Rear-ended on hard shoulder of N7

Solitaire

ottostreet wrote:

would a younger driver have been in the same position, considering they would have done their test far more recently, and probably wouldnt have been intimidated?

More a case of braincells - anyone who had any wouldn't move into the hard shoulder on a motorway just to appease some overaggressive [CENSORED] lorry driver who could have waited for a gap to emerge alongside them on the inside lane and overtaken the Micra.

slimjimmc

Solitaire wrote: »

More a case of braincells - anyone who had any wouldn't move into the hard shoulder on a motorway just to appease some overaggressive [CENSORED] lorry driver who could have waited for a gap to emerge alongside them on the inside lane and overtaken the Micra.

'Twas on a dual carriageway (N7 between J5-J6) in the OP's case, but I agree with your point.

Edit : I presume by 'inside lane' you meant offside lane i.e. on the right, closer to the centre of the road.

cyclopath2001

slimjimmc wrote: »

It is indeed 100% illegal, but only on motorways. On non-motorways (like the N7 where the OP was hit) you're allowed to temporaily move into the hard shoulder when safe to allow faster traffic pass, although it probably would be illegal to stay there..

It's not allowed. It's suggested in the RoTR that you pull over.

This advice has been widely misinterpreted as meaning that you continue to drive on the hard shoulder, but this is not permitted by law as you're required to drive on the road, not the hard shoulder.

I think that they had slow-moving agricultural vehicles in mind and not relatively fast moving cars pulling over in response to aggression from even faster vehicles.

SV

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

It's not allowed. It's suggested in the RoTR that you pull over.

You don't see the contradiction?

snowman707

dudara wrote: »

BTW - I'm never driving a Micra - not even for 5 minutes. His car had crumpled up like an accordion

The micra wasn't broke down on the hard shoulder:D:D

cyclopath2001

SV wrote: »

You don't see the contradiction?

You're allowed to pull over and stop. Once you appreciate that this was the original intention of the suggestion, there is no contradiction.

zonda999 wrote:

I think so too. Whats more, a young person probably would have seen you ahead and stopped/re-entered the proper lane

If allowed to do so by the overtaking drivers.

maidhc

lads this is getting silly.

The driver was old. He fecked up, possibly due to age. Statistics* however inevitably show people in their 80s are safer drivers than those in their late teens and early twenties.

* I base this on the fact that insurance rates for 87 year olds, while loaded, are far lower than for 17 year olds.

Scottie99

http://www.injuriesboard.ie/eng/Estimator/

zilog_jones

maidhc wrote: »

lThe driver was old. He fecked up, possibly due to age. Statistics* however inevitably show people in their 80s are safer drivers than those in their late teens and early twenties.

* I base this on the fact that insurance rates for 87 year olds, while loaded, are far lower than for 17 year olds.

Older drivers aren't safer drivers, they just don't drive as much. An 87 year old won't be going to work every day, picking kids up from school every day, etc. My grandad (80 something, I forget) would do like 1 or 2 hours driving a week at most. I would not get in the car with him TBH.

maidhc

zilog_jones wrote: »

Older drivers aren't safer drivers, they just don't drive as much. An 87 year old won't be going to work every day, picking kids up from school every day, etc. My grandad (80 something, I forget) would do like 1 or 2 hours driving a week at most. I would not get in the car with him TBH.

Maybe. Either way they are statistically less likely to kill either themselves or others.

Btw my 84 year old granddad does over 20k kms per annum. Has a full NCB too. I could see him do something like what happened the OP, but the other side of the coin is he is unlikley to loose his Passat TDi on a sharp bend and plough into a car full of people.

stratos

That picture of your pride and joy makes me feel ill, lucky noone was hurt. and don't stay in your car on the hard shoulder. You can tell it was looked after.

dudara

Thanks to everyone who replied. I'm probably more shook today than yesterday but feeling good enough.

It really sank in after a while yesterday how much worse all of this could have been. Despite the fact that the old lad really should have not been driving, I feel very sorry for him and I hope that he's not injured. At that age, he'll have felt it a lot worse than I.

We'll have to get a new car quickly - so if anyone knows of a decent spec car selling for around the €3k mark, let me know.

BrianD3

I thought of this thread when I was driving on a dual carriageway this morning. I saw a car stopped in the hard shoulder very nearly being rear endend at 110 km/h by a Mazda that had wandered into the hard shoulder. Why did he wander? Because on the other carriageway, the gardai had stopped a car and rubbernecking drivers were looking across at at it instead of looking where they were going.

Wertz

dudara wrote: »

The impact did knock me forward - but I had my belt on. Dunno if there will be whiplash but I am feeling OK so far. I had seen him coming so it wasn't entirely unexpected and I'm thankful how well my car took the impact.

My mother was hit from behind about 15 yrs ago (no jokes please)...she had her belt on and the car which was stationary and was hit by someone doing 30+ mph in a volvo....at the time she felt fine...neck a bit stiff, shock etc. Car was a write off. She settled out of court for damages and injury for what amounted to damn all...it's only now a decade and more on that the whiplash is making it's presence felt and has made certain tasks difficult for her. Injury to the soft tissues surrounding the vertebrae in the neck can take years to surface...just bear that in mind.
Bad luck on the motor too.

dudara

Just to let you all know how this is proceeding.

The accident happened on Wednesday and as of Friday I've been dealing with Quinn directly.

I've accepted €2.2k (less salvage value) for the car. I'm actually happy with as my car had high mileage and I think it's a realistic figure. Plus, I get the car, which will be scrapped by my father in Cork (so if anyone is looking for E36 parts, let me know).

I felt fine (other than shock) up to Monday, but stiffness started to develop on Monday and progressively got a bit worse. I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and am taking anti-imflammatories now. It's not crippling or really bad, but there is some discomfort. Hopefully it won't get any worse.

Quinn have offered me a figure for personal injuries and there is still an option open for eye injury, given that I had a detached retina last year. I've received a hire car for two weeks, taxis and other expenses covered.

Overall, I'm impressed by the speed of Quinn. The first part of my cheque will be in the post next week and they've covered everything for me.

Next task - buy a new car. We'll have a budget of max €5k - hopefully we can nail a nice 2000/2001 3-series for that, preferably a coupe model.

Fey!

Glad to hear you're getting sorted, and sorry to hear you're in discomfort.

Best of luck finding a clean replacement.

thebiglad

That's great to hear you are being looked after, don't rush it with the injury side of things and keep an eye on PIAB site to get value (obviously with some small discount for early settlement).

Don't forget to tell your own insurer to close their claim as you have recovered direct from the third party - don't want an open file to your name!