Motorway queues and 'rubbernecking'

The vast majority of collisions (over 90%) are due to human error.

Laz,you stupid fool. Accidents do happen,and sometimes it isn't someone's fault!
People make mistakes,Laz. S**t happens.

With regard to accidents, Here's a thought.., Accidents DON'T JUST HAPPEN!.., Accidents are CAUSED......, by someone's NEGLECT. I've been driving for over 34 years.., 28 of them behind the wheel of an articulated lorry, and fortunate to be accident free too. That is because i can read. Believe me., I have seen some pile ups in my time. Usually caused by some ar**hole (and YES.., that includes Women), who simply don't know how to read a road sign, or even look at the big white 'idiots guides' painted on just about every road around the globe. Or doing something like reaching to get something from the glovebox, or changing a cd. How hard can it be to move over to the lane that ISN'T closed off when you see the first warning sign?? (Didn't see it??...., Then you obviously weren't 'looking', were you)?.., That way, all traffic would simply be able to 'keep moving' through, rather than get all snarled up in a bottleneck generally caused by ignorant twats who like to race up the closed lane, only to come face to face with road cones, and then cause havoc trying to get into the lane they should have been in in the first place!. Hardly rocket science, is it? Stay OFF the phone too, cos if any of you ever hit my truck.., it won't be me that gets hurt. I'll have 44 tonnes under my backside. It's far better to be 10 minutes late in this world, than to be 30 years early in the next! Read the road guys n gals.., Stop the rubbernecking too.., Because 98% of the time.., it's usually a broken tail light caused by someone behind them not looking, or reading the road. (How's that for irony)?? Don't be a statistic. Oh, and one more thing.., just '1 flash' of the indicator when 'halfway through changing lane' doesn't really constitute a turn signal, does it? I've had years of experience on the roads, so i can predict a lot of the time.., but it doesn't make me, or anybody else, a MIND READER! A bit of time, patience, and courtesy will keep you alive longer. Drive safely guys n gals. :)

Unless I've been a passenger, I've never looked at an accident when driving.

Rubbernecking although perceived as disgusting and perverted is a condition built into the Human framework, something to do with the pack instinct and looking at the kill, drawn from our hunter gatherer past. Although we dont wish to rubberneck we are all drawn to it. I'll wager even the most militant anti-rubbernecker will cast a glance and even slow down ever so slightly to see the bloodbath on the road, so Human=pack instinct=view the kill..

By no means is it a good or practical solution and yes I'm pretty much talking out my @rse, but I'd love every gawping driver to be pulled over and issued 3 points and £100 fine.

I only say this because 1 accident I've been in was the result of what I later saw to be a van on car crash, the moronic mindless 27 year old woman caked in make up behind me was on her phone and staring at the accident. I saw this from glancing into my rear view mirror but had nowhere to go as the traffic had stopped. Crunch. When I got out, she stayed put and the police came over. She claimed I reversed into her car. Retard. As far as I know, the police saw it and she was heavily fined, given points and her insurance company didn't try to contest police statements.

Car Crusher, here is a radical thought for you stop all drivers driving two cars or more at once.
So you are saying "what the h*ll does he mean by that" no doubt ... well how many drivers do you know that can drivemore than one car at a time??
If building more roads generates more cars, where do all the drivers come from to drive those extra cars??
If we increase the capacity of the motorways to accommodate the number of drivers who actually use a particular stretch of road, then where will all the other cars come from to fill it up??? End of problem, and no need to crush more cars.
Just crushing cars, and the car "Scrappage" scheme as it is called, generate more polution producing new cars than running older ones longer. Regardless of how "clean" newer engines are.
We should all be driving Hydrogen powered vehicles, and pollution would from cars would be almost non-existant.

I have one idea to tackle motorway congestion, be it on the M25 or anywhere else. If we encourage employers to almost exclusively employ people from within a 10 mile radius of their place of work; there would be fewer cars on the road and less congestion.

Stuck in traffic on the M60 just before the M61 slip near Eccles Manchester I heard a siren behind and prepared to move over. Checked my mirrors but no blue lights. I did a double take when I saw a white unmarked transit connect van edging everyone from the outside lane. It then shot to the hard shoulder and disappeared up the motorway still sounding a siren!! Was this an unmarked police car or just a very bold commuter...can anybody please explain!?

I believe the practice is known as 'swooping' - the daredevil, death-defying display of stupendous car control and test of steely nerves which leaves us lesser driving mortals shaking our heads in admiration.

At least I think it is in admiration.

These 'Last Chance Saloon' lanes that are being incorporated into major junction exits only encourage people shooting over from the outside lane to the slip road. The kind of slip road exits where there are two filters, merging into two lanes on the actual slip road. The number of people I've seen come flying across three lanes of traffic and the chevrons to make their exit is staggering.

Although on the M42 the other week, I witnessed a BMW cut across the chevrons to make the exit, and seconds later a police car that had been cruising behind a lorry put on its lights and shot off after the BMW, leaving all the surrounding drivers with a warm happy feeling in their tummys!

Peter is actually from Kent, and you go where the work is. I dont mind paying a toll so long as it is fair.
Incorporate road tax into the fuel. Reduce Government fuel Tax at the same time.
Of course I didnt think they built Motorways to attract cars.Easing congestion in the countries By-Ways, how silly of me.
BTW I am also for Hydrogen Cars, Nuclear Plants for electric, as well.
I do apologise "Crush All Cars" rename yourself TROLL.

Peter is actually from Kent, and you go where the work is. I dont mind paying a toll so long as it is fair.
Incorporate road tax into the fuel. Reduce Government fuel Tax at the same time.
Of course I didnt think they built Motorways to attract cars.Easing congestion in the countries By-Ways, how silly of me.
BTW I am also for Hydrogen Cars, Nuclear Plants for electric, as well.
I do apologise "Crush All Cars" rename yourself TROLL.

The cause of the congestion is simple. Too many cars. Guys like Peter need to pay more for the motorways, by toll if necessary. Or have their cars crushed.

All building motorways does is attract cars like a swarm of flies. Why do people live in Andover and work in London? It's complete nonsense.

Crush all the cars

The police had to almost beat people back when my friend and I were struck by that motorcyclist. They closed the road so that we could all be tended to, but people tried to walk down the set-aside on the other side of the hedges. I hope they enjoyed seeing a horse almost sliced in two slowly bleeding to death. It beats me how ghoulish people are, the sick bast****.

I cannot understand drivers that slow down for a look. What exactly is it that they want to see? Many times when at the scene of an accident I have seen one happen on the opposite carriageway, caused by rubbernecking.
Trust me people when I tell you this:- You really don't want to see it! As a member of the emergency services I saw some real horrible accidents. Things that will live with me for the rest of my life. I had to see them to do my job, you don't have to!
One of the things that always amazes me is how the driver slows to have a look regardless of who else is in the car. You may be foolish enough to want to see a mangled carcass etc. but surely not when your children are in the back? Do you want them seeing it too?

Good words Reg! I experience this kind of behaviour on the M62 between junctions 32 and 30 in West Yorkshire and I know the type of people who will be racing up on the fast lane and at the 200 yard marker for junction 30 will shoot across and cut me up.

Which is why I don't let such drivers in and if they miss their exit, well, it's their own fault for leaving it to the last minute trying to 'beat' all the other cars.

As 'hg' says, there are a lot of drivers who feel they have to win a situation. And you see all those drivers in the 3rd lane on the motorway driving Audi's, BMW's, Mercs and other high-class executive saloons!

I might get to my destination 5 minutes later than the person who stormed up the motorway and then cut someone up to make a quick exit but I'll arrive with my blood pressure the same as it was when I woke up that morning.

As for rubber necking... I don't see the point to be honest in looking at other peoples misery. That's what Eastenders is for. As a passenger it's a reaction to look at something but when you're driving it's just plain dangerous. In that time, which may only be a few seconds, you have looked away something may have changed in front of you. Remember, rubber necking causes more accidents... which results in more rubber necking... and more accidents. It's a vicious circle.

I love driving, it's just the other ignorant and idiotic drivers that make it stressful.

You are not alone in your appreciation of what happens on this stretch of motorway. Luckily I do not have to use it as often as you, but many who have travelled to Gatwick or the Eurotunnel almost certainly will have. Even if you have pulled off the M25 at the Heathrow turn, drivers will have had a flavour of what it's like.
It is a bad piece of motorway and dual carriageway design, that exit/slip roads are not vastly longer. In some instances traffic trying to leave the motorway tails all the way down the slip road back onto the Motorway itself!
People also don't seem to want to believe road signs telling them their exit is a mile, or half a mile away. Apparently the method is to fly up to your junction, in the fast lane and, on a nose to tail motorway assume it won't be snarled up at your junction, (even though it is everywhere else) and then fly off at your exit, cutting up three, four or five lanes of motorway users.
May I say if anyone using this stretch of motorway does drive dangerously like this and you happen to be reading, you might like to reflect on the FACT that this makes you a Dick!
No, I do not have Tourette's you are just a Dick. Make sure it is mentioned on your tombstone.

If only people knew! I was in a minor accident on the M6 and had to wait on the hard shoulder for a tow. Luckily the wait wasn't long and it was August bank holiday so the weather was fine. That was 20 years ago, but what struck me then and what remains a vivid memory today was just how gormless these rubberneckers looked as they stared in my direction through the passenger side windows.
In case any rubberneckers still haven't got the message you look like you're dead from the neck upwards!
None did offer assistance that day and I can only recall how grateful I was for that- because it would have been ungrateful to turn down the well-meant assistance of a family of morons!

It's just all a big race to some people. They must 'win'.