Ouch

[Towtug]

Passed this yesterday morning. Unusually it appeared to be at the top of an uphill section.

https://www.granthamjournal.co.uk/news/lane-reopens-on-a1-following-accident-at-grantham-9078771/

Edited August 8, 2019 by Towtug

[JamesF]

Ouch ! is quite right.

 

On the plus side it gives you an "inside view" of  how a modern Bailey  is built!!!

 

JIm 

[macafee2]

article describes them as overturned, look upright to me.

 

Sad that someone's pride and joy is now scrap. I wonder what happened

 

macafee2

[JTQ]

Ouch indeed.

I wonder here, what part the well damped ride of a twin axle caravan lulled the driver into a false sense of stability?

 

Anyone able to identify the tow vehicle and from that able to estimate the weight ratio?

 

[Stevan]

Nothing in the pictures to even suggest a stability issue!

The floor to ceiling damage on one front corner only suggests contact with something large, vertical, hard and possibly stationary.

The position of the vehicle makes me wonder whether he/she simply drove off the road catching the corner of the van on a tree.

Total speculation of course, no doubt that the rest of the scene which is not in the photo's could tell a lot.

[Hairyspinner]

Could be a Sante Fe, looks like it’s hit the side of something, maybe a truck? If it is a Sante Fe then the weight ratio would be ok. A recent post on here mentioned outfits doing 70+ mph, easy to get into snake if passing a large vehicle at that sort of speed. 

[JTQ]

5 minutes ago, Stevan said:

Nothing in the pictures to even suggest a stability issue!

 

 

The text "An overturned car and caravan are causing long delays on the A1 southbound.", however, gives me a hint stability played a part.

[Stevan]

2 minutes ago, JTQ said:

 

The text "An overturned car and caravan are causing long delays on the A1 southbound.", however, gives me a hint stability played a part.

You believe journalists over photographs?

[CommanderDave]

20 minutes ago, JTQ said:

Ouch indeed.

I wonder here, what part the well damped ride of a twin axle caravan lulled the driver into a false sense of stability?

 

Anyone able to identify the tow vehicle and from that able to estimate the weight ratio?

 

 

 

I looked at that myself and thought what is the tow vehicle and the ratio ?

 

 

Dave

[JTQ]

3 minutes ago, Stevan said:

You believe journalists over photographs?

 What about the photograph proves the text statement to be wrong?

[CommanderDave]

Report is for just car and caravan involved and passengers taken to hospital .

[Stevan]

1 minute ago, JTQ said:

 What about the photograph proves the text statement to be wrong?

The absence of visible damage to the off side, or nearside rear of the van casts doubt on the "overturned" statement. 

[MacSpot]

My daughter passed this yesterday morning. She said the tow car was on it's side and the caravan looked twisted. Also there was another car involved, which was on it's roof. I wouldn't like to speculate how that happened.

[nigel207]

The tow car looks like a Kia Sorento I think.

 

As the whole outfit has gone off the road, it’s possible that the caravan was up on its nearside wheels when it left the road and hit a tree on the way down. If so, the occupants were very fortunate in that the car missed whatever the caravan hit. If it was a tree, they ALWAYS win (however small) in a crash.

 

Just beaten to posting by the above which suggests another vehicle involved etc.

Edited August 8, 2019 by nigel207
Additional info

[WispMan]

Why oh why do we have to speculate on how these accidents happened, every time they are posted on CT?

 

There are experts on RTAs who do this for a living. Leave it to them and don't forget that peoples nearest and dearest may well be reading these posts.

[JTQ]

Because on this side of the forum there are humans, and speculating to try and understand how things might occur has been a factor that has developed the species.  Ever, though, I wonder how that happened?

[Dannyp]

45 minutes ago, JTQ said:

Ouch indeed.

I wonder here, what part the well damped ride of a twin axle caravan lulled the driver into a false sense of stability?

 

Anyone able to identify the tow vehicle and from that able to estimate the weight ratio?

 

Looks like a Sorento to me, 2010 - 2015 vintage

[wozzer]

I was following my mate years ago, in the Scottish borders.

There we were, merrily cruising along, when a pick-up truck which was towing a trailer load of sheep came the other way.

When pick-up driver saw my mates outfit coming the other way, he braked (too hard) and his trailer load of livestock pushed him onto the wrong side of the road.

The pick-up truck impacted the front offside of my mates caravan and it literally exploded.

Most of the caravan ended up in the field alongside the road, leaving just the chassis standing on the road.

I left half a dozen black stripes on the tarmac, but managed to stop well clear of the carnage. 

Thankfully, no-one was hurt.

Cause of the accident? 2-Ton pick-up towing 3 Tons of sheep & trailer - It didn't take the Police long to figure that out.

 

Why do I relate the story? because the shock, horror and upset caused took quite a long time to get over.

I was shaking like a leaf whilst trying to pick up my mates family belongings out of the field and the wreckage.

I was in a daze, and am sure that adrenaline was the only thing keeping me going at that point - and I wasn't the one that got hit.

 

- We are not RTA investigation experts, and apart from maybe looking at the results of an accident (hard not to, because we are indeed only Human) we shouldn't really delve into it, just take the results as a warning to make sure that we always "do it right".

As WispMan says - don't forget that peoples nearest and dearest may well be reading these posts.

[joanie]

when ever we , (that's anyone ), passes a crash / accident on the road,  we usually says things like, , I wonder how that happened, perhaps, blah, blah, blah, I hope they are all right.  Of course we discuss it, were they overweight , loaded wrongly, hit something or something hit them, that's human nature, we are not being  nasty or disrespectful, we are just wondering and being thankful that it's not us. In doing so it brings to light what could happen and hopefully makes us more aware of safety on the roads. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, WispMan said:

Why oh why do we have to speculate on how these accidents happened, every time they are posted on CT?

 

There are experts on RTAs who do this for a living. Leave it to them and don't forget that peoples nearest and dearest may well be reading these posts.

 

It's called human nature, people are naturally inquisitive and will look for reasons, circumstances and answers especially fellow caravanners.

 

We cannot stifle this, due to the way news is covered and shared across social media it would be like trying to turn back the tide.

 

If their nearest and dearest are reading these the posts there is an even bigger change it is being discussed and debated on the larger social media platforms.

 

As Moderators all we can do is ensure the topic doesn't get out of hand.

[Mr Plodd]

As someone who has attended the scene of literally hundreds of collisions, and reconstructed a lot of them, my observations would be. 

 

1. The two photographs were clearly taken at different times.

2. One shows the car and caravan off the road and the other, showing the extensive damage was taken once it was returned to the road.

3. The damage tends to suggest impact with something fairly substantial and of at least the same height as the caravan. It if where lower the damage would have tended to “undercut” the roof, and it hasn’t.

4.  The point of impact was probably the very corner of the front nearside, there is clear evidence of the floor (the strongest part other than the chassis rails) having suffered impact damage which caused a section of to be being broken off and moved upwards and rearwards. (Look for the bottom end of the corner steady in the picture) 

5. In the photo of it off the road there appears (on the left of the picture) a section of the sidewall that has been, for want of a better expression, “peeled back” which, to me. tends to indicate that whatever the caravan hit is just hidden by the remaining  bodywork.

6. That, combined with the location of the damage I described above, would lead me to surmise that the possible scenario is that the rig left the road (for reasons unknown) when it struck something that is hidden from view in the photographs available. Again taking into account the surroundings, that was probably a tree. 

 

HOWEVER without further pictures/evidence the above is simply what, due to my experience of dealing with such things,  I have surmised may have happened. 

 

Andy

 

p.s. We used to call those slowing down to look at crashes as “slack-jaws” which I thought a very appropriate term for them.

 

p.p.s. These pictures show why it’s illegal to carry passengers in a caravan (another thread earlier this week!)  They don’t stand up to collisions very well! 

Edited August 8, 2019 by Mr Plodd

[Easy T]

11 minutes ago, Mr Plodd said:

p.s. We used to call those slowing down to look at crashes as “slack-jaws” which I thought a very appropriate term for them.

 

A few years ago we were towing along A55 from Ewloe towards Betws Y Coed. A caravan was overturned on the opposite carriageway, The queues on our side was only a little less than the opposite carriageway ..... rubberneckers! 

[nigel207]

I too spent many years on Traffic, and then the final ten years of my service on the Forensic Collision Investigation Unit. Even if you see the resultant position of vehicles post-collision, it doesn’t always say why an incident occurred - one of the longest collision scenes that I looked at following a fatal crash was just under a mile (first kerb strike!).

 

However, moving on to the “slack-jaws”, we knew them as “rubber necks”.

[tom_1989]

you dont have to be a forensic scientist to the see the caravan has clearly clouted something big and heavy on the front corner, the treeline a few feet behind it is probably a good indicator what that big heavy thing was. 

[chrisn7]

It seems me that a certain curiosity about such accidents is a good thing so we can understand how we might the same fate avoid ourselves, especially if something other than excess speed is involved.