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.

 

[The Wino]

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.

We had someone drive into the back of our car while we were waiting at a junction last year. He admitted liability and I was quite surprised when he didn't change his story! Very annoying for you and a lot of hassle. I must admit I keep meaning to get a dashcam set up I had one a few years ago but got out of the habit of using it.

 

[KNWH]

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

Yes, thinking time is not taken into account and, whilst it seems obvious that the answers were not going to be 10mph and 30mph, they are indeed higher than you’d expect.
Scarily so in the 70/100 example

 

[L' Hobo]

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.

I don't know the answer to this question and it might be a stupid one BUT if your not getting satisfaction from your Solicitor, might it not be more productive if you persued them through the small claims court as you, with your photography and if the admission of guilt was overheard by a witness, you appear to have a strong case but only you can decide?

 

[Wee Bold Davy]

Anyone who's ever driven a lorry, motorhome or caravan will come across this situation every time you drive it, quite simply put, no one likes to get stuck behind you, they all seem to be in too much of a hurry and sadly it's getting worse

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[Lenny HB]

Anyone who's ever driven a lorry, motorhome or caravan will come across this situation every time you drive it, quite simply put, no one likes to get stuck behind you, they all seem to be in too much of a hurry and sadly it's getting worse

Yep so bleeding annoying when they overtake then pull in in front of you so you have to brake and then slow down to a speed lower than you were travelling at.

 

[L' Hobo]

Read the links for up to date information

No, I'll not bother. I'm an Old Man and I'll probably read it incorrectly, you know what Old Men are like!

 

[Nanniemate]

No, I'll not bother. I'm an Old Man and I'll probably read it incorrectly, you know what Old Men are like!

No I try to avoid old men

 

[Nomad.]

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.

What a load of twaddle.If your a member of any motoring recovery specialist,please use the legal services.There is a nasty smell about this one.Do not give information that you cannot professionally substantiate to any solicitors request.

 

[Jerrywh]

Second the suggestion to use the small claims court. You can claim up to £10,000 and commonsense is far more likely to rule than in the higher courts.
If you rear-end someone there is a presumption of blame; so your evidence that it was unavoidable will be crucial.
Good luck! I do sympathise.

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[L' Hobo]

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' ?

If he has JUST passed his test, it's rather worrying?

 

[Stoosal]

The stopping distance is a theoretical speed based on average figures eg reaction time. Although it’s not irrelevant I’m not sure I really see the benefit for the circumstances.
I would look at how long the driver was able to see you as he approached the main road and how long did you see him. If he was able to see an approaching vehicle then why did he pull out. If he failed to see you and crossed give way lines into the path of a vehicle on the main road then he’s at fault anyway. I would imagine he will try to say you were travelling in excess of the posted speed limit and he pulled out expecting a vehicle travelling more slowly.
If there are two of you speaking to normal safe road speed for the conditions and you observed vehicle approach and fail to give way I’m not sure what else they need. If defence state you saw the vehicle approach and did not take avoiding action for a vehicle failing to give way I’m not sure that’s a particularly strong defence.
Have you any tracker data for the journey?

 

[DO'M]

I have come into this late.
In the days when I used to investigate major accidents, I would have carried out a skid test to establish the grip of the road at 30 and perhaps 50mph. This would be a good starting point.
The thinking distance that people refer to has no scientific basis. It was convenient for the govt to make it .68 of a second which means I foot for every mph. It has no basis and you will not find surveys testing a sample of people across a range of age groups.
8The key here is how much you were concentrating and when did you first anticipate that the other driver was about to pull out. If your speed was around 50, you are travelling at about 75 feet per second.
To pull out the other driver needs to be up to 50 mph so as not to inconvenience you. He obviously couldn't do that, so he is driving without due care and attention.
It is a clear case and easy to prosecute. I am afraid that you have got a poor solicitor who has no understanding of these issues.
If I were the defects lawyer I'd challenge your concentration. Did you have the radio on, favourite cd, what were you chatting about? I'd try to establish that you reacted to late. But the bottom line is he made a huge misjudgement through lack of experience or carelessness.
If i lived close to you
I'd talk you through the issues.
This should be bread and butter for a good solicitor and good insurance company. It is really a joke situation and I am sorry it is causing you so much grief.

 

[willshep]

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.

If insurers have paid out under the policy why are you litigating, are you being sued by the Corsa driver and if so what is his claim?

 

[L' Hobo]

I have come into this late.
In the days when I used to investigate major accidents, I would have carried out a skid test to establish the grip of the road at 30 and perhaps 50mph. This would be a good starting point.
The thinking distance that people refer to has no scientific basis. It was convenient for the govt to make it .68 of a second which means I foot for every mph. It has no basis and you will not find surveys testing a sample of people across a range of age groups.
8The key here is how much you were concentrating and when did you first anticipate that the other driver was about to pull out. If your speed was around 50, you are travelling at about 75 feet per second.
To pull out the other driver needs to be up to 50 mph so as not to inconvenience you. He obviously couldn't do that, so he is driving without due care and attention.
It is a clear case and easy to prosecute. I am afraid that you have got a poor solicitor who has no understanding of these issues.
If I were the defects lawyer I'd challenge your concentration. Did you have the radio on, favourite cd, what were you chatting about? I'd try to establish that you reacted to late. But the bottom line is he made a huge misjudgement through lack of experience or carelessness.
If i lived close to you
I'd talk you through the issues.
This should be bread and butter for a good solicitor and good insurance company. It is really a joke situation and I am sorry it is causing you so much grief.

As you appear to know more than most about these things, so could you clarify the Construction &Use regulations concerning braking?

As I said earlier, many years ago when I lived in Sweden and did truck test driving for the likes of Volvo, it was mostly boring repetitive work such as miles & miles of track driving with an engineer or designer etc in the passenger side with his test instruments and we got chatting.

He told me that, while they were designing a new vehicle, to comply with their C&U regulations, when it a came to braking, it was all to do with weight to rubber touching the road ratio, eg. the heavier the vehicle gross mass, the more road wheels and wider/larger tyres.

So a 20ton TIPPER and a 32 ton ROAD TRAIN although looking completely different in shape and size, would require the same amount of tyre rubber ratio touching the ground to stop in the designated legal distance.

To me, this all made sense because, in those days, a tyre was a tyre with very little variance (today may be different).

The question is, was what he told me CORRECT or was it BS?

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[DO'M]

I couldn't comment upon that because such tests are done in particular circumstances. The issue really is with the particular road in question. As a motorcyclist I knew I had to treat certain junctions differently because of oil deposits etc. If this road was in a rural setting it would be more standard.
I am taking my mind back 49 years when I was an accredited expert, now i am a retired person of 76 years who has forgotten half or more of what I knew.
It really just amazes me now how poor solicitors are. They will still charge you for letters asking you to do their work.
An important point in this is where did the collision occur. If it was at the junction, then there Is no defence, if it is 75 metres beyond, then there is a case for unsure and attention boy the motorhome.

 

[DO'M]

Please excuse predictive teat

 

[bigtwin]

Please excuse predictive teat

You can edit the post to make corrections but that option is removed after 15 minutes or so (I don’t know what the precise timeout is).

Ian

 

[Guigsy]

If you were doing 50mph and you hit him only 20m after the junction, then he clearly totally misjudged it. That's roughly the distance that you were covering in about a second.

Even if he pulled out when the was an adequate gap, which is at least 5 seconds (and normally nearer 8s), he'd have to have crawled off the line to only make it 20m before being hit.

If you braked at all, that only makes his misjudgement worse because it means he accepted an even smaller gap or was even slower off the line.

Whichever way you slice it, he pulled into a gap that was too small.

 

[L' Hobo]

I couldn't comment upon that because such tests are done in particular circumstances. The issue really is with the particular road in question. As a motorcyclist I knew I had to treat certain junctions differently because of oil deposits etc. If this road was in a rural setting it would be more standard.
I am taking my mind back 49 years when I was an accredited expert, now i am a retired person of 76 years who has forgotten half or more of what I knew.
It really just amazes me now how poor solicitors are. They will still charge you for letters asking you to do their work.
An important point in this is where did the collision occur. If it was at the junction, then there Is no defence, if it is 75 metres beyond, then there is a case for unsure and attention boy the motorhome.

I have similar age problems, I'm even older than you.

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[Jonno1103]

If he has JUST passed his test, it's rather worrying?

Knowing how to answer the questions is one thing, agreeing with them is another. Some of the hazard perception CGI films are daft, you have to time your answer to the point they think it's a hazard... and for a cyclist it's not 5ft from my front bumper! There's no perception at all, the maximum point score is when you basically have to slam your brakes on. They say it's about anticipation & potential, it's not.

The theory test is 50% HGV, all about tachographs, driving time, break allowances, diff locks & air brakes... not much good when all you want to drive is a 5000kg motorhome.

 

[dunnah01]

Presumably it was a merge slip road to a dualled section of the A9 so not as clear cut as a regular side road to a single carriageway. You made need to show that you couldn't move to the 2nd lane which could get very messy. I'd just let it lie tbh

 

[dunnah01]

Presumably it was a merge slip road to a dualled section of the A9 so not as clear cut as a regular side road to a single carriageway. You made need to show that you couldn't move to the 2nd lane which could get very messy. I'd just let it lie tbh

 

[stuartholmes]

My reply to their lawyer is that the stopping distance is irrelevant. Completely irrelevant. He pulled out onto 'your' road, it was his responsibility to make sure there was adequate space & his fault if he miscalculated. Nowhere in the Highway Code does it say that you have to be prepared to give way to a car wishing to join the main road you're driving on. Yes you have to approach a zebra crossing in case a pedestrian steps out but this is not that. If you were expected to slow down to allow for crazies in a side road all traffic would grind to a halt.

So go offensive, tell their lawyer he is going to lose the case (because of above) and all he's doing is racking up the size of the compensation bill he's going to have to pay for your time dealing with his nonsense because you're preparing a claim against him as well as against his client.

 

[Wee Bold Davy]

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.

I'm assuming that you didn't have a dash cam which is a shame. It could have saved you a lot of grief and money. We've had one in the car and van for over 7 years, I wouldn't leave home without one. The driving standards have never been worse than they are these days

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[stuartholmes]

I'm assuming that you didn't have a dash cam which is a shame. It could have saved you a lot of grief and money. We've had one in the car and van for over 7 years, I wouldn't leave home without one. The driving standards have never been worse than they are these days

Completely agree. I'm never more nervous than when forced to drive without dashcam. Having them saved my son and myself big claims last year and his partner's caught a piece of street-crime that led to prosecution. Being surveilled as much as we are isn't ideal but it's better than the alternative.

 

[Wessexwanderer]

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.

Is the claim being handled by Davies group on behalf of Saga by any chance?

 

[BusyBuilder]

Not sure, it's Harper McLeod Glasgow.


Dash cam now fitted, lesson learned.

 

[Apacheman]

Unless braking tests were carried out at the time it would be impossible to know for your actual vehicle at that location on that road surface in those weather conditions. The best you can do is revert to the Highway Code stopping distances and additional advice for weather conditions. If your solicitor insists and it’s to your benefit in the long run, suggest they contact an expert accident/ collision investigator.

 

[cyberyacht]

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)

Irrespective of who's right and who's wrong, the moral to all this is drive like the rest are idiots and leave lots of room.

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[Phill D]

Irrespective of who's right and who's wrong, the moral to all this is drive like the rest are idiots and leave lots of room.

True, but it encourages idiots to think that they can take up your buffer space.