there
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Have you seen that vid of half a dozen students passing a basketball among them, where your task is to count the number of passes?
Nuff said.
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