DD has been stuck on the M5 for 6 hours

[GinForBreakfast]

I know there's been a serious incident but you can't leave people stuck on a motorway for 6 hours. That will include elderly people and tiny children. In other countries they manage to clear the roads far quicker.

No sign of anything moving and even once she does she's still 4 hours from home.

You should always carry rubber dingy in your mist at times like this. Just incase you're near water you can throw it in and wait at a hotel.

I always find it odd that people get criticised for complaining in this country. I got stuck on a train for 3 hours after some poor person jumped in front of the train.

The heating was on full blast, no windows that could be opened and it was rush hour so it was heaving. In our carriage alone 2 people passed out and the panic was horrific. I mentioned how horrific this was afterwards on a chat site and got roundly jumped on for ' not thinking about the family of the person who died' and 'at least you're alive, they are not'.

Since when can't we express discomfort ourselves. Surely the whole point of good mental health is being able to say when you're in a situation that's distressing to you.

Exactly @Turnippy I'm a firm believer that just because somebody somewhere has it worse than you, it doesn't take away your pain, distress or discomfort. Both things can exist at the same time.

Wait, so she wasn't alone in the car? Why so worried then? Anyway, glad she is now home and you can both get some rest.

You can’t open a lane through this as that might disrupt evidence. Someone died remember…

Nobody died.

Exactly. It wouldn't be safe for me to drive after hours sitting in a car. I almost certainly would have to get an ambulance and the car would very definitely have to be towed

This is why I always make sure I have food and drinks in the car.

It's frustrating and annoying, but I always think it's far worse for the people involved, and their friends and family.

Oh wow you conveniently left out the part of her having company! And there’s us thinking she’s alone and she’s driving, and offering advice of how to prepare herself next time. Mind you, if you put that she’s with friend and her dad in the get go, you probably wouldn’t have attracted as much attention to your post as you did.

I don't have a condition, I'm just someone who geneally opens their bowels around 3 times a day. I also don't own a car so am not often in a car on a long journey - if i ever am, it's someone else's car or a hire car. I don't have something ready to use /kit that I carry with me, other than tissues in case toilets have no paper.

If I'm out without a car I'm virtually never completely without access to a toilet, or if am on a bus I'm in a city and could get off the bus if needed, so it's never occurred to me that I might need a kit. If I did a take a kit (and I'm unsure what I'd put in it - a potty?) I don't think the person who is driving me would appreciate me using it in front of them.

If it was DD that had been killed in the fatal collision instead, would you want the police to compromise the investigation in order to avoid inconveniencing people ?

Or would you want them to maintain the integrity of a potential crime scene & have a thorough investigation.

Imagine if DD was killed and you got to court & found that the dangerous driver was let off due to lost evidence from rushing the investigation to reopen the road

If there's a genuine reason why someone is at risk from having to wait then police have procedures to get to these people - if she is genuinely in that situation eg time critical medication, taking someone to a&e, signs of hypothermia or dehydration etc then call 101/999 and police can get to her & help.

Otherwise it's just waiting - like waiting for a delayed flight, a&e, waiting for an ambulance etc.

You’ve got a lot of time on your hands if you’re ready for an apocolypse every time
you go to the shops tbh.

It’s not bizarre at all and classic British acceptance rather than critical thinking. In almost all situations there will be options to move the accident to the side of the road, open one or two lanes, open a contra flow etc etc. As other have said the priority in many other countries is to keep the traffic moving. I have direct experience of this in the US and other places where the road might be closed for 30 mins max. With increasing traffic volumes it’s really not sustainable here in the UK to keep major motorways closed for hours. A major component of this is police funding - again to take the US example the police are much better funded and present in greater numbers, so they turned up the accident quicker and have sufficient additional numbers for traffic management. Here in the UK we only have enough police to directly deal with the accident itself.

It looks like it was a suicide attempt, as the police have reference the Samaritans in their posts about it. So no one died, but you can’t let people through whilst that is an ongoing situation

The OP said her daughter was getting a lift for the first 3 hours of the journey, so obviously she wasn't alone

Moving a crime scene compromises it.

A fatal collision is a crime scene.

If it was your loved one killed & you got to court to find that the killer walked free due to lost evidence, how would you feel?

Road traffic collision investigation in this country is among the best & most thorough in the world.

My thoughts exactly. The OP should have been more clearer. I came back on this morning worried she was all alone and got back safe, but alas conveniently misses the vital part she’s not alone and two others was there for support (and probably snacks) 😡My thoughts go to the teenage girl and her family at this time bless her.

On October there was a lorry caught fire on the M5 Southbound, the traffic came to a standstill and didn’t move for 9 hours because they had to retarmac the road!
my 5 & 7 year old GChildren were caught in it, people were outside playing football and alsorts on the road!

They could clear it. Send people off at the previous junction with a diversion... follow the solid diamond signs. Turn the traffic round from the back of the queue to leave at the previous junction. This is a preventative measure for other accidents with tired hungry desperate for the loo drivers.

As you say there are likely to be babies, disabled kids, elderly, those needing regular medication and food. 6 hours is a very long time. People are not set up for that.

I completely agree, OP. It doesn't make any sense to abandon people that way and of course it is dangerous.

I'm glad she's already home and safe 🙏

“Road traffic collision investigation is among the best & most thorough in the world” Considering how long they take I would hope so. That’s exactly the point.
The benefits of any investigation need be balanced against the impacts on the greater community. And no just because someone died and it is a potential crime scene doesn’t or rather shouldn’t give carte blanche to the police to shut the motorway indefinitely. And yes I do have empathy and yes if it were my relative I’d probably feel different but that’s the individual vs the mass. The needs of one person shouldn’t trump the needs of the wider community.

Well the basic things like blankets etc is something you buy once and put in the boot of your car. Water and snacks, well we all do a food shop regularly, its easy to just leave a few bits behind in the car before taking the rest into the house.

It's hardly a big effort or time-consuming.

Tbh I do find it strange that this type of incident causes such a delay. Obviously there will still be a need to collect evidence and document the scene but its not like an rta where there can be tyre tracks and debris scattered for many yards length and width wise across all lanes, with evidence needing to be photographed and bagged. I'd have assumed it would be possibly to open at least part of the motorway after a couple of hours in this case but obviously not!

Agree @Turnippy .

It's grim that people get shouted at for talking about the understandable difficulties of being in a situation like this.

We can be desperately sad for the people directly involved and sympathetic towards those caught up in it. Empathy isn't a limited resource

I hadn’t read the news article. After reading it she was seriously injured which would still trigger the accident investigation.

Saying that suicides or attempted suicides are normally reasonably quick as it’s normally clear what happened. Maybe there was more to this one.

Am not seeing that in her original post. That what I replied to last night, plus many others that gave advice on being prepared