Upsde down on Runger Lane

I hope this wasn't anyone on here, but a young lady managed to lose control of her Punto yesterday on Runger Lane near Manchester Airport and put it on its roof.

This demonstrates the dangers of driving on a wet road after a dry spell.

No pictures?

ouch
well yesterday i was travelling edinburgh to glasgow and it was bucketing down.
still the same morons blasted on at 70 (and above) with very poor visibility leaving hardly any braking space.
its all good though as some had their invincibility rear fog light on

I don't think it would have been approriate for me to have taken photographs while I was working.

The road in question which links the Cargo Area with the Terminals and runs roughly between J5 and J6 of the M56 is a 40 limit single carriageway road with one lane per side. Unfortunately, drivers find it difficult to manage to steer round a couple of not very sharp right hand bends.

I think this is the 4th single vehicle RTC on that road in the last 12 months when I've been on duty. Interestingly, all have been FWD, including a Ford Galaxy, an Astra and now a Punto. I'm not sure what the other one was. 2 of them have ended up on their roof. One of them was fatal. I think I'm right in saying all have been in the wet.

I've driven along that road at 40 in a variety of vehicles and at 50 in the wet and the dry. I do think there is a grip issue as I've detected a small amount of understeer when the road is wet; but, It's not a real issue as it's easy to correct.

Unfortunately, as I've said on here until I'm blue in the face, people relegate driving a car to the level of operating a domestic appliance and are seemingly incapable of detecting the onset of a skid. By the time they do get it; it's too late.

Just remembered, the 4th car was a new Mini. If anybody's interested, 3 of the drivers were young (under 24) females. The 4th was a male in his 20s.

about time the council upgraded the road surface to shellgrip then

Mmm, perhaps it's about time people learnt to drive better. Without trying to sound like (but probably succeeding anyway) an old git, I think those who started driving in cars with drum brakes and cross-ply tyres learnt more about car handling because they had so little grip that the car began moving about at lower speeds which gave more time to do something about it before the situation got completely out of hand.

With drum brakes, you had to plan further ahead because the car would take longer to stop.

There is no such thing as a dangerous road; only dangerous drivers.

I agree for the most part of what you said, but disagree with the road statement. There are dangerous roads (adverse cambers, bends that initially appear to be continuous & sweeping, actually having varying additional curves & cambers) & especially dangerous, poorly maintained road surfaces.

Yes, you should always be aware of things like that, but no ones infalable.

I`ve spun twice in my driving career, once in an 85` Senator CD in 1999 on a country B road in damp (not wet) conditions after being suddenly presented with an uphill 80 degree left hand bend with no warning (national speed limit, no sign indicating a bend leading up to it & no chevrons/arrows on it, the hill meant you couldnt see it till you were on top of it, there was nothing but fields on both sides, no trees, no streetlamps etc to warn you the road was changing direction either).

Didnt hit anything & no other drivers around.

And in aprox 1995 in a 91` Uno 45 on an 80 degree right hand bend that I`d been past 1000 times, but happened to have diesel spilt on the wet (& worn smooth) road surface that day....

Managed to lightly hit 3 corners on the Uno after spinning 360 degrees, hitting a brick wall/plant pot on 1 side & railings on the other. No other cars involved & no injuries (2 passengers in the car). I fixed the car within 48 hours.

You will argue that the fault lies with me for not anticipating the above, but theres no doubt in my mind that the quality & signage issues in question were a contibuting factor...

I`ll give you another example off the top of my head. On the way to my parents theres a section of road. There is a slight right hand bend, maybe 10-12 degree`s of bend. Theres a very slight adverse camber. Right on the outer edge of this bend is a metal BT/gas/Water board services cover. It`s not particulary low below the surface of the road, maybe 1/8th of an inch.

It doesnt matter what car your in or if your doing 25mph in the dry, as soon as the tyres contact the cover (which is unavoidable), your tyres will skip, the rear then skips out further because of the shifting balance (as you`ve only just started turning the steering to go into the slight bend). This results in your concentration being diverted from the road ahead for a split second & you having to correct. Thats in the dry & without you having to brake for anyone turning in or out of the right hand turn, bus stop & zebra crossing just ahead of it...

The road also becomes narrower beyond it & the much used road on the right has such an accute angle on it that people often have to cross the white lines to turn left out of it.

I`ve seen several head on crashes here over the years that I can only put it down to that cover...

Heres a pic.. its an innocent looking road & you cant actually make out the cover in question, but its roughly where the Vectra & Polo are...

Also notice the high walls / shrubs / tree`s obstructing the view of people exiting their drives drives on the right. This forces people to come quite a way out of their drive before they can see properly (its a fairly busy road).

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&so...157.95,,1,7.55


Theres many examples of this & also poorly placed road furnature + excessive (& occasionally conflicting) signage all over the country.

Very well put mate!

I realise that after rolling a MK2 UT in Jan 2008
Lift-off over-steer at 60mph, tried to grab 2nd but ran out of right hand steering lock because I was going round a left corner and ultimately time!
It was around 3-4sec from sideways to looking out the front window laying on the passenger door card as I wasn't wearing a seatbelt

The car rolled over 5 thick wooden posts and some how around the lamp post but the lamp post wasn't damaged?
The police/FB/AMB were all very confused to say the least.

Pic:



I though I'd highlight the points made in the thread and yes also agree on the conditions and weather conditions!

For the "Youngsters" (I'm only 24 myself!) that are scanning through this, wear your seat belt and chill out on the road!
You do not want to do what I did and that was assume it will be ok if something goes array because when it does you have little or no control over the forthcoming events!

Sorry for the Hi-jack Beard mate but I feel its relevant.
Delete if need be!

Unbelievable. Your obviously very lucky to have got out of that Biz.

It could have been worse:

i disagree, we have a bend near here that got resurfaced with crap stuff and every time it rained in the summer about 10 cars a day ( no exageration) would end up in a field, drivers of all ages an standards an soon as the surface was changed back to proper stuff no one came off again

also disagree with beard

A road set to 40 when it should not be due to various road conditions unless you have drove the read and know it you can not be expected to do 40 on it. a bad road has caught me out a few times never hit anything just lost all gearing and hit a few undesirables.

overall the road can be to blame hidden obstacles branches buses will fling at you.
(you must remember Year 7 when the first bus went down even a week on branches still was cracking bus windows)

overall a crap road surface well hidden with an wrong speed limit and many attention grabbbers = a bad road
in genral a road with a bad surface as dave says

my first ever vehicle on the road was a 1980-something honda XLR 125 with front and rear drums! i can honestly say i agree people need to drive such a thing to learn about road surfaces.
the brakes are what i could only describe now as pulling on a lever attached to a soggy weaterbix dont know how i survived them 2 years!

but anyway you forgot to blame ABS/traction control/power steering... all these things take away from cars road "feeling" and give a false sense of control/confidence

I'm with Daz and Dave.

Although ultimatly another factor I'll chuck in is Tyre quality. Be it age, tread, or both.

I was travelling to Rugby the other day on the A426. I see a "National Speed Limit" sign, so I think... OK, it's 60mph, so lets build up speed; the next thing I know, there's one of those electric signs flashing at me saying "SLOW DOWN"

Why put a national speed limit sign there, if, a quarter of a mile down the road I'm going to have a thing flashing at me saying "SLOW DOWN" ?

I was doing around 55mph at the time, but seriously, what is the point in having one road sign contradicting the other within a couple of yards of each other?!?!