I’ve known two bad ones to happen and one I heard about.
1 was a night trunker. 100% not his fault some boy racer was doing silly speeds on the motorway at like 3 am and crashed into his truck. The ‘boy racer’ died as a result.
If I remember correctly he took about a week off work. I know for some people this can really mess you up. I do wonder if you can claim for psychological distress because I’m pretty sure that would mess you up.
"Simon Mason, 22, from Romford, was working as a nightshift warehouse porter at Tuffnell’s site in West Horndon near Brentwood in March 2010.
An articulated 45ft HGV trailer was being reversed into an open loading bay while Mason waited to unload it.
Mason noticed the trailer was not positioned straight in the bay, so thinking it had stopped moving, he put his head around the back of the trailer to shout instructions to the driver.
However, just as he did so, the trailer came back further and crushed his head against the brick bay wall."
Another one was at DX Freight (Night Freight)
If anyone ever worked at this place it had zero regard for health and safety.
Diesel forklifts in and out the warehouse unloading lorries.
One forklift went into the back of the lorry and just as he went in the lorry driver pulled away.
The forklift fell out of the back and landed on the yard floor.
He suffered pretty bad back injuries.
In the late 80s my dad was a bus driver for GM buses Manchester .
before they were privatised.
One Saturday he was doing his route and a car of teenagers basically drove towards him on wrong side of the road staright into his bus.
Lucky my dad wasn’t injured.
2 people in car died. Driver survived got a priosn sentence for being 3 times over the limit
Dad took 6 months off work . Went back lasted a week then left he couldn’t cope with driving a bus ever again.
Took him about 2 years to get back driving again
edd1974:
In the late 80s my dad was a bus driver for GM buses Manchester .
before they were privatised.
One Saturday he was doing his route and a car of teenagers basically drove towards him on wrong side of the road staright into his bus.
Lucky my dad wasn’t injured.
2 people in car died. Driver survived got a priosn sentence for being 3 times over the limit
Dad took 6 months off work . Went back lasted a week then left he couldn’t cope with driving a bus ever again.
Took him about 2 years to get back driving again
Those are the real casualties that we never hear about. Even when just walking I see pedestrians getting too close to reversing vehicles.
"Simon Mason, 22, from Romford, was working as a nightshift warehouse porter at Tuffnell’s site in West Horndon near Brentwood in March 2010.
An articulated 45ft HGV trailer was being reversed into an open loading bay while Mason waited to unload it.
Mason noticed the trailer was not positioned straight in the bay, so thinking it had stopped moving, he put his head around the back of the trailer to shout instructions to the driver.
However, just as he did so, the trailer came back further and crushed his head against the brick bay wall."
We had exactly the same thing at United Carriers around 45 years ago, it had a better outcome as I spoke to the chap who it happened to yesterday.
The worst one I heard about happened on the north circular about 5 or 6 years ago. A car full of young lads was racing around it, it crashed and caught fire, and all 4 burned alive. Some of the witness accounts were haunting.
This one. open.ac.uk/Arts/history-from … Rta84.html
The wreckage was brought in for storage and forensics at our Weatherhill Motorway depot on the M23.It was sickening seeing the ID numbers spray painted on the roofs of the burnt out wrecks.
Also passed the aftermath of this going Southbound.No screens put up then I drove past it looking fixed at the nearside mirrors. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M40_minibus_crash
Coincidentally last night I was reading about that truck driver in Canada who killed 18 people, many young, fighting extradition. Fact is if it were me I think I’d unlikely be alive by now, I can’t see how mentally I’d ever deal with that. Even one death caused by me would destroy me mentally, let alone 18. If I’m the cause of a fatal accident I hope it’s me it’s fatal to
The worst one i closely know of involved a former colleague on the M1 at Wakefield. Driving along then BOOOM a body slammed into his cab jumping from the bridge. Never drove again and ended his own life a few years after.
Worst in terms of number of vehicles involved? Something upwards of 30 in thick fog on the flyover at Catthorpe on the M6/M1 junction back in the day. Fortunately no fatalities. Worst in terms of number of fatalities? From personal experience three, on the A5 at Watford crossroads. Car pulled out into the path of a motorcycle which was doing North of 100mph. Three kids in the back seat had major leg injuries, both front seat occupants and the biker dead. Pretty much the definition of carnage. I always remember the advice I received from a seasoned ambulance driver as I made my way to assist a man who was literally squealing like a stuck pig - “If they’re screaming, they are alive and conscious. Look out for the ones who are quiet, or who suddenly go quiet…”
Worst in terms of the effect it had on me was one that I wasn’t even at the scene. Two women had a minor prang at a rural crossroads near Wellingborough late at night. They were exchanging details when a boy racer in his hot hatch ploughed straight into them, killing one heavily pregnant woman instantly. I had been deployed on the resulting road closure and, a few hours after the crash, was despatched to break the news to next of kin. Her husband had been fretting away at home wondering where his wife had got to. Doubtless he had been verbalising his concerns and fears for the worst, which had been heard by their young child. I arrived at the address, paused for a moment to compose myself before knocking at the door. Husband opened the door with an immediate look of shock, but before I had a chance to open my mouth the youngster at his feet looked up to me and simply asked “Is Mummy dead?”. Still no idea how I held it all together at that moment (can’t do it now - it cuts me up every time I think about it). I’m glad I’m out of that particular game.
I heard about this one but never saw it. Although when I went to brierley hill depot they blocked the area off where it happened to stop people parking trailers there.
Being squashed between a rigid body and a trailer is a horrible way to go.
I can only imagine what the guy thought who had to disconnect the trailer lines and pull the rigid forward had to be feeling.
Must have been 23-24 years ago - first few months into my driving career I was going down the M5 . There had been a bad accident in the fog on the M42 many cars and trucks in a pile up . Didn’t see it because of the fog but its still someting I think about from time to time .
I do wonder why people need to use these tragic incidents as a conversation starter - if you have ever been involved in one of these incidents I doubt youd ever want to relive it for the fun of it .
Carryfast:
This one. open.ac.uk/Arts/history-from … Rta84.html
The wreckage was brought in for storage and forensics at our Weatherhill Motorway depot on the M23.It was sickening seeing the ID numbers spray painted on the roofs of the burnt out wrecks.
Also passed the aftermath of this going Southbound.No screens put up then I drove past it looking fixed at the nearside mirrors. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M40_minibus_crash
My uncle was one of the survivors of that crash. I say survivor because in the aftermath he went totally off the rails. He spent months in hospital with broken legs, ribs, massive internal injuries and his entire face was smashed in. He had to have total reconstructive surgery of his face using plates and, he said, a metal mesh. Whenever the weather was cold he used to complain that his face felt like it was contracting and when it was hot his face used to look like he was having a stroke. His mental health suffered immensely to the point it took him years before he would get behind the wheel of his car again.
About 1974, not long before we left for Australia, I was on my last trip from Sheffield to London when it started raining, chucking it down it was. I slowed down cos I couldn’t see properly but cars, lorries and a coach went flying past. A few minutes later I came across them all piled up under a bridge with the nearside front of a trailer embedded in the side of the coach.
Another one was across the road from where I was driving for Dimplex at Stafford Road approaching Purley Way. A young driver who’d probably been told to crack on with a container roped on to a trailer put the brakes on and the box slid forward and crushed him.
You see a few when you’re on the road all day every day, but glad to say most of 'em not serious.
About 15yrs ago I was overtaken on M6 going south around Staffs area by a long wheel base army Land Rover. Noticed it because of tyre noise as it was going so fast. As it passed me it started to wobble from side to side, the driver must of been fighting to control it, it then shot into the central reservation, where it took off and hit a bridge column and just turned to dust. All that was left was the engine, the bodywork just disappeared in a cloud of dust. When it cleared, the traffic has stopped and there were three bodies lying almost inline in the centre of the motorway.
Like others, I got out and ran up to them. All were dressed in army fatigues, totally quiet, one had a leg bent at an horrific angle, one just looked asleep, but one of them had the most awful head injury I have ever seen. I just froze. All traffic on the other side of motorway had stopped, and people were jumping over the central reservation to help. I heard a shout of ‘I am a doctor’. I was just a mute spectator. It was a horror show. The emergency services who deal with these incidents on a daily basis are real heroes.
The funny thing is, that it was not mentioned on local radio, nor the news later on. I assume they all survived, but it is something I can never totally erase. Not sure whether that is because of what I had seen, or my reaction to it.
Carryfast:
This one. open.ac.uk/Arts/history-from … Rta84.html
The wreckage was brought in for storage and forensics at our Weatherhill Motorway depot on the M23.It was sickening seeing the ID numbers spray painted on the roofs of the burnt out wrecks.
Also passed the aftermath of this going Southbound.No screens put up then I drove past it looking fixed at the nearside mirrors. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M40_minibus_crash
My uncle was one of the survivors of that crash. I say survivor because in the aftermath he went totally off the rails. He spent months in hospital with broken legs, ribs, massive internal injuries and his entire face was smashed in. He had to have total reconstructive surgery of his face using plates and, he said, a metal mesh. Whenever the weather was cold he used to complain that his face felt like it was contracting and when it was hot his face used to look like he was having a stroke. His mental health suffered immensely to the point it took him years before he would get behind the wheel of his car again.
Have to say when I went in our yard with all the wrecks in there I had a similar feeling as walking through Oradour sur Glane in France.Especially when I asked those based there about it.I felt like I was intruding on something which I shouldn’t.It was difficult to concentrate on my job while I was there and I was glad to get away from it.The emergency police accounts of the scene itself seem to contain a similar feeling of despair at the level of destruction and suffering.
As for the M40 incident from memory I think I’d heard something about it on the radio news before I’d got there but wasn’t sure of the exact details and where at that point.Sixth sense again told me it was a sight to be avoided well before reaching it and that was a while after it had happened.
switchlogic:
Coincidentally last night I was reading about that truck driver in Canada who killed 18 people, many young, fighting extradition. Fact is if it were me I think I’d unlikely be alive by now, I can’t see how mentally I’d ever deal with that. Even one death caused by me would destroy me mentally, let alone 18. If I’m the cause of a fatal accident I hope it’s me it’s fatal to
Humboldt bus crash , hockey team wiped out . How desperate/sick are some folk to start a topic on worst accidents ? As you go through life you see plenty and hopefully experience few , who needs reminding ? OP needs to give his head a shake !!
flat to the mat:
Humboldt bus crash , hockey team wiped out . How desperate/sick are some folk to start a topic on worst accidents ? As you go through life you see plenty and hopefully experience few , who needs reminding ? OP needs to give his head a shake !!
Seems ironic that you mention one yourself than chastise me for making the topic.
The point of the topic was just to create a talking point. It was not to do a top trumps or glorify them in anyway. What you are insinuating is sick/desperate. I think drivers should talk about stuff like this, unfortunately if you drive long enough you will experience awful situations.
But lets use your logic you idiot.
United (2011) a film about the munich air crash of Manchester United.
How dare they make a movie out of a tragic accident.
I’m currently being taught at university about Japanese death camps in China (Unit 731). In which the true nature of the experiments were terrifying. Limbs detached and reattached to different parts of the body and all without anesthesia.
Testing of bioweapons on prisoners.
Using human targets to test hand grades and flame throwers.
Seeing how long people could survive with frostbite.
Should I start insulting my teacher for telling me about this stuff? No, because it is important to learn about history the good and the bad.
Should we ban war films because people actually died in these wars and recreating these scenes on film is DESPERATE AND SICK? No, nobody thinks that except you.
That being said, feel free to call me desperate and sick all you want.
