Stopping distance of a motorhome

[BusyBuilder]

We are in litigation with a young lad who pulled out in front of us on a slip road on the A9.

The solicitor wants to know that stopping distance of a 4t Hymer B544 2012, on wet roads.

Basically this young lad pulled out on us and I had to stand on the brakes before we hit him. There wasn't a lot of damage to his car but over £5k to ours, bent inner steel bumper and bent both radiators. Front fibreglass grill was split but not much more, in fact you'd be hard pressed to see any damage looking at the front. His 2005 Vauxhall Corsa had a hole in his bumper where our towing eye punched through it, but not much more.

The accident happened just before Christmas 2023, wet roads with snow on verges. We had very little time to react. We were travelling at an indicated 50mph. I think we had about 15-20m to stop.

So if anyone can give me an idea on stopping distances I'd be interested.

What's really annoying about this accident, is, we are doing all the work for the benefit of Saga insurance who paid out over £5k for our damages. Saga dragged their heels for almost a year before we insisted we used our legal expenses insurance to fight our case. They have basically washed their hands now and left us to do all the work, the solicitor is a bit of a wet blanket too.
I would never recommend Saga insurance going by our claims experiences.

 

[BusyBuilder]

We have asked Saga and the solicitor if the other driver has lodged a claim for damages but neither have answered that question.

As for why we are proceeding ? he gets off with an accident he has caused, we had no use of our Hymer for 6 months, whilst waiting for repairs. And if we win its then not our fault. The solicitor says if we win we can claim loss of use and damages from him for the accident.
Why should he get away with driving like that ??

 

[Palough]

In the final years of my career I spent a a good few years of my time preparing technical briefs for lawyers and Q.C.'s, so it will be a very expensive few hours or days of, "the uninformed arguing against the uninformed", in front of "the uninformed", with a great deal of fiction and little basis of scientific fact at £150 or more an hour, and if Q.C.'s get into the act, maybe at €500 an hour with no better arguments.

But, there are Engineer's out there that have crossed over to the "dark side" and they can tear the opponents "uninformed" lawyers arguments to shreds.

If you can find one of these it might be worth spending a penny or three for an "informed scientific" opinion.

Not the answer to this question you've asked on "stopping distance" but hopefully of some assistance.

Good luck

 

[HugoBNB]

I fear the only winners in this case will be those receiving the legal fees. As posted above, it is an unanswerable question. Even if you could get it accurate, surely their next question would be "How far were you off the other car when it pulled out?" Then, "How quickly was the car accellerating after it pulled out?"
Sadly, the Dash-cam is your only ally here. Without compelling physical evidence, I fear that this will end in a stalemate.
Good luck with your battle. I hope that I am proved wrong.

 

[Nanniemate]

Just out of curiosity Lois, I wondered why you had NOT put a link to the OFFICIAL GOV.UK Highway Code?

Why, the discussion was about stopping distances for lgv and this mentions the variables as its the DVSA I thought it may be helpful as many drivers are not aware of this resource

With your background I'm sure you have heard of this government organisation even met them once or twice

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[Nanniemate]

We have asked Saga and the solicitor if the other driver has lodged a claim for damages but neither have answered that question.

As for why we are proceeding ? he gets off with an accident he has caused, we had no use of our Hymer for 6 months, whilst waiting for repairs. And if we win its then not our fault. The solicitor says if we win we can claim loss of use and damages from him for the accident.
Why should he get away with driving like that ??

If he hadn't got any money to pay you is it worth it or are you fighting the insurance company

Many years ago I was awarded damages of £150. The offender claimed he could not pay so was told 50p a week
No surprise I never got it or chased ot

If the insurance company is not bothering they have a reason usually its too costly

I understand your angry and upset but how much more time do you want to spend on the person who didn't give a monkies how mush stress your going to go through
Good luck I hope you get the results you want

 

[Guigsy]

The stopping distance is... compliant with standards as it was tested at the last MOT. It's up to them to prove it's under performing. But I still think it's irrelevant. The fact they pulled out without enough margin to get up to speed before you hit the back of them means they didn't give way. This can be demonstrated by the distance the incident happened from the junction.

Even if you win and it becomes a no fault claim, you will still have to say you had a no fault claim whenever you get insurance for the next 5 years. And even if your no claims is unaffected, it'll still raise your premiums. Insurance sucks.

 

[ivorantony]

I am sorry you are going through this, but as others have said - if the solicitor wants information he can get it himself, probably far easier than you.

Your horrible situation is why I have both front and rear dashcams.

Same as me with two side cameras as well for good measure,

 

[pappajohn]

Tell them to look it up.

I'm sure every police authority and insurance claims manager has access to the tables that tell them the stopping distance of that make make and model of van.
The fact that it's a 4t motorhome as opposed to a 4t van makes zero difference.

A valid question however would be the make, model and tread depth of the tyres as that would make a difference.

But the legal side it the stopping distance in the DVLA produced Highway Code book, which is probably pessimistic, as far as I know it's not changed with the introduction of ABS etc.

It hasn't changed since first published.
It was writen when cars and vans had drum brakes all round.

 

[gus-lopez]

We were travelling at an indicated 50mph. I think we had about 15-20m to stop.

Not enough. thinking is 15m+ braking 38m = 53m needed to stop at that speed

Speed	Thinking + braking distance	Stopping distance
30mph	9m + 14m	23m (75 feet)
40mph	12m + 24m	36m (118 feet)
50mph	15m + 38m	53m (174 feet)
60mph	18m + 55m	73m (240 feet)

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[gus-lopez]

If they admit they pulled out on you, then that's probably enough.

Till they change there mind.Dash cam is needed.

 

[ChrisSue]

I'd be inclined to ask his solicitor for his mobile phone records for the day

 

[The Wino]

I think I'm in the dashcam required camp. The other party presumably could be trying to say they pulled out leaving a sensible gap and the motorhome failed to stop possibly going too fast for the speed limit given the weight category possibly overloaded etc. Are there any independent witnesses presumably if there were no injuries there wouldn't be any police investigation of any skid marks vehicle positions etc. Without a dashcam showing speed and position when they pulled out or a witness it's just one persons word against the other .

 

[tonyidle]

I think I'm in the dashcam required camp. The other party presumably could be trying to say they pulled out leaving a sensible gap and the motorhome failed to stop possibly going too fast for the speed limit given the weight category possibly overloaded etc. Are there any independent witnesses presumably if there were no injuries there wouldn't be any police investigation of any skid marks vehicle positions etc. Without a dashcam showing speed and position when they pulled out or a witness it's just one persons word against the other .

Not really. The person with right of way shouldn't have had to brake.

 

[L' Hobo]

Why, the discussion was about stopping distances for lgv and this mentions the variables as its the DVSA I thought it may be helpful as many drivers are not aware of this resource

With your background I'm sure you have heard of this government organisation even met them once or twice

No, as far as I know, I have never met them, I thought that organisation was just a PARTNER attached to the DVSA and their Publishing arm but I have been retired for over a decade now so I might be wrong as I'm only repeating what was told me by one of the Volvo Truck design team?

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[Jonno1103]

10 times longer on a wet road, just passed my C1 which is basically an HGV theory, Driving a 7.5t van & a hazard perception test. It was one of the questions.

 

[Trevor Wbm]

Given you've been paid out for the damage and don't mention having been prosecuted, what are you actually pursuing?

 

[L' Hobo]

10 times longer on a wet road, just passed my C1 which is basically an HGV theory, Driving a 7.5t van & a hazard perception test. It was one of the questions.

10 TIMES LONGER??? What's that, half a mile or so at 60mph if the distance chart in post 39 is correct?

 

[PaulC70]

1st it's an irrelevant question as he pulled out in front of you as you say
2nd from the highway code

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65f97642aa9b760011fbda4e/the-highway-code-stopping-distances.pdf

 

[KNWH]

I’m afraid it’s no help with the question asked, but on a defensive driving course I went on years ago they gave some interesting figures about vehicles stopping from different speeds, which I found illuminating.
Imagine a vehicle travelling along at 30mph and slamming on the brakes at a certain point and coming to a halt.
A second vehicle behind is doing 40mph and also starts to brake at exactly the same point. Obviously the braking distance will be greater as it was going faster, but what speed will it be doing when it hits the first vehicle?
Don’t get distracted by thinking how close it was to the vehicle ahead affects the results. It could be ten minutes after the first car stopped and the speed at impact would still be the same as long as it starts braking at the same point on the road and both vehicles brake as hard as each other.
Similarly it doesn’t matter whether they are two cars, motorbikes, lorries etc. or whether the road is wet or dry, ABS or not, as long as you are comparing like with like, e.g. two identical cars on a wet road or two identical bikes on a dry road.

How about if the two speeds are 70mph and 100mph?


Case 1 26.5mph
Case 2 71.4mph

Without boring you with the theory it is the square root of (second speed squared minus the first speed squared)

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[Onemanandhisdog]

What relevance is stopping distance if the road wasn't shut for 12 hours for the police to take half a million measurements and photos? You could say he allowed 20m he could say it was 200m. Dashcam would have helped as usually if you hit something up the rear it's deemed to be you at fault.

 

[KNWH]

What relevance is stopping distance if the road wasn't shut for 12 hours for the police to take half a million measurements and photos? You could say he allowed 20m he could say it was 200m. Dashcam would have helped as usually if you hit something up the rear it's deemed to be you at

Sorry, ignore, posted in error!

 

[Jonno1103]

10 TIMES LONGER??? What's that, half a mile or so at 60mph if the distance chart in post 39 is correct?

Yeah, I scratched my head at that too.

 

[gus-lopez]

Given you've been paid out for the damage and don't mention having been prosecuted, what are you actually pursuing?

He wants all the bill being given to the person who caused it & no loss of ncb or any type of increase on any vehicle owned for the next twenty years.
Exactly the same as I would want.

 

[Trevor Wbm]

He wants all the bill being given to the person who caused it & no loss of ncb or any type of increase on any vehicle owned for the next twenty years.
Exactly the same as I would want.

Regrettably that's unlikely to be the outcome. As I'm sure you've heard before, it's not 'no blame', it's 'no claim'.

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[DandJ]

Yeah, I scratched my head at that too.

I bet you did....because it's demonstrable nonsense. AA, RAC, Highway code etc etc all state ' can be doubled when wet'. I wonder if they got confused with 'icy road conditions' ?

 

[Abacist]

I would think that the best result you will get will be knock for knock as neither side can back up their claims with proof. The distance is unknown; you have no proof of your speed. Has he admitted pulling out from a junction?

I feel for you!

 

[The Wino]

Not really. The person with right of way shouldn't have had to brake.

Whats to say in the other parties view they pulled out with plenty of space and the only reason they were hit was because the other vehicle was exceeding the speed limit for the class of vehicle? Without evidence or a witness it's difficult to prove when you hit another vehicle from behind its difficult to prove it was the other persons fault. I'm not saying that the other person wasn't to blame but proving it is a different matter.

 

[The Wino]

I’m afraid it’s no help with the question asked, but on a defensive driving course I went on years ago they gave some interesting figures about vehicles stopping from different speeds, which I found illuminating.
Imagine a vehicle travelling along at 30mph and slamming on the brakes at a certain point and coming to a halt.
A second vehicle behind is doing 40mph and also starts to brake at exactly the same point. Obviously the braking distance will be greater as it was going faster, but what speed will it be doing when it hits the first vehicle?
Don’t get distracted by thinking how close it was to the vehicle ahead affects the results. It could be ten minutes after the first car stopped and the speed at impact would still be the same as long as it starts braking at the same point on the road and both vehicles brake as hard as each other.
Similarly it doesn’t matter whether they are two cars, motorbikes, lorries etc. or whether the road is wet or dry, ABS or not, as long as you are comparing like with like, e.g. two identical cars on a wet road or two identical bikes on a dry road.

How about if the two speeds are 70mph and 100mph?


Case 1 26.5mph
Case 2 71.4mph

Without boring you with the theory it is the square root of (second speed squared minus the first speed squared)

Much higher than you would intuitively expect. Of course that's probably not taking into account thinking time either

 

[BusyBuilder]

We sort of have proof of distances as I took photos of both vehicles at side of the road, their positions in relation to the junction. We calculated that the distance from the junction to the rear of my Hymer is about 20m. I calculated this from the white lines.

It's no problem for us to attend court in Inverness, but it will be for him, he lives in Thurso. He admitted liability at the time then changed his story (no surprise there). He/and his insurance actually tried to state we were driving too fast as the A9 is 30mph, then they changed their story to say there was a speed reduction in force at the time, our solicitor put them right on both accounts. We could travel legitimately at 50mph, HGV's are limited to 50mph all others are 60mph.

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[Nanniemate]

10 TIMES LONGER??? What's that, half a mile or so at 60mph if the distance chart in post 39 is correct?

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