Recent accident on A74 `Cumberland Gap`

[ianess]

Last week there was a serious RTA with fatalities, involving 3 LGV`s, resulting in the main Western link between Scotland and England being closed for well over a day.  Although traffic was diverted around the accident no attempt was made to open a gap in the crash barriers to allow those vehicles `trapped` to do a U-turn and find another route. A 2-minute job for a JCB.

  Can anyone supply a satisfactory answer?

[sddsddean]

I'm afraid it is not a 2 minute job. Speaking as an HGV driver and an ex Civil Engineer who used to build roads, the problems are as follows. The only 'easy' place to turn an artic on a 2 lane dual c'way is at an ECP (Emergency Crossing Point). If there isn't one near, you are knackered. A 2 lane road is not wide enough to turn an artic (although you can be turned on a normal m'way). The centre reserve is probably soil and stone. After the bad weather, it will be too soft to support an HGV. A french drain usually runs down the centre reserve. This is filled with gravel to allow water to drain into it. Safety barrier posts are set in concrete, but because of the french drain, you have to use metal boxes called bins to form the hole in the gravel to take the posts. Each of these post bases weighs over a ton. Posts are 2.4m apart, so you would have to remove about 7 of them to give enough room to turn an artic over the centre reserve, which is soft ground and now has 7 great holes in it. I hope this shows that it is not just a 2 minute job.

[ianess]

A really good, constructive answer thanks very much, sddsddean.

It still must have been helluva frustrating for all those who were trapped, and if it was wartime I`m sure a team of Royal Engineers would have had the situation under control in no time.

Point taken about turning artics, but what about anything lighter?  In the 21st century you`d think there would be some sort of `Plan B`.

[sddsddean]

I think the problem really is cost Ian. In wartime you can get the Army to do anything, but who would have picked up the cost of the roadworks? The recovery of the accident will have been expensive enough. Also, it is not as easy as you think to organise all the kit. I do a lot of road planing, where a big machine skims off about 40 - 100mm of the road surface prior to re surfacing. We have about 3 emergency callouts a year on to m'ways and main roads, usually after accidents involving fires which have melted the road surface. This means you have to organise the planer crew and its lowloader, the tippers to take it away(thats me), road sweeper, the tarmac crew, the paver, rollers, tracair, tack coat layer (all on low loaders), the tarmac wagons, the tarmac plant (which can 50 or miles away), white lining crew, the traffic management wagons, Police, Highways Agency staff and people to take samples of material used and test the finished job; and this all for a 'simple' repair job. To lay about 2 or 3 truck loads of tarmac can take well over 100 people and 30 or more vehicles.