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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/surrey/6631375.stm

Six people killed in M25 accident

Six people died when a recovery vehicle carrying a minibus and its passengers was involved in a collision with a lorry on the M25 motorway in Surrey.

The victims were travelling in the cab of the recovery vehicle, police said. A man, also in the cab, is in a serious but stable condition in hospital.

The crash happened at about 0215 BST on the anti-clockwise side, between junctions nine and eight, near Reigate.

The motorway was closed for several hours but reopened just after 1100 BST.

The cab of the recovery vehicle was completely destroyed in the accident, which left wreckage strewn across both carriageways.

The lorry driver was unhurt and is being treated as a witness by police.

Officers do not yet know the destination of the minibus or who it was carrying.

The police and ambulance service believe all those involved were adults.

Ch Supt Rob Price said the crash could be the most serious accident the Surrey force has had to deal with on the M25 since it opened in 1986.

"Some of my officers informed me this morning that we haven't had so many people killed for about 20 years," he said.

"When you put that into the context of some of the busiest roads anywhere, then clearly this is a very serious incident indeed."

Mr Price added: "This is a tragic, tragic day.

"Our condolences go out to all those affected.

"The M25 is one of the busiest, if not the busiest, roads. It has a very good safety record.

"It's probably not appropriate to talk in terms of statistics, but this is a very, very severe accident."

No livery

A spokeswoman for Surrey Ambulance Service said the injured man was taken to hospital with "multiple and possibly life-threatening" injuries.

She said it had take paramedics over an hour to free the man from the vehicle.

The RAC and Green Flag said the recovery vehicle had not been working on a breakdown call from one of their members.

The recovery vehicle did not have any livery of any of the national breakdown services - but contractors from other garages can be used to reach stranded motorists.

***

Safe Speed issued the following PR at 11:08

PR479: M25 closed for 10 hours? Blame Brunstrom

news: for immediate release

At about 2am today a tragic crash on the M25 southern section cost six people
their lives. According to news reports the motorway will remain closed until
'at least midday' for the Police investigation of the crash to take place.

The manual that Police use to investigate roads fatalities is the 'ACPO Road
Death Investigation Manual' and Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom is
responsible for it. It was written under his control during his tenure as chief
of the ACPO road safety committee. Brunstrom based it on the murder
investigation manual.

But Safe Speed says that this was a monumental blunder because the objectives
of road crash investigation should be completely different.

For murder investigation the primary objectives are:

- To identify the perpetrator
- To ensure that the evidence is adequate to obtain a conviction

For road crash investigation the proper primary objectives should be:

- To understand the cause of the crash with a view to preventing similar
crashes in the future
- To inform relevant authorities about the root cause or causes of the crash
- Issues about blame, responsibility and prosecution should be far further down
the list.

In air, marine and industrial crash investigation the balances and objectives
are perfectly correct. In road crash investigation the objectives are grossly
distorted by Mr Brunstrom's blunder.

Paul Smith, founder of http://www.safespeed.org.uk, said: "Closing the M25 for
10 hours on a busy bank holiday wasn't necessary and Chief Constable Richard
Brunstrom is responsible. He literally wrote the book on road death
investigation and he got it completely wrong. Police officers at the scene are
gathering the wrong evidence with the wrong objectives."

"Proper investigation of road crashes would concentrate on determining the root
causes, but that's not what the Police are being tasked to do. Instead they are
attempting to apportion blame and ensure that evidence is available to convict
someone. This is not the best way to save lives on our roads. Proper
investigation of root causes would lead to completely different actions and the
prevention of crashes in the future - not punishment after the event."

"Air, marine and industrial accident investigation has proper objectives and
proper results. Why can't we do that on the roads too? Getting it wrong costs
lives and once again Richard Brunstrom is responsible."

"If you have ever wondered why these 'epic' road closures are a modern
phenomenon, there's a very simple explanation. Brunstrom 'wrote the book' from
the wrong perspective. Shockingly it does not attempt to reveal 'root causes'
of crashes - instead it seeks to apportion blame."

<ends>

Notes for editors
=================

BBC story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/surrey/6631375.stm

Road death investigation manual:
http://www.acpo.police.uk/asp/policies/ ... x04x04.pdf

Remove Brunstrom Petition:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/message/338

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

That is a really good PR Paul

As you know, one of the themes I have often pursued on here is that "cause" and "blame" are entirely different things, and in seeking to apportion "blame" for road accidents we lose sight of the underlying cause, and also the means to stop such accidents occurring in the future.

_________________
"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Well, I never knew that Brunstrom was responsible for the road closures we see today.

_________________
Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

I am becoming more convinced that the priorities should be:

1) Get the injured people out and off to hospital.

2) Get the dead people out.

3) Get the road open again as soon as possible.

These crash investigations are getting ridiculous now. I believe that the benefit of successfully prosecuting one person is massively outweighed by the disadvantage caused to many thousands of others by closing the road for many hours. Sadly nothing will bring back the dead people.

Surely it takes days, with the road closed, to do a proper investigation such that would actually prevent future accidents.

Obviously in marine air and marine incidents you don't need to close the sky or the see, but certainly in the railway similar investigations would take time and require closure.

Hmm!

I have this argument over road closures from time to time with the Mad Cats and rest of the Swiss "hooligans"

We close down roads here when we have a "serious". Our first concern is to allow the paramedics and doctors and nurses brought to the location to save lives .. do just that - try to save lives... along with our fire officer colleagues who will be cutting people perhaps from the wreckage or on stand-by in case petrol or diesel ignite In the meantime - we will be taking any witness statements.. measuring any skid marks and looking for anything tangible evidence from the debris scatterings, road surface and any ski marks to give us a clue. We then keep the wrecks in place for a while whilst we take photos and other details.. measurements and so on. It takes time to do properly - and we will be carefully trying to collate all tangible evidence of the scene.


Now in this case .. we have a terrible tragedy - all the more so because the half dozen occupants of a broken down mini-bus died and one person in that cab was badly injured.


This is all the more tragic for those involved because this people had been returning from a Stag Party "do."

Given the promised celebration of a long, fruitful and happy married life turning to such tragedy.. I can only feel sincere sympathy for those involved... and if they happen on this site at any time .. then they must surely have the sincerest and heart felt condolences.

Now. being controversially pre-empting and presumptuous, I suppose some folk out there might say spirits might have been high at one point .. but when the mini-bus breaks down on a fairly damp early May evening.... then this chilly factor would have been very sobering to them.

Had the recovery vehicle picked up a saloon car instead .. then I suppose we would still be dealing with a serious tragedy but a lower death rate from this incident. Unfortunately, it will skew stats on that motorway's reputation as a busy orbital - prone more to shunts and routine insurance scuffs - some of these admittedly per the stats - resulting in minor to major injury in reality than such deeply awful trauma.

But .. we owe the bereaved and the person who perhaps feels responsible as the survivor .. but who may not necessarily be .so just because he or she survived in the other car .. a full investigation and some means of closure to the trauma for their own sanity long term. For all we know .. there may have been some "catalyst" which caused this collision .. an inconsiderate to the point of negligent bordering on dangereous driver cutting up one or both of these parties in this fatal. That's why we take time interviewing witnesses on the spot before they can "forget".. "embellish a little".. "mistake what they saw" or "jump to a conclusion based on what they saw but do not want to remember as it was too awful for them". That's the reality as I am sure Ian, Stephen, Man are all too familiar with. We have to be sympathetic to this and it is when we sift through all these varied accounts that we then get a picture of what happened. Every witness sees something different to the other one too. It's why we make a plea for witnesses to come forward to help shed some further light on the matter.

I know this was a Bank Holiday. People perhaps needed any one of the London airports.. Luton.. Stansted .. Heathrow. I know people might have been heading for the coast .. Brighton .. Margate.. etc. I am sure the Surrey RPU were aware of the inconvenience and potential gridlock this could cause to their public at large.. but from the other side of the coin (and I do understand your PR - Paul - and I do accept these very valid concerns ) - I think we are honour bound to at least get all the evidence we need. I will agree though - that this seemed a dreadfully long time to keep a road closed. I do not know the extent of this debris though.. and how far it travelled - all of which help us understand how and why these tragedies occur.

I will assume all other Forces follow a similar policy to this one... but we do endeavour to establish who caused this.. if we can prosecute in the public interest and justice for the deceased.. and to find out what happened so that we can understand and at least try to prevent.. by education.. nagging the COAST idea ...blitzing up the seatbelt/drink/drug/fatigue/prescription drug/feeeling poorly/speed (and here it can be inconsiderately low speed as well as inconsiderately high speed ) - along with the routine primary of pulling those we judge to be dangerous/careless/negligent/inconsiderate first and picking up the just above tolerance with either a stern warning or a verbal and later written FPN should we deem the best option

We call it "policing the way our public wish" and I think we have a good relationship with our public overall here. Sure - we ain't perfect. No one can claim to be. We try and we keep on trying and any improvement we make .. however small has to be for the better long term as we can build and learn from it.

I have said umpteen times to evaluate each drive. Think about how anything affected another and if you feel something needs working on and improving .. then appraise it objectively and try to put right as best you can.


But whether or not we agree with Dick over speed cams or not...and perhaps my former and current guv each interpret his words as to what he meant to say .. but perhaps failed to convey to the public domain ... or his real meaning was lost in journalese translation ..

(Note .. I try to be fair to Dick - even if I do not subscribe to his point of view all the time. We are a"rebels" as far as scam prats are concerned .. but I think we enforce laws very firmly and correctly here all the same . I also have some rebelliously renegade instincts and have a strong sense of just and fair behaviour. I do not see "criminal" in all those not wearing blue serge. I appreciate most of us are decent and normal, law abiding and peace-loving folk overall.)


It is a free world and I am entitled to think for myself as a basic human right ) - but .. we interpreted this to mean we should endeavour to find out the cause.. recommend any road engineering improvements ot initialise some PR public awareness campaign to try to educate the mass of road users out there to a COAST-led safety -led code of practice.

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Presumably, the minibus broke free of its lashings and went straight through the recovery vehicle's cab? If so, I don't think all the seat belts in the world would have saved them. I can't quite picture the sort of recovery vehicle that could accommodate a whole minibus full of people AND the bus anyway! Maybe the minibus only had a few occupants or maybe it was incorrectly described as a "minibus". There are plenty of "Private Hire" type taxis which are small "Transit"-sized vans with half a dozen seats in them. Technically, these are actually cars rather than minibuses. Perhaps if their investigations suggest that this is a problem, there should be separate transport for groups above a certain number?

It was a full size minibus and was intact after the collision, still strapped on. The cab section appeared to have gone under the rear of the artic trailer. It seems that half the occupants including the groom had gone on ahead in another recovery vehicle from the same company. I would not have thoght that seat belts would have been any help in this instance. What a terrible outcome to what was probably a fun night out.

Regards

Roger

Having studied yesterday's TV pictures, I'm pretty certain that the recovery truck 'underran' the lorry ahead, such that the lorry's trailer bed sliced through the cab of the recovery truck. It's also possible that some of the 'cut off' effect was due to rescue services.

But I also think the minibus broke clear of its tie-downs. One offside picture showed that it was two or three feet forward of the tie down point, and a nearside picture showed considerable damage to the front of the minibus.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't belted up in the recovery vehicle. A good many people still tend to belt up when in the front seats of a car but don't bother when in rear seats, minibuses, coaches etc. The unusual situation might have made it even less likely they would remember or bother to wear them.

I don't see how seatbelts might help with the bed of an artic trailer sweeping through the cab at waist height.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Paul,

That was a thought provoking piece.

I didn't appreciate that the police may be investigating from the premise that a crime has been committed. And seek to identify the guilty party. Is this appropriate?

Is there an arguement that the investigation of such accidents should be handled by an independant highway 'inspectorate' rather than the police? Should the police only become inolved once there is a prima face case?

In the same way that certain H&S at work incidents require the HSE to be informed could it be the case that the police deal with the 'run of the mill' RTA's but have to handover to the 'inspectorate' for certain accidents.

Am I correct in expecting there would have been more than one person gathering the evidence?

I would imagine that a number of people would be able to document the position of every last fragment of glass in ten hours, no matter how widely it was spread.

How much evidence needs to be gathered? If there were 4 people then that's 40 man hours. It can't take a working week surely.

OK, it was dark when it happened but even if you wait for daylight it took more than 6 hours.

I'm not trying to be 'out of order', and I have immense respect for the Police and others doing this but it seems an awful long time to me.

_________________
Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

The story gets worse.. some lives with talented future promise were lost in this tragic event.



From the Waily



But it looks very much like the recovery vehicle collided with the lorry's rear for some reason.. and perhaps teh impact caused the mini-bus to break free of its tie-downs and impact further on that cab.

A nasty incident.. but I do not see how or why the road should be closed for 12 hours or more. .. in each direction apparently. I am sure they could have limited speed to normal raodworks tempos and had the other carriageway open as a single carriageway whilst they investigated the actual carnage on the other side. They did that once with the M6 when there was a fatal and we all got stuck I will give Lancs their dues on that one.

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Has the root cause of this accident been determined? If the crash investigation methodology of described in the original post is indeed that followed by Police (and if that bumbling Ape had anything to do with it, then I can believe it), the root cause may never be known.

There was another collision this Monday which closed J11-J10 Anticlock AGAIN. Similar circumstances - one vehicle ploughing into the back of another in Lane 1. Fortunately no-one killed this time. November 2004 there was another one, same circumstances. One dead. And I've witnessed many minor collisions on this stretch of road and heard numerous reports of lane closures there. What I'm getting at is that this stretch of M25 is NOTORIOUS for bad accidents.

The thing is, this is also the stretch of M25 that has the most speed cameras - gantry mounted every 1/3 of a mile.

....Distraction effect?

_________________
“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

The rear of the cab is pretty much intact, and you can see from one photo that the steering column is tilted upwards but ok. Also, if the back of the lorry was instructing into the cab, then not traveling forwards out of your seat is a good idea! Either way, the inquest will probably shed some light on what happened, and what in particular caused one of them to survive, it might have been just his placement.





[/img]

Paul, your PR is best described as ghoulish.

I'm disgusted at you.

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I'm not sure the back of the cab is intact. It looks like the chassis has folded at the back of the cab and the front of the chassis has bent upwards (as one might expect). It's a big Transit - 3.5 tonnes-worth fully loaded so less than that on the back of the recovery truck (?2 tons?) but still a considerable weight. It also looks like the back panel of the cab is pushed into the Transit's nose a bit. I admit, the bulk of the damage must have come from the front and maybe the Transit hasn't broken free but I do think it's nose has intruded into the back of the cab somewhat.