[Closed] Closing roads after accidents - is it worth it?

Depending on what has happened it takes time to repair barriers, surface and clean it up.

Every big accident is a potential unexplained death, so I understand that investigations need to be thorough, damaged road surfaces need fixing.

Not sure how investigation time compares to a fatal crash on the motorway to a fatal crash with a cyclist on an urban road.

Be interested to know how we compare with other similar countries.

The UK health and safety wombles will always close things down for far far far longer than its actually necessary. Regardless of the cause or type of accident.

I suppose you would prefer that the swept the road and filled in holes etc. With normal traffic going by?

This appeared on my timeline yesterday

https://dcarvsgt.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/a-diversion-from-my-day-to-day-life/

I get the impression we do the 'investigation' bit properly. We then just fail to do anything about it to take dangerous motorists off the roads and re-engineer the roads to make them safer for all road users

Only four posts until health and safety gone mad. New record?

I get the impression we do the 'investigation' bit properly. We then just fail to do anything about it to take dangerous motorists off the roads and re-engineer the roads to make them safer for all road users

It's a lot easier to assess something that's happened and is in front of you. Than to identify who is driving like a twunt today.

And I'm far from convinced that all people that drive dangerously are driving dangerously all the time. That said, some people do seem to get away lightly with some ridiculous driving after being caught.

[i]I suppose you would prefer that the swept the road and filled in holes etc. With normal traffic going by? [/i]

I wouldn't prefer anything, I genuinely have an open mind.

I get the impression that the Police won't 'clear' the scene for repairs until they've finished and that they'll want to do that in daylight. So it could, in the incident above be 5, 6 or 7 hours before anyone's allowed to start carrying out repairs etc?

I suppose you would prefer that the swept the road and filled in holes etc. With normal traffic going by?

I passed the scene of a recent accident in Edinburgh yesterday, at a big roundabout. It was two lanes so traffic progressing, in one lane a poor Police man had put two plastic boxes over what I can only assume were tire marks, and was guarding them. Always gives me the shivers, the marks on the bonnet or the car in front of the tire marks made it look like said driver had hit a pedestrian or cyclist as he entered the roundabout.

The police really don't want the road closed for any longer than absolutely necessary. And it is absolutely necessary to gather the evidence they need at the crash scene - of course there may be a chance that someone down the chain will fail to use that evidence correctly, but there's certainly no hope of successful prosecution if they don't take the time to investigate.

The last paragraph of that linked blog should sum it up for people who are cross because of relatively minor inconvenience.

So I ask you, to use that time in the queue to do one thing. Think about your family. Think how it may be if your loved one was trapped in that car with a severed spine, think if you were never going to see them again. Think that that appointment probably can be rearranged again, and think about the family liaison officer walking towards the house with the childrens toys on the garden path. Then when you get back home, hug your family.

They're more than likely not investigating to make the roads safer, rather investigating so the insurance companies involved can attribute blame and work out how much money they can make and from who.

I know what you are getting at OP. Happens near me and I'd always be interested in what causes were found and what lessons learnt as a result of the investigations but nothing is made public. You'd think that after 4-5 accidents at the same junction someone was using the information but nothing changes. So - why bother?

I don't want to sound like a hand-wringing yoghurt knitter, but it does sadden me slightly that we're so desensitised to RTAs that our collective reaction to someone potentially being killed these days is outrage that we've missed Coronation Street.

And if it has to be this way, we could at least be desensitised even further so that we don't all feel compelled to slow down to walking pace as we drive past to get a good look at a crumpled car which is broadly identical to every other crumpled car we've ever seen ever.

People, I tell you.

They're more than likely not investigating to make the roads safer, rather investigating so the insurance companies involved can attribute blame and work out how much money they can make and from who.

Now I'm no genius here but aren't the insurance companies betting on accidents NOT happening?

but nothing is made public. You'd think that after 4-5 accidents at the same junction someone was using the information but nothing changes. So - why bother?

No. I mean made public. Put into the public domain. Made available for the public to access. If there's a common cause of accidents at a location do you not think it would be in the publics interest to know and perhaps therefore improve things?

cougar, if the delays felt justified because;

1) time taken to treat injured at scene, free them etc
2) clear up any damage to road/roadside
3) recover vehicles

I don't think anyone would mind.

There seems to be this extra step of

4) spend hours gathering evidence for a prosecution that may or may not happen adn for which the sentence is likely to be trivial.

if it was

4) spend hour sgathering evidence with a view to establishing if changes ot raod layout/speed limits/signage would prevent another accident AND THEN MAKE THE CHANGES

maybe people not directly affected would feel less like a waste of everyone's time.

Clearly the victims need to be a priority, not just scooped off the road 'cos they're delaying the traffic but I think I was asking about proportionality.

Is the time spent establishign the cause of an accident proportional to the eventual outcome of any criminal charges?

Is it 'worth' causing so much disruption to others .... for the outcome to often be so trivial?

Now I'm no genius here but aren't the insurance companies betting on accidents NOT happening?

Now I'm no genius here but aren't the insurance companies betting on accidents NOT happening?

I think they're mainly focused on not paying for them. They need a few accidents to warrant your obligation to pay for something you're statistically unlikely to draw more from than pay into.

No. I mean made public. Put into the public domain. Made available for the public to access

Like this, you mean?

http://www.northyorks.gov.uk/article/25501/Road-safety---collision-information

I'm sure that many local authorities would publish similar reports.

If you don't gather the evidence how will you know if it was a simple accident or a criminal act that caused someone's death. So how will you know which cases to prosecute with your limited resources? Or should we just accept that everyone makes mistakes and not bother finding out whether someone's dad died because of a medical problem, a mistake he made, a mistake someone else made or a wilful act by someone else?

What.... Paying out makes for more profit? I hope your not an accountant...

No. I mean made public. Put into the public domain. Made available for the public to access

I was travelling next to a car that was rear-ended on the M4 a few years ago and I have to say the emergency services and the 'Wombles' were incredibly efficient with dealing with the mess and the investigation work. Closed the motorway for 3 1/2 hours through rush hour and everyone was swearing at them for closing the road despite there being the remains of a Clio scattered across 2 lanes and a very much shorter van in lane 3.
I was used as a witness for the prosecution against the van driver so had a good chat with the police about what was going on at the time and he said that if they miss one bit of info or record it wrong then the defendant's lawyer will jump on it to get the charges dropped so they are super-careful about following procedures. He did say that the 3D scanners they use have nade the job easier but it still takes time to check everything's done correctly.

The van driver got a ban for 12 months IIRC after they found his phone mid-text on the road somewhere. Without closing the road that would probably not have been found.

The last paragraph of that linked blog should sum it up for people who are cross because of relatively minor inconvenience.

Why exactly? It's sentimental twaddle.

It adds nothing to improving the situation. It's the equivalent of "our prayers are with..." bollocks.

If one wanted to do something constructive in a traffic jam, perhaps composing that letter lobbying for safer infrastructure or making plans to change your own journey needs to reduce congestion might have a more measurable positive impact than a little pithy whimsy.

[i]I'd rather we got the prosecuting/sentencing bit sorted out[/i]

[i]The van driver got a ban for 12 months IIRC after they found his phone mid-text on the road somewhere[/i]

quite.

Bobbies are quite keen to reopen roads in cases where there is minimal/no injury involved (inc whipcash, which gets recorded as minor injury only by our local boys in blue. However they will shut it all down to allow a proper investigation to take place if death, life threatening or life changing injuries have occurred. Which I think is kind of fair enough; regardless of how the incident is treated by the courts, I'm happy that police treat such incidents as seriously as they should.

If one wanted to do something constructive in a traffic jam, perhaps lobbying for safer infrastructure or making plans to change your own journey needs to reduce congestion might have a more measurable positive impact than a little pithy whimsy.

I saw it more as an coded instruction to stop whining about missing your tea.

A few years ago the Northbound M5 was completely closed for several hours, due to a "jumper" on Avonmouth bridge. It caused chaos.

I was speaking to an official from Bristol Council and he told me they would never do it again, as they reckoned it led directly to several deaths in Bristol when Emergency Services could not reach people due to the knock on grid lock in Bristol City Centre.

What.... Paying out makes for more profit? I hope your not an accountant...

Look, I heard it on Radio 4 so it [i]must[/i] be true... 😉

Sitting in traffic jam caused by such an incident gives me time to reflect on the years I've been given and the years that I hopefully have left.
But it is a valid point that all the investigations carried out are a waste of time if nothing changes.

And I'm far from convinced that all people that drive dangerously are driving dangerously all the time.

I'm absolutely convinced that most of them are. The idiots who drive up my street at 50+ do it every day at near enough the same time - I don't believe they're not speeding on every other road as well. The guy in the BMW 3 series on the A12 on Sunday afternoon undertaking and cutting in at high speed hadn't just had a momentary lapse of concentration. I don't suddenly think 'i've never updated facebook at the wheel before but i really must let everyone know what a good day i've had"

Yet when driver kill and end up in court the court always gives the benefit of the doubt and treats it as if it's the only time they've ever transgressed. [url= https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=%22otherwise+of+good+character%22+careless+driving ]"Otherwise of good character"[/url]

It's not even the defence - it's usually the bloody judges. "The judge said that although Jeffers was on bail at the time of the accident, it was only for a minor offence and he was otherwise of good character." Really? That was for "AN unqualified and speeding driver who killed a woman as she crossed the road has had his jail sentence cut."

There's a timeline of an accident/road closure [url= http://www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk/M5-crash-Police-explain-road-closure-timetable/story-20002836-detail/story.html ]here[/url] that explains what goes on.

Roads aren't closed routinely after an accident. You'd be amazed at how often they keep them open and let traffic pass slowly, we're also often asked to move quickly so it can opened. However if it's a fatal, potentially or serious injuries it's closed and the scene protected. Everything is marked up and photographed you get a right bollocking if you disturb a 'crime' scene without a good reason.

Yes it's worth a little inconvenience to protect those on the scene initially and those clearing it up.

martinhutch - Member

Only four posts until health and safety gone mad. New record?

Here you go...

https://dcarvsgt.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/a-diversion-from-my-day-to-day-life/

... a little long, but well worth the read. There's even a bit about two coppers just standing there, talking on mobiles. For those who see only that.

The derisory sentences are down to the courts, probably because our prisons are already full.

And I'm far from convinced that all people that drive dangerously are driving dangerously all the time

On my 25-mile commute I see the same stand-out characters every day. They don't seem to realise how noticeably bad their driving is whether it's intentional or not

I recall the chap who, every morning, used the right-turn lane as an overtaking lane and, at its end, carved his way back into the queue. I think 'social psychopath' probably explains it.

I once was stuck on one of those massive Autobhans in Germany, about 100k out of Vienna. And IIRC (was 10yrs ago) in the queue for about 1/2hr... couldn't see the accident as was too far ahead, then this massive Helicopter flew over with a massive grappling hook on it.. I could just see ahead it lower the hook and pick the car (s) up and dump them on the side of the road, then the sirens for the Ambulances and Police arrive on the hard shoulder.

Took about another 1/2hr to clear before we were all on our merry way again.

Not too sure if that still happens over there, but always thought "good idea"

I mean, if someones no longer alive, they're no longer alive are they...

Don't think it's just the blatant idiots see so many going slow but clueless or just not looking.

They don't seem to realise how noticeably bad their driving is whether it's intentional or not

The normalization of deviance is defined as: The gradual process through which unacceptable practice or standards become acceptable. As the deviant behavior is repeated without catastrophic results, it becomes the social norm

Right

I mean, if someones no longer alive, they're no longer alive are they..

Classy.