[Closed] Road Closed for Investigation Work

I was driving down the M6 between J15 and J14 on Tuesday and saw the aftermath of an accident in which, I guess, somebody was killed. The air ambulance had just taken off and there was debris of a couple of cars and a trailer on the hard shoulder and lane 1. The police had halted all the northbound traffic.

Later that evening at about 11 I was coming north up the M6 and saw signs that the road was still closed northbound between the junctions.

Every day on the radio you hear of a motorway being closed for police investigation work, which usually manages to span the time between two rush hours.

I used to work for a Highways agency in Scotland - if an 'accident' is fatal then the road must be closed. Yes it can be inconvenient to the public but it's a pretty horrific scene.

Why do they need to treat every single accident as if it was a murder enquiry? We already know what causes accidents. We know the driver at fault only gets a slap on the wrists. Do they think if they take enough photos and measurements the dead man will come back to life

Sometimes it is a murder enquiry. Not so long ago a man was sent to prison for chasing and ramming another motorist off the M74.

In my time with the HA I witnissed two deaths. One where a motorcyclist was killed after a car driver overtook across solid whites and hit him head on. That was grim. We sat with the motorcyclist until the services arrived, he later died in hospital.

The other was one of our own staff, an electrician puling cables in the central reserve for new lamps. It was a full road closure on the M8 and a drunk driver came through and ran into the back of his van which then crushed him.

Death on the roads is all too common and a sad part of life, the aftermath of it all is heartbreaking and difficult. The investigations are very thorough and we were always aware that the majority of the public don't see what really goes on and thus get frustrated at the inconvenience to them.

Unfortunately our road network is vastly overcrowded and we are only human - these things will happen. Next time just be glad it's not you or someone you know. That should stop you getting irritated at the hold up.

The guys are doing their best with a poor network, you can't polish a turd and all that.

I don't back pedal cynic-al.

And anyway, I couldn't if I wanted to. It's fixed.

holy hell, comparing traffic lights on a roundabout to someone dying 😥

And the the Traffic Wombles appear and close the motorway at Rush hour to retrieve a lost door mirror.

thats a Clarkson quote, amazed no one jumped on that

[i][edit] Air ambulances are usually involved in saving someones life. That is what they're there for. Only a real tool would get grumpy at the sight of an air ambulance [edit] [/i]

I wasn't getting grumpy about the air ambulance, but how they always land on the other carriageway totally blocking the road - the fact that the roads are full of knobs, I know already, you've only got to see the accidents (or end of them), and wonder - how did they do that?

And the shutting totally of carriageways/roads for very long periods is IME (having got my driving licence probably before most posters' on here were born - except oldgit 🙂 quite a modern event - and probably another extension of the H&S disease.

And having driven in many, many other countries - I can happily report that ours are actually amongst the safest 😳

It just goes to show the lack of education into how the roads are policed and fatals investigated. There is as much in depth investigation into a fatal RTC as there is a murder. As already mentioned what's to esay it isn't murder (in the legal terms?). You HAVE to shut the carriageway, who knows what debris is scattered across the road. You HAVE to have complete control to investigate it seriously and throughouly. Plus it will be specialised teams coming out to do the investigation, measurements etc et. It can be a very scientific in depth nightmare investigation.

AS for just getting onto the carriageway to pick up debris ... are you serious? I mean come on have you stood on the hard shoulder when trucks go past? As for closing the opposite carriageway sometimes it has to be done, if things are so gruesome then they can't allow joe public to see the bodies or whatever as imagine the outcry then!!! Plus all the rubberneckers cause a secondary accident. You just need to chill out when the road is shut can't do nowt about it.

EDIT: And by the way there is no such thing as a road accident as someone is always to blame! So collisions they are now.