Bank Holiday Crash.

Jun 20, 2005
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Hope no one was injured. No idea on causation.
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M6 today.
 
Jun 20, 2017
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That must be one hell of a scary ride when an outfit gets that out of shape.
We have just got home after a cracking weekend in betws y coed (riverside), on the way home we passed ( going the other way in slow traffic) a VW Golf towing a very large twin axle van, I do wonder about some people’s rationale sometimes.

Kev
 
Feb 23, 2018
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Dustydog said:
Hope no one was injured. No idea on causation.
CCED0-D30-2-F4-B-46-B4-BA51-64751-B2-AEB55.jpg


M6 today.

A small article I saw mentions the word 'collision' but offers no further details. Not surprised though; loads of caravans out this weekend and I encountered some classic weekend/Bank Holiday (solo) drivers on the return trip to Brecon Caravan Club Site, plus the usual wide open Heki or two on the M5 (my wife told me to stop mentioning Vision Plus aerials in the wrong travel orientation) Also had delays on the M42/M5 junction possibly due to a caravan with a flat or wheel off.
 
Mar 14, 2005
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CustardAvenger said:
.......... Also had delays on the M42/M5 junction possibly due to a caravan with a flat or wheel off.

It's bad enough when an incident occurs and it happens a caravan was being towed, even if the caravan was a significant factor or not, but to speculate about delays you encounter and blaming a caravan is just doing the same as all the papers do and tends to demonise caravanners.

I do not have the figures, but its my guess that as a percentage of journeys made with caravans in tow, the number involved in incidents is very small, and pales into insignificance compared to the number of solo cars and lorries that cause bottlenecks.

We should be celebrating the fact that so few caravans are involved in incidents, rather than blowing the few that are out of all proportion.
 
Jun 20, 2005
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So low in fact Prof, they are not listed in the National Accident register!
I guess it is typical Clarkson style journalism and the anti caravan brigade.
 
Feb 23, 2018
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ProfJohnL said:
CustardAvenger said:
.......... Also had delays on the M42/M5 junction possibly due to a caravan with a flat or wheel off.

It's bad enough when an incident occurs and it happens a caravan was being towed, even if the caravan was a significant factor or not, but to speculate about delays you encounter and blaming a caravan is just doing the same as all the papers do and tends to demonise caravanners.

I do not have the figures, but its my guess that as a percentage of journeys made with caravans in tow, the number involved in incidents is very small, and pales into insignificance compared to the number of solo cars and lorries that cause bottlenecks.

We should be celebrating the fact that so few caravans are involved in incidents, rather than blowing the few that are out of all proportion.

Hi Prof,

It was observation, not speculation - the motorway was back up to the 60 limit (Smart Motorway limit) once we were past the junction the poor people with the caravan were partially blocking. This incident had caused the Highways Agency traffic patrol to cone off part of the slip and the hard-shoulder could not be used as a running lane, also restricting the heavy traffic. I was towing at the time and so were about 10 other cars in my immediate vicinity.

I agree that it's easy to demonise caravans as the vast majority of car drivers have never towed and don't know what its like. I was cut off by solo drivers moving back into lane 1, about 5 times on Monday when there was no need for them to do so; the amount of people who expect me to move over to let them on at slip roads is astounding when I have no gap in lane 2 (my outfit is 40' long) so some car/van drivers are either consciously or unconsciously trying to make caravans crash.

I think my observations highlight how a lack of attention to detail on the part of the caravanner (Exemplified by leaving windows and battery boxes open and speeding) can cause an accident with a large impact to other motorists, when a solo car has a much greater margin of error.
 
Oct 12, 2013
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After recently driving back from France doing 2 long-haul drives at about 7 hours each I would prefer to drive over in France as to over here as when I was travelling up from Dover back to Sunderland / Newcastle area the amount of people like you say that pull out onto the slip road and assume I am moving over with my outfit which is about the same as yours then surprised when i dont as there's no room to get out of the way for them , now I'm a calm driver and very courteous but it boils my #@!$ when they start giving you the evil stare and hand gestures when you've passed them !! :angry:
 
Mar 24, 2014
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Craigyoung said:
After recently driving back from France doing 2 long-haul drives at about 7 hours each I would prefer to drive over in France as to over here as when I was travelling up from Dover back to Sunderland / Newcastle area the amount of people like you say that pull out onto the slip road and assume I am moving over with my outfit which is about the same as yours then surprised when i dont as there's no room to get out of the way for them , now I'm a calm driver and very courteous but it boils my #@!$ when they start giving you the evil stare and hand gestures when you've passed them !! :angry:

They do seem to forget that the lines at the end of the slip road indicate that is is THEY who are required to give way.....
 
Nov 11, 2009
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Tourer-Ted said:
Look at the state of that feeble chassis! Just point to that picture when folk ask about jacking up with the steadies!

Isn’t it the same as your car? You jack it at the designated points only. After all you wouldn’t jack an aircraft by its wingtips would you ?
 
Nov 16, 2015
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otherclive said:
Tourer-Ted said:
Look at the state of that feeble chassis! Just point to that picture when folk ask about jacking up with the steadies!

Isn’t it the same as your car? You jack it at the designated points only. After all you wouldn’t jack an aircraft by its wingtips would you ?

The main longitudinal, chassis are strong. The rest of the caravan sits on the floor, and the body is built around .
 
Mar 14, 2005
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We don't and probably won't know what happened, but the picture does show the caravan on its side, but it struck me that it's different to the pictures we usually see; historically an over turning caravan would be shattered and the content strewn across the road, but this one has remained virtually intact, rather like the Australian one that someone posted a few weeks ago.

Edit.. This containment of the caravans content, should make recovery simpler and a lot quicker, allowing the traffic to get going sooner

This suggests the newer construction techniques do create a stronger body, which in turn will improve the ridigity of the floor panel so it will better resist deformation by over zealous use of the steadies.
 
Jun 20, 2005
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Good observation there Prof. :cheer:
There has been a major move away from timber and aluminium towards composites and grp side panels . Hope for us caravanners our pride and joys may last longer than we thought.
 
May 7, 2012
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From dealing with accidents for an insurer I have to say the number of these cases is minimal. When it does happen it tends to be messy and the actual numbers are nowhere near what the publicity seems to suggest.
The numbers I have seen have not been enough to draw too many conclusions, but the towing ratio of these has always been high, which makes me cautious on this aspect. People say they have had no problem when it is high, but it takes only one serious emergency and things can get out of hand rapidly.
 
Jul 18, 2017
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Dustydog said:
So low in fact Prof, they are not listed in the National Accident register!
I guess it is typical Clarkson style journalism and the anti caravan brigade.

I would think that statistics will be based on trailer accidents and not caravan accidents? However this would include HGVs with trailers.
 

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