I’ve just been stuck in traffic in a taxi on the way to Woking station as a result of the following serious incident on the M25 Daily Mail News Article

On the drive there I was listening to several radio reports on Eagle Radio, traffic was a nightmare across the whole area, with bumper to bumper jams reported in Woking, Guildford and on the M25, M3 and A3 to name but a few.

So why was it so serious and closed for so long? Well looking at the images of the incident it looks like a nose to tail collision involving a fuel tanker and a queue of stationary or more slowly moving vehicles. Apparently there were several trapped inside their vehicles with serious injuries.

I’ve supervised plenty of scenes like this in a previous life so for those trapped in the traffic this is why “it takes so long”.

Firstly there is the immediate response from the emergency services, which includes our fantastic roads policing unit (worth a follow on twitter @surreyroadcops) along with their equally great colleagues from South East Coast Ambulance service and of course Surrey Fire and Rescue.

On arrival at this scene they would spring into a standard procedure of dealing with the injured, securing the scene and starting to work out what has happened. In this instance the Surrey & Kent air ambulance also attended which normally requires a full closure of both carriageways whilst it lands.

The teams will then prioritise the casualties and make decisions on what level of trauma care they may require, this may be at a specialist centre like St George’s, Royal London or Kings College (as seen on 24 Hours in A&E) the days of just being ferried to the nearest hospital are long gone.

Once this first phase is well underway its our Roads Police who have to work out what has happened, ultimately deciding if someone needs to be prosecuted. This is what can take the time as a specialist team called the Collision Investigation Unit piece together the evidence. They do this using the latest technology and you will see what looks like surveying yellow tripods in the pictures – that’s how they “plot” a scene to record where everything has ended up to then determine the cause of the collision. What could be the critical piece of evidence, a skid mark or a piece of glass needs be preserved no different to a murder scene.

So why don’t they just push everything to the side and get the road reopened? Well they are is a congestion / economic argument for that and it happens in the vast majority of collisions you hardly notice. The reason is quite simple, the police have a duty to both the victims and their families as well as who has caused the collision to collect all the evidence in an accurate manner. Failure to do so could result in a failed prosecution or a miscarriage of justice and you have to remember those involved could be you or a member of your family and it is important justice prevails.

This process can take hours but if its the difference between justice or not it has to take as long as it takes to ensure its handled correctly. Our road cops do a great job as quickly as they can, I know because I’ve worked countless scenes with them over the years.

Once that process is completed its then handed over to a vehicle recovery company who will use the latest equipment and training to lift the vehicles and preserve the evidence of the vehicles condition post collision. They provide specialist forensic bays then store the vehicles sometimea for years, all free of charge and eventually get paid by an insurance company on fixed fee per vehicle regardless how long it takes.

Lastly, there is another point to consider when you are stuck in a jam you are not IN traffic, you ARE traffic. I tweeted about this collision at about 13:30 and I saw tweets from people saying “what’s going on the M25” 5 hours later. If I can offer one bit of advice to motorists, keep plugged in to the various traffic related twitter accounts and plan your journey to avoid jams like this in the future. There is a list on my twitter feed you may find useful for this Traffic News

Lastly my thoughts are with those involved in this collision and their families, remember it can happen to any of us so I’d rather be stuck in a bit of traffic than be the one sadly caught up in this serious incident.

MM