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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to want to thank the lady in a blue mazda on M25

405 replies

mw27pink · 25/09/2010 23:01

We were travelling on M25 this morning at about 9.30 on the fast lane. Couple of cars before us suddenly slowed down, but the breaks in our car did not work. All I remeber is me shouting at my husband to slow down as I could see us crashing into this convertable blue mazda(not sure about the make). The lady herself was able to break on time and get out of our way by 10 cm...I am still shaking. We were going out for a fun family day and it could have gone soo wrong. We never got a chance to say thank you to her as we had to move out of the motorway all togather, but I have been thinking of that woman all day as I dont think she realised how lucky she was avoiding us at 70ml/h crashing on her back. So whoever you are THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

OP posts:
Rockbird · 27/09/2010 16:30

Animation, she's driving a dodgy car and deserves everything on this thread. Do you see any signs of remorse, acknowledgement of how stupid they were? No, neither do I.

cumfy · 27/09/2010 16:36

Animation

This is a serious matter, the last thing needed is apologists for OP's DP.

OP clearly doesn't seem to know precisely what happened, and is relying on her DP's account of what happened to the brakes.

The brakes just weren't responding in this situation

Bit emotional the brakes that morning hmmm ?

Brakes are brakes are brakes.

Humanity and its engineers have spent a century or more and 100s of millions of vehicles to develop braking systems that work. They don't just fail on a whim.

Humans on the other hand do precisely that.

cumfy · 27/09/2010 16:39

Why would she want to stick around for more of the same third degree?

Nobody likes having cold water thrown on them/noses rubbed in it.

Animation · 27/09/2010 17:01

Cumfy - they were going 70 in the third lane. We don't know for certain what ACTUALLY happened and WHO was at fault on this motorway. As for the brakes - some assume they'd completely failed. I don't. We haven't had an incident report as such.

What's bugging me is the kangaroo court mentality that's going on.

backwardpossom · 27/09/2010 17:07

But Animation, the OP said that she knew the brakes were fine at 30/40mph, but not at 70mph. That is an admission of guilt, and as far as I'm concerned, that makes the OP an irresponsible tw*t.

coraltoes · 27/09/2010 17:08

brakes not working is the same as a brake failing. If your brakes do not work, they have failed to work... I don't understand what else you're suggesting happened from what she has written Animation? Not being provocative, just struggling to see what else she meant!

It could be bad braking...ie not pumping the break but slamming it down causing it to stick which makes it seem like they don't work...hmmm

nameymcnamechange · 27/09/2010 17:12

Lol at this thread still going on. The op has long since disappeared. She never made it really clear whether the brakes actually failed or if her dh just left it too late to brake. Still, we'd better not pass up the chance to get all huffy and have a fairly meaningless rant into the ether, eh?

nameymcnamechange · 27/09/2010 17:14

"But Animation, the OP said that she knew the brakes were fine at 30/40mph, but not at 70mph."

Did she really?

cat64 · 27/09/2010 17:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Animation · 27/09/2010 17:20

I don't interpret brakes "not working" to mean 'failing' as in BROKEN. Something scary though did happen in that third lane.

MaMoTTaT · 27/09/2010 17:20

animation - "brakes not responding in the situation"if it doesn't mean they weren't working probably means "we were driving too close to the car in front so didn't have enough stopping distance"

Animation · 27/09/2010 17:23

cat64 - I understood that they carried on driving because the breaks DID still work. They came off the motorway onto a smaller road.

Animation · 27/09/2010 17:27

MaMo - but she didn't actually say they were driving too close to the car in front.

backwardpossom · 27/09/2010 17:34

Did she really?

Apologies, no, she didn't. She said, "Breaks [sic] do seem to work when the car goes at 30 or 40 m/h and it is a big car ( 7 seater) ,so I presume it takes longer to break at 70 or 80???"

MaMoTTaT · 27/09/2010 17:37

well if the brakes were working (ie not broken) then if they didn't stop them in time (or nearly didn't) then the only other plausible explanation is that they weren't observing stopping distances.

tbh it sounds like the sort of rubbish my dad would come out with - blame the brakes, or the person in front, when he's had many a close shaves because he was driving too close for his speed and nearly rammed into the back of someone.......

nancydrewrocked · 27/09/2010 17:41

Morloth Excellent post Grin

Couldn't agree more.

Animation · 27/09/2010 18:10

"Get the fucking breaks fixed you moron."

Nancy - what's so great about that?

MrsC2010 · 27/09/2010 18:11

Grin Morloth

Tiredmumno1 · 27/09/2010 18:24

it didnt matter what speed you were doing op the brakes could have failed at any time, it just so happened that you were doing 70mph on a bloody motorway.

op you know you need to sort your car. do not drive the unpredictable death trap until its sorted, there could be a number of things as to why they failed.

and if this happens to anyone in an automatic, put it into 1st gear.

op you and you dh are very lucky you didnt seriously hurt someone.

just sort it out.

Animation · 27/09/2010 18:29

How do you know they didn't get their brakes checked?

Tiredmumno1 · 27/09/2010 19:17

animation she obviously knew there was a problem for sure, the second that it happened, as everyone else says they should have pulled over and not driven it again until the brakes had then been sorted, so the car would be safe to use again.

nancydrewrocked · 27/09/2010 19:33

animation the "excellent" was directed at the entire post rather than the small part you decided to quote, although that would still get an excellent from me: straight to the point and perhaps hard hitting enough for the clearly very stupid OP to sit up and take note.

Original poster
mw27pink · 27/09/2010 20:04

This is quite intresting...if I would have said that it was the foult of people in front of me breaking suddenly on a bussy motorway when all the lanes are full...how would this thread had gone. The assumption all along here was that we do not care for neither our lives, nor anybody elses.

And you could not be any further from the truth!!

What this thread was about is the fact that I felt I lived a little miracle and we did not get a chance to say thank you to the lovely lady. You can carry on assuming a lot of things about us, but its your experiences and fears rather than what we did.

Or you could take this and think of the kindness that you might received from strangers when you least expected it. Or when was the last time you did smth good for a stranger and felt good about it ( rather than rant because they did not appreciate it!!)

OP posts:
scurryfunge · 27/09/2010 20:07

Ok but did your brakes fail and did you stop or continue? Have you fixed them since?

mumofthreesweeties · 27/09/2010 20:08

OP we know that you are thankful etc but you are still missing the point that you carried on driving when you knew your car was faulty and did not bother to check your car after your narrow escape. You instead continued to endanger the lives of others. Maybe you can clarify what actually happened then