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Unintentional Acceleration

I’m slow to get to this, but this incredible case of a sideways high-speed shunt in the U.K. is about as dramatic a case you can imagine of how divorced a motorist can be from the world around him.

Via the BBC:

In a bid to release her vehicle, she said she pulled on the handbrake and flashed her hazard lights to try to catch the driver’s attention, as well as that of other road users, but she said it took the lorry driver nearly a minute to notice her.

When he did he was “all over the place”, Mrs Williams said, and finally managed to bring both vehicles to a stop on the hard shoulder.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Risk, Roads, Traffic safety, Trucks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Unintentional Acceleration”

  1. Pete Says:
    March 22nd, 2010 at 3:51 pm

    I meant to send this to you and forgot, there is an interview with the driver of the car here

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/8579523.stm

    It all happened just a few miles from where I live.

  2. ToddBS Says:
    March 22nd, 2010 at 7:59 pm

    That’s unreal. I almost have to think he was driving under the influence of something.

  3. TomC Says:
    March 22nd, 2010 at 9:10 pm

    Sadly, many who drive a vehicle of that size and weight take little interest in their surroundings. Because other vehicles don’t represent a significant hazard, they cease to matter, and the onus is on others to get out of the way.

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Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

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