Mickwhitt 5,097 #1 Posted June 15 Hi all. As an ex police crash investigation officer I was very interested to watch Pile Up on TV this evening. It was a programme created by a British university to study a multi vehicle motorway collision in real time using remote controlled full size vehicles driven on a section of simulated motorway at speeds up to 85mph (our speed limit is 70 mph). They used 8 moving vehicles driven in all three lanes which approached two vehicles stationary on the hard shoulder. A close coupled large goods vehicle and trailer then pulled across all three lanes blocking the carriageway with only 200m to go for the lead vehicle in the pack. The result was predictably carnage, with no vehicle escaping unscathed and at least two sustaining fatal casualties. Four of the remote drivers were untrained members of the motoring public with no idea that a crash had been set up. They thought they were helping with auto driving technology. It was a fascinating programme, exceptionally well planned and filmed so that all aspects of the crash were captured. They then released a crash investigation officer onto the scene to try and make sense of the pile up, he had not seen the crash prior to examining the scene. This was to test an actual investigation based on the mass of data they had about it. He managed to decipher every mark and transfer to explain how the crash unfolded, an incident that took less than a second. I told my wife what I deduced before his explanation and I was bang on, she was suitably impressed. It was a truly international effort too. Vehicles from the USA were included and investigators from there were on the team. It's well worth watching if you can get access to it. Some pretty sobering conclusions for anyone else who gets into a vehicle and puts their life on the line. https://www.cranfield.ac.uk/press/news-2025/inside-the-worlds-biggest-crash-test This is the universities Web page about the experiment. Mick 3 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
953 nut 59,382 #2 Posted June 15 I saw this on public broadcasting here in the US a couple of weeks ago, quite impressive. The drivers were in remote locations a safe as could be but their reaction to the crash was as if they were actually in the remote control cars. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
EB-80/8inPA 1,814 #3 Posted June 15 Now they should do people staring at their cell phones. Or was that the “large goods vehicle?” 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
