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'Hazardous fog'
When asked if the fog had been a factor, Mr Reeves said: "It's too early to give a cause. The weather will be a factor.
"I can confirm that it was, and it continues to be, very hazardous. It was described to me as a very thick fog and it was certainly low visibility at the time."
One witness said visibility was very poor but drivers were approaching the crossing with no lights. Others at the scene described a mass of tangled cars, lorries, and a car transporter. Some reports said the crash went on for 10 minutes as cars continuously collided with each other.
Driver Martin Stammers said the scene was "horrendous" and described seeing cars under lorries and people lying on the floor. He said visibility was about 10 to 20 yards when he approached the bridge and saw five cars smashed into each other with one across the outside lane. He managed to squeeze through a gap between that car and the central reservation, he said.
"For 10 minutes afterwards, all we could hear was screeching, cars thudding into each other, lorries crashing," he added. He said he and his son ran to warn other drivers and warn cars to slow down. "Later, a woman came up to us sobbing saying 'thank you, thank you, you saved my life'," he said
So, basically, drivers are apparently unaware that in thick fog with low visibility, you should:
a) - put your lights on
b) - slow down
I give up. Too many morons on the road.
You'd have thought North Sea coastal dwellers would be resonably familiar with the challenge of driving in fog... haar haar.
Eyewitness rather more forthright in the Grauniad:
Martin Stammers, who photographed mangled cars piled on top of each other, told Kent Online some motorists were "driving like idiots" despite the dense fog.
"All you could hear was cars crashing. We got out of our car and it was eerily quiet with visibility down to just 20 yards. It was all you could hear for about 10 minutes – crash after crash after crash … Then you would hear the screeching of brakes and then a thud. The whole top of the bridge is full of mangled cars and lorries. There are cars with their roofs ripped off – one is 5ft in the air. There were a lot of people trapped."
Stammers and his son James managed to stop in time clear of the accident, and then crossed to the other side of the carriage to signal to people to slow down.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/shepney-bridge-crash-100-vehicle
So apparently loads of people don't know you should be able to come to a safe stop in the distance you can see to be clear. Imagine that.
This reminds me of that old chestnut about how speed cameras supposedly "cause accidents". You know how it goes - the speeding motorist spots a speed camera and slams on the brakes to reduce their speed to below the limit, and the blameless, helpless, tailgating motorist right behind goes smashing into the back of the car in front.
I haven't seen anything like that since the clean air act stopped pea-soup fogs forming.
It's extremely depressing though, how many folk just ignore the weather. Lowered visibility, wet roads, ice, all just ignored.
It's extremely fortunate that no-one has been killed, but there are serious injuries, which is bad enough
I've just seen an arial view of this on the TV (now the fog's cleared). Looks like quite a few cars managed to stop and then crashes started happening again behind them...
I think my boyfriend drives too close to the car in front on motorways. He thinks I leave too much space, and he dislikes my practice of easing off the accelerator if someone pulls in too close in front of me. I do wish I could get him to back off a bit, but I just think any attempt would end in a huge arguement and I just can't face that. He is a more experienced and confident driver than I am, which doesn't help...
He thinks I leave too much space
This is one of those things I don't really understand. What does he think will happen, or is bad about leaving too much space? Is it some kind of road capacity thing, that if everyone drove closer together there would be more room on the roads for more cars?
"He is a more experienced and confident driver than I am"
Just say "your over-confidence is your weakness" in as Mark-Hamill-esque a voice as possible. As well as risking argument (as a sacrifice to general road safety) by verbally indicating when my wife is driving illegally or riskily I expand on the clear message of the invisible passenger-side brake pedal by frequently involuntarily bracing myself and grabbing the wee handle thing above the door during episodes of incautious overconfidence.
It's mind boggling. I don't even cycle in fog.
If I did, safety would be the #1 thing driving all my decisions.
These people are haring around in dense fog, unable to see more than 20m in front of them?
@fimm That's when I make sure I'm in the back seat of the car :)
BBC TV News -
"Epic motorway accident"
A word used several times.
Utter, utter, utter...lemmings!
This bloke's quote had me sitting open mouthed.
Cliff Montgomery, 53, ... "I was in the outside lane when vehicles in front of me braked and cars were crashing," he said. He said it was very foggy and in some places he could only see 30ft in front of him.
So there was 30ft visibility, which people were happy to hurtle into at 50, 60, 70 mph. That's 9 metres, folks.
Ye gods.
Motorway pile up dot com
The 32nd car and all the ones before it were all write offs or close to that level of damage. So it took until the 33rd car for people to slow down and just start getting smaller prangs
The old bridge underneath till had traffic flowing on it and looked like a bridge where you might slow down a bit to cross. The new bridge looks like a flyover where you might speed up a bit to get over the hill
Epic
The scariest driving I've done was on A701 by the Devil's Beeftub when the cloud base was way below me and visibility was nearly zero. I had all my fog and aux lights switched on; 30mph was too fast, and even 20mph felt too fast despite knowing the road layout ahead.
Since the majority of fog-experienced drivers never experience a collision of the nature of Sheppey, that becomes their baseline for personal safety. Why reduce speed to almost zero this time when it's always been fine before?
The problem with fog on higher speed roads is that drivers begin to rely purely on tracking the fog lights of vehicles ahead, and in losing all stimuli from peripheral vision all sense of speed and potential danger is lost, including depth perception. When a driver ahead suddenly brakes or stops, the amount of information relayed to a following driver in fog or near-whiteout conditions increases logarithmically. When the driver has enough information, it's too late, and people start crashing.
The problem with slowing down to a crawl on a foggy road is, of course, that while you should be able to avoid crashing into anything in front of you there's no guarantee that those coming up behind you will be doing the same. So the chances of them crashing into you are increased by you're slowing down if they're still driving like nutters. Something of a no-win situation.
I suspect in that situation it's worth going all contintental and sticking the hazard lights on - at least then the drivers get the "something's up" message and (hopefully) slow down.
Sorry, I should translate from the continental to UK-speak: when I say "hazard lights" I mean the "park anywhere lights".
"
Drivers who could have been prosecuted over a crash that injured more than 200 people are being offered a course instead, police have said.
"
Having been involved in such a traumatic situation, you'd hope they'd have learnt their lesson already. If not, the police might want to develop a test to determine if people are too stupid to drive...
But PS isn't that the problem? As a species we are too stupid to drive.
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