@ No, I don't, that has nothing to do with what I said. Insurance for a car is important in case you have an accident. Car Vertical isn't the same as insurance, if your car is fine you spent £30 pounds to find out literally nothing. But with insurance, it's expensive (On some cars), but it is needed because you always could have an accident. It's probably not likely to get a car that has been written off and repaired without knowing. Yeah you still could buy one, do a check and see that it's been written off. But what do you exactly do with that info? If it's a car your looking at buying and you find out its written off, you spent £30 to say 'I don't wanna buy that one' and then presumably you'll do a check on another vehicle your looking at buying. So if you get info that it's been written off and look at a different vehicle, you'll spent a minimum of £60. And I don't think it's likely you'll buy a poorly repaired car, If it was repaired poorly you'd probably be able to see that a few panels don't fit right. £30 is expensive considering the info you get. It barely tells you more than a regular car check would, and it doesn't exactly reveal hidden damage because the only way Car Vertical gets that info is if it's been registered as written off, so if it's been crashed and repaired without insurance knowing then Car Vertical couldn't tell you anyway.
Sorry to be that guy but there's absolutely no way I'd be doing 70 in conditions like that. I don't think this is about cruise control. It's about driving to the conditions.
Exactly. I'm amazed at Ashley calling Owen a good driver. Maybe but not on this evidence. I'm glad he walked away safe though. The M62 near Irlam has warning signs as it's a terrible surface: grooved, bumpy. It's built on top of a swamp. Doing 70 mph just after a hail storm and then overtaking an HGV in the lane right next to the spray, rather than going into the outside lane, that's 2 bad decisions. Using cruise control in such conditions would be another. Being caught out is not an excuse.
Not driving conditions. It's lack of poor judgement. As others have commented, he shouldn't have been driving at that speed, and not observing the muck being thrown up by the HGVs. Maybe, it highlights the lack of experience.
So he says "the road surface isn't great here" and continues at 70mph! That blew my mind and yeah, no way I'm using cruise control in those conditions and nor would I be doing 70 either. No change to his driving for the condition of the weather or the road.
Came here to say the same thing as with cruise control you can't lighten up when required it will keep it stuck at 70 regardless but whats more worrying is this was one of his trainee instructers if I heard correctly and they set it for 70 without readjusting it if it where not those conditions to start with, personally it would not be used anyway and cancelled if this were me once I came accros those conditions.
@@ExaltedwithFail Sorry but trainee driving instructor. No matter how sudden a hail storm drive to conditions. I think he was eating humble pie after this crash. Thankfully he managed to get away with minor scratches and seat belt bruises I imagine.
On Boxing day last year there was huge amounts of fog and driving along the M180 doing 50 as I could not see very far there was still the odd car doing 70+. I remember working at Allied Bakeries in Reading and one of the delivery drivers told me of someone doing just that in snowy conditions along the M3 and ending up like this because of as you said not driving to the conditions.
05:37 "Owen is a very good driver" Really? The dash cam footage suggests otherwise. Not sure how 70 mph in those conditions is an indication of a very good driver.
I think Owen’s own comment here clears up why he was driving that way. He admits he was in the wrong, and I doubt he’ll find himself in a situation like that again.
After watching this I would doubt Owens credentials to be regarded as a "very good driver". Not a good assessment from Ashley, I'm not a trainee driving instructor but wouldn't dream of doing those speeds nor use cruise control in those conditions. It didn't catch him out, he was unprepared.
My favourite bit is that his cars owners manual will specifically say do not use cruise control in adverse conditions, e.g. rain, snow, icy or low visibility conditions. I really hope his insurance screws him here so he doesn't get back on the roads until he's had a few years to think about his daft choices.
I’m a bit disappointed with this video and your focus on cruise control. Yes, he shouldn’t be in cruise control but this is not the issue here. Are you defending him because he’s a fellow instructor? Albeit a trainee. The issue here is his speed, end of. Massively faster than he should have been in those conditions. Also it looked like he had another lane to his right. Whatever the rights and wrongs I would have used that lane to create a gap between the lorry and himself. Lorry was generating a lot of spray and hampered his visibility. However it was his speed, it cannot be emphasised enough. Odd analysis here unfortunately.
I disagree; Ashley chose to talk about cruise control, which is exactly what he did. One could imagine that the loss of stability might have occurred at 50 mph, or, if black ice was involved, a much lower speed. This was a clip about how the car's management systems responded to an incident, whatever caused that incident. The actual initial speed is interesting, but not relevant to the discourse about how cruise control responds once a vehicle has lost traction.
I would not have entered lane 3. The conditions were hail i.e. ice balls and lane 3 was full of them. No, the proper course of action was to stay in lane and slow down. The trucks will have greater traction a) because of the intensity of traffic in lane 1 and b) the weight of the truck would have pushed the tyres through to the tarmac. There was a pair of tram lines of water in lane 2 so that would have been a safer spot to be until well back from the truck's spray.
@@mgprewett I agree, the point is about cruise control and how it can lead you into trouble. This video is just an example of how it probably contributed towards the loss of control here. Obviously the speed magnified the effect, but probably still would have got out of shape at a lower speed on the cruise control.
@@mgprewett lol are you trying to say the car caused the crash ? what a stupid thing to say ! speed, speed, speed is the cause of 99 % of all accidents ! if you cant stop safely, you are going too fast in any conditions, its that simple
I wouldn't admit to teaching someone if that is the standard of driving. If his driving is not to the basic standard of not knowing how to drive in different weather conditions, he might need a retest. If he can't drive without people having to tell him how to think and what to do, he isn't ready to be out in a car on his own. This is why we need to question why so many driving instructors are passing unsuitable people. He was driving too fast for the conditions of the road, end of story, his fault, no one else's. Don't make excuses for poor or careless driving, he could have hit other vehicles and seriously injured others.
"The road surface isn't great here" - continues driving at 70 and takes a chance on driving through the hundreds of litres of snow/water the lorry is chucking onto the road surface he just acknowledged isn't great.
Just reiterating what everyone else already said. With 20 year's experience of driving in continental winters, there is no way that I would be going that fast, and no way that I would pass the lorry considering the condition of the middle lane. I would drive behind the lorry with a lot of distance doing my 56 mph.
I don't think I would want to go over 40 in icy conditions - taking the "10 times the usual braking distance" rule, at about 20mile/h is decently doable for driving on line of sight in an urban setting, maybe 30 if there's decent visibility, but once you get to 70, you're well within train levels of stopping distance, without the advanced warning that trains get of their need to stop.
And cars are more powerful and complicated than they need to be. I can remember when having a Cassette player and copy of the A to Z and AA Maps was considered the Nav / Entertainment system.
@@LukeTR2000 You didn't say when your renewal was, whether you shopped around properly or if any of your circumstances changed. Even if you did everything right, perhaps you were just unlucky somehow. Whether premiums are rising or falling in the market generally isn't decided by looking at what you specifically pay.
The saying goes, 'A bad tradesman blames his tools.' yeh it was definitely the 'cruise control' and nothing to do with poor driving and lack of awareness.....
Just to clarify Owen totally accepted he was too fast, but he bemused himself why he didn’t slow. The obvious isn’t the point of this video but the extra information on what happens in that moment. The other thing to take from this is how much impatience to get to work early in the morning can impair judgement. Keep safe everyone 👍
“Get thereitis”; very well understood and very frowned upon in the aviation world. Let’s be honest, the cruise control was possibly a contributing factor, the cause was his speed was simply far too fast for those conditions.
Not surprising many jump straight onto the speed and miss the point of the video highlighting the dangers of using cruise control in poor weather conditions. Yes, I pointed that out the speed in my comment but that was as a secondary point to the video. The overall message about dynamics, weight distribution and shift was all very interesting and and quite possibly an extension of the “don’t brake if you are skidding or spinning” knowledge
I'm glad Owen is ok. Looking at that as a Norwegian driver, those conditions had "accident" written all over them. Even with my full on nordic winter tyres i would not be going near 70mph there. And you have to be really really careful when you leave the clean line on snowy roads cos the differing grip and differing drag at either side can quickly send you round in a circle. Even without cruise control he was at high risk of spinning out. I'm afraid that was a big misjudgement by the driver, plain and simple. And he's not alone - those trucks were also way over safe speed for those conditions.
"you leave the clean line on snowy roads cos the differing grip and differing drag at either side can quickly send you round in a circle." Now that is interesting, bet nobody (except you) thought of that.
@@adamek9750 I'd say 50 when going straight, sticking to black stripes of tarmac at all times and 30-40 when changing lanes (with great caution), monitoring the car's behaviour at all times. And away from the lorries if possible.
70 mph is the limit for ideal conditions. I find it incredible that he was driving at that speed in those conditions! I remember having a discussion with an instructor many years ago where he explained that 'we' have the heater on and are 'cocooned' in our metal box becoming isolated from what the true conditions are 'out there'. A hard lesson indeed!
70 is the limit in all conditions. The problem is many people think of speed limits as the speed of a road rather than using their judgement and driving to conditions. This would not be a problem if people were taught to drive to conditions rather than an arbitrary speed limit that may or may not be an appropriate speed for the conditions.
Some idiots put their fog lights on thinking that will save them from a problem, and then continue to use too much speed, not enough difference, no defensive space.
@@telmas7183 I have always believed that you relax too much when using cruise control, you start to move your feet, get into a ‘comfortable’ position and maybe your feet aren’t in position when needed. Using cruise control, you are not fully in control of the car. There is always the option to turn it off not just barrel along regardless.
In ideal conditions he could have driven 200mph and everything would be fine. In 70mph is not even that crazy for those condition. It's just bad tires (looks like sumemr tires) and car control. Been there, done that and nothing ever happened. Even with high powered rear wheel cars and i am not a really good driver.
You're being EXTREMELY generous with your assessment of this crash. Owen was travelling much too quickly for the conditions, Everything else you said is also true. Him leaving the tracks in the lane on the slippery surface etc... 70 MPH going into very low visibility (Predictable as you could clearly see how much spray and slush was being thrown out by the heavy) Driving over this slushy 'wake' could get enough of it between Owens tires and the road to lose control while at speed. Ice on the ground (Hale is falling ice, when it lands it usually melts a bit into slush, which is thick and sits on the road rather than running away. The result is a half inch layer of slush is at least as bad as a half inch layer of standing water which at 70mph you will almost certainly aquaplane on. The cruise control was not responsible for Owen leaving the tracks he was in. He either already had started to loose control by that point, or somehow he was surprised by the visual impairment all of that obvious flying slush was going to cause and either 'flinched' away from the HGV, or simply didn't see that he was deviating. Whichever way you slice it it's Owens fault, he even says the road is crap moments before but seemingly takes no action, this is utterly diabolical, especially so if Owen is as 'good' as Ashley says. Blaming the cruise control in any way is frankly ridiculous. This is 100% a driver error, one which is lucky didn't do more damage. If him skidding over those lanes unstuck one or both HGVs as well then this could have ended much worse.
Just after he passes there is a "ding" and the speed reduces. My cruise control turns off if you start losing control in ice or standing water. I think that's what the "ding" is here. The car senses it slipping and turns off the cruise, pushing the weight forward, inducing a drift. The rest is he is effectively a passenger.
It's also likely the traction control would have applied the breaks to one of the wheels, which when then joining the more grippy tarmac could have started the skid.
it was his turning away from and then back to the lorry that induced the skid on the hail, the weight shift of disengaging cruise control here would have been negligible.
I think the disrupted air coming off the lorries could also have unsettled the car. I mean we've all felt the pull to the left and then to the right as you pass the front of a lorry, and even with just rain it can be dangerous. I'd not have even tried to pass those vehicles in these conditions, esp not at 70.
Thanks for making this video Ash! Appreciate you getting the message out. The other lesson for me in this was how much your judgement can be impared when it's silly o'clock in the morning and you've not had much sleep... All my gut instincts of not to drive at 70 in those conditions (nevermind overtaking a lorry) seemed to get ignored. I wasn't as switched on as I should have been. Safe to say I won't be getting in situation again, hope some people can learn the lesson the easy way!
Glad you are OK Owen and we have all been there. 2am starts for me down the M1 or M40 worh cruise control on looking ahead with really seeing. One reason I stopped using cruise control and went back to old fashioned driving to keep the brain working. Best advice I have been given is done be hard on yourself, learn from the experience and don’t overthink it (the latter I am still trying to learn) Take care of yourself
@@OwenArandz You’re a lucky guy Owen! I learnt a similar way driving in similar conditions turning and much slower speeds, glad we can all learn from everybody else’s mistakes
I'm sorry but no surprises - it's a 70 mph MAXIMUM speed limit, not a 70 mph MINIMUM speed limit. Cruise control in those conditions is just stupid - when driving in tricky conditions you need soft hands, gentle inputs, caress the brake / accelerator - feel the grip available. Cruise control blunts the senses - it has its place but a snow-covered motorway with narrow grip tramlines is not one of them.
'Written off because of unsafe speed with hailstone on the deck' should have been the title on this one Ash! Ease off, tuck in a couple of hundred metres behind the heavies, for a minute or two - a none event. Or, overtake heavies in lane 3 at 70 with hailstone on the deck, taking a huge gamble; hitting that tree broadside next to him, could well have been fatal- he was lucky there. The multiple RTC situation happens regularly on motorways in hailstone, you've got to slow down through it.
Forget the cruise control, he should not have been driving at the speed limit in those conditions at all! You should ALWAYS lower your speed in bad conditions, good driver or not.
Only one minute in and clearly sitting in a nice warm cocoon relaxes the driver into feeling invincible at 70 per on two strips of tarmac in a sheet of snow and ice. The possibility that it could be frozen on the two black strips as well hasn’t entered his head, even allowing for having to drive very accurately without any deviation as grip is bound to radically reduced in these circumstances. A winter riding a motorcycle would have been a useful experience for this driver that I’m guessing he never had. He was very lucky it wasn’t worse.
Given that it was hail, the black strips probably wouldn't have been icy, just wet. The problem was when he veered onto the white area covered in hail which would have been like driving on marbles.
@davem9204 in those situations a shiny wet bit could be black ice quite easily. Wind chill on a crest of a road, temperature falling just before first light,just cos it's black and shiny never assume it's above freezing. Also window down and listen to the tyre's that's another tip
Hmm Ashley, I am surprised you couldn't think of anything else he could've done better other than not using cruise control. I think the fact that you like him and he's your mate might be putting the blinkers on you abit. You should tell him this. Nobody should be going 70mph in sleety, snowy conditions. He should've been going slower so he has more time to react to adversity. Even if he did a little bit of training, controlling a skid at 70mph is still going to be tough for a non-professional which is what most of us are on the roads. Most people in this country don't change their tyres from season to season most likely got all season tyres or summer tyres. Which is why this country comes to a halt when we get a slight dusting.
I think Ashley wanted to point out an element of the incident which many people may not have thought about. We can all predict going 70mph and veering onto hail-strewn tracks is going to get messy. But the use of cruise control and the dangers of using it are less obvious, so worth talking about. There wouldn't have been much value in the video if he just said slow down and avoid the white part of the lane.
@@davem9204 Yeah I agree, him bringing to light the dangers of using CC like this is important and i'm glad he made the video. However, at the end when he summarised I think he should've mentioned the speed in those conditions. You say "We can all predict going 70mph and veering onto hail-strewn tracks is going to get messy." Obviously not otherwise the person in the clip would've known better. Clearly doesn't know better as he was chuckling at another driver up a tree at the very end and ended up a tree himself 😂
He was driving recklessly in perilous conditions. Far too fast. No caution when passing those truck. No speed adjustment. Madness to be using cruise control. Drive the car!
He called out the road conditions and didnt drive to them... It was actually a terrible display of driving, it may be out of character but if conditions are slippery and your going 70mph and a close pass on a lorry well your asking for it A slide in a front wheel drive actually could do with more power as you correct the slide by powering out of it
100% on the driver failing to adjust his speed to the road conditions. As soon as he saw the road conditions deteriorate he should have been reducing his speed.
"Owen is a very good driver" Yeah, doing 70 when there's ice on the road is very good driving. Cruise control will disengage automatically if traction is lost, BTW.
R04drunner1 We all make mistakes. Only he was described as a ' very good driver ' ! Not just a good driver ? 69/70 mph is not a mistake? Driving in snow and ice conditions Highway Code rule 231 gives advice . Drive extremely carefully. Drive slowly . This is nether, it is borderline careless driving ? When does careless driving become reckless driving ? If he was driving on cruise control then that was not a mistake? That is a deliberate act of setting your CC at a set speed . His mistake might be arrogance thinking he is a 'very good driver ' and rule 231 does not apply to him . ?
I live in the Scottish Highlands and regularly see weather and roads like that during winter / early spring. I am astounded that he was still doing 70mph when even he acknowledges the road conditions aren’t great. If you go outside of the tracks left by previous vehicles, your wheels will spin if they lose traction, usually caused by a build up of snow / hail or a puddle. That’s why using cruise control in these situations is not a good choice. I’m surprised you called him a good driver, but we all make mistakes and I guess Owen will learn from this. 👍🏻 I’m glad Owen walked away from his accident, and the Golf put up a good degree of protection at such an impact speed. 👏🏻
Hundreds of comments, and you seem to be the only person to mention leaving the tracks, which to me is clearly the main cause of accident! I assume that at that speed, with that amount of water, wide tires, and cold tires, he almost certainly aquaplaned, the cruse control cut off with a ding causing engine braking on the front wheels, causing the spin. He could probably have got out of it by flooring the throttle, being a front wheel drive vehicle. Lucky to survive a tree impact at that speed!
Jesus christ, he acknowledges that the road surface is poor, then he continues barelling along at 70mph through a huge amount of spray from the lorry, on roads that have clearly been snowed on recently, and is then surprised that he crashes?
I don't use cruise control. It makes me feel so disconnected to the speed of my vehicle. I prefer a speed limiter. If you want to slow down without breaking, it's possible to do that with a speed limiter, cruise control will just keep going.
I get what you say completely - however, I’m pretty sure adaptive cruise control saved me from a potential horrific accident on the M6/14 junction. Car in front missed the junction, slammed their breaks on so they could reverse back, that extra second of the car breaking before I reacted made all the difference…
I'm sorry, but that was 100% on Owen. Driving like that, in those conditions, proves he is not "a very good driver". It shows he has a lot to learn. And cruise control did NOT cause that crash, Owen's lack of awareness and lack of ability caused it.
I from a country with a lot of snow, a lot of mountains and a lot of very high-speed motorways. The driver of that car was too fast. Not just a little bit too fast, he was quite a bit too fast. To go that speed past the trucks, he wants to be one lane farther away from them. Can't comment on how much grip there really was on the road, but it looks quite iffy. On alpine snow tires (without spikes), it looks like it would be okay up to about 120kmh/75mph, but on what is normally used in winter in the UK this is just stupid. Genuinely glad there was no serious injury but physics doesn't care about your skill if you are not equipped properly for the speed you want to go at.
Simple. He's driving far too fast for the conditions. No way should he have been doing 69 in those conditions. And as its a GPS reading on the dashcam most likely his speedo was over 70. Poor driving from someone training to train people to drive. TBH says a lot about why driving standards are so poor these days. I doubt you would have been doing that speed. To many people think the speed limit is the speed limit regardless of conditions. Another point on cruise control, the minute the car sensed it was loosing traction the cc would have disengaged.
What an idiot driving at that speed in those conditions, this guy cannot drive properly. Owen cannot drive safely, I'd hope the insurance company find him liable for the collision if they see this footage.
Written off because of stupidity, doing 69MPH on cruise control in icy conditions, what could possibly go wrong? he even said himself -The road surface isn't great here - before impact... He was driving too fast for the conditions.
Forget cruise-control (which he should not have been using in these conditions), the bottom line is he was driving too fast for the conditions and even the car's stability control systems couldn't save it.
So because he does well as a student driving instructor, you don't fault him for going 70mph with cruise control whilst passing lorries in those conditions? I personally wouldn't want him as an instructor tbh...
Yes, Ben Collins the ex-stig said the first thing of racing is forgetting not crossing your hands. As a motorbiker in these conditions I’m 20mph slower and never cruise control (for the feel and control). Yes it’s a motorbike, but traction is traction… the second you let off the throttle, weight transfers forward and gives you more steering as you slow. Also the fact he not only didn’t drive to the conditions, but drove past the crashed one in the last clip without checking on them says it all…
don;t jump to that conclusion. is not too fast. i had the exact same situation, doing 90 mph this autumn. on summer tyres. watching this clip was a deja-vu. but i got out of it with no problems, even if my car still has summer tyres.
What a plonker. He even comments the road surface isn't very good yet doesn't even bother to slow down and jeep a distance from the traffic ahead. My cats would have better roadsense.
Amazed at how casually you blew this off. Good driver ha! That's why our insurance is through the roof. "Smart" cars and not so smart drivers do not mix
Sorry but I would be doing maximum 40mph there. Passing the truck with hail and the weather spray at 70mph is asking for a crash. Absolutely irresponsible driving there.
Thank god Owen was ok and thank god nobody else was involved. But, yeah, to echo a lot of the other comments; the primary cause of this accident was excessive speed for the conditions, not the use of cruise control.
Unfortunately, the crash was solely down to the cammer's very poor driving skills. He is driving far too fast for the conditions prior to the crash and seems unable to hold a straight course when his vision is temporarily obscured by spray. I'm afraid Ashley has misjudged this one as it's essentially nothing to do with cruise control but is all about being able to drive at a speed suited to the prevailing conditions. Here's a tip ...... I drive thousands of miles a year, much of it on 700 mile plus non-stop journeys across Europe and all my cars and motorbikes have cruise control but I have never once used cruise control in any vehicle. I want to be in total control of my vehicle at all times which is perhaps why, in 55 years of driving, I have remained accident free.
I know a lot of 'good drivers' who know their ability and get overconfident, leading to things like doing 70 in inappropriate conditions. I'm a bit more nervy about my driving but it keeps me safe (and no that doesn't mean doing 40 in every situation either!)
You ask; "How did he get himself into that situation?" Answer: "The road surface isn't great here" - continues driving at 70 and takes a chance on driving through the hundreds of litres of snow/water the lorry is chucking onto the road surface he just acknowledged isn't great. I think you're giving him a soft ride here Ashley.
Not at all. Owen knows the obvious as his told me before I'd even seen the video. What I should've done though is stated the glaringly obvious first before moving onto the main point of discussion. Why do you think I highlighted on the screen "The road surface isn't great here" ?
@@ashley_neal But what should be the main point of discussion? We don't know if Owen was driving on cruise control. Even if he was, we don't know if it was the cruise control that caused him to lose traction. We don't know if the car disengaged cruise as soon as it started sliding. All in all, we don't know if cruise control contributed to this crash. But we do know that he was driving too fast for the conditions. That ought to be the main point of discussion. Sure, you say that the road surface isn't great here. But you also call the video "cruise control crash". Which it may or may not be.
Everyone can work out speed was the issue, virtually no one understands the dynamics of how cruise control can be dangerous in slippery conditions. You could hear the cruise control disengage with the beep. Let's ask you this then, if Owen had of been doing 56 mph and put his right wheels on the slippy stuff and the car unbalances, could he still have ended up crashing?
@@ashley_neal Sure, you can hear a beep as he loses control. But is that because cruise control has disengaged or because some other safety system had kicked in? We just don't know. Maybe both things happened at the same time as traction control took over and cruse control disengaged. My car bongs when it detects a likely collision, unrelated to cruise control. It may also bong when it disengages cruise control for safety reasons. I wouldn't know. I'd never be using cruise in situations like that. I wouldn't be doing 70mph either. Maybe he wasn't in cruise control at the time - you said that you "thought" he was because his speed stayed constant. But you don't know. You're making an assumption. We still don't know if cruise control contributed to the crash. Would he still have crashed at 56 mph? Again, we don't know. In low friction situations, like a sudden hail storm or black ice, we can get cars losing control even at low speeds. But clearly you are improving your odds by reducing your speed. Bottom line - in slippery situations you should slow down and disengage driver aids that don't help like cruise control. But this video doesn't prove that cruise control caused this particular accident.
Proving you've missed the point totally. Yes that are many assumptions in this video. However its main purpose is to explain to people how cruise control would react in a situation like this, therefore encouraging people not to use it in slippery conditions. Peoples understanding of weight transfer is awful as proved by the common section as the only focus on the absolute obvious, that speed played a massive factor.
I am glad to learn that Owen is ok. The car is just metal and can be replaced. Whether he was using cruise control or not, the rapidly changing road conditions suggest to me that 70mph was entirely the wrong speed and was far too fast for the ever changing road conditions. Had he relied less on the technology and had used his hands on the steering wheel to understand the road underneath his car, he would possibly have felt the insecurity of the car in those road conditions at that speed. In the UK we do not follow the sensible French example of reducing maximum speeds permitted in wet weather and the roads were both wet and icy. I don't want to sound like an armchair critic because it is far too easy to criticise when one is sat in a nice warm home. However, I suspect I would have been driving no faster than 50mph on the decent straight road of a motorway (keeping ten cars off the rear bumper of the car in front) and slowing to between 30 & 40mph on twisting country roads with potential adverse cambers. I passed my driving test in the 70s and I am 76 years of age. I drive a 2.2 litre diesel 200bhp Jaguar XF, which is rear wheel drive. To ensure that I was not becoming a victim of skill drift, I recently paid £150 to undertake an assessment of my driving skills and it included 8 hours driving in one day... with a retired police class 1 instructor. I did not display any major faults and I learned a few really useful techniques. Much of the day was spent driving over hills and dales in very changeable weather conditions and with sudden snow flurries and ice. The first two hours was spent driving in ice and snow without using my brakes. This was to ensure that I was driving to the traffic, road and weather conditions and was thinking far enough ahead to remain safe while having due regard to the safety of all other road users. I believe that this type of course is the future and would provide an excellent revenue stream for all advanced driving instructors. I would happily undertake such an 8 hour course every 3 years to remain current and up to date. As stated, I am delighted to learn that Owen is not seriously hurt. Trees are the one immovable object that no-one should want to meet.
"The road surface isn't great here" you don't say, my minds boggled why keep at that speed in those conditions? Blaming cruise control is absolutely no excuse, if it becomes sketchy TURN IT OFF! the ignorance & complacency of drivers these days because they're vehicles near enough drive themselves is rediculous. Iv a 20yearold all wheel drive subaru with all season tyres equipped and wouldn't do over 50mph in those conditions!!!
Way way way to fast for road conditions. Highway code 231 (in bold print ) Drive extremely carefully... Drive at a slow speed .... This is not a debate for me, 70mph is not ' Drive at a slow speed ' is not ' Drive extremely carefully ' ! Sure CC won't help in an emergency. But 70mph in snow conditions is very very poor choice .
My word. That Owen chap was going far too fast. Even the most inexperienced of drivers should have slowed and held back. You see idiots like that in poor weather every day - sadly.
Could have collected someone else once he lost it, lucky the roads were quiet. As a 50 years motorcyclist I am very aware of grip and various scenarious in poor and other weather, I also have owned driven 4x4 Subaru estates for the last 20 years and use Nokian winters, even so equipped I would not be going that fast! Passing trucks is bad enough in rain, let alone slush, and it looked to me anyway like the onset of loss of control was being suprised by the amount of spray and then moving slightly off the cleared areas of road to settled deeper slush with less grip. If he had held on and driven through it probably would have just had a scare and slowed to the speed he should have been going, moving over was the mistake (as well as excess speed IMHO). No qualifications here, but in my life have driven in something like 20 coutries for work, designated crew bus driver and 7.5 tonne grandad. Never hit another car / had a car RTA in my 50 years driving, had a few falls on the bikes in my early years as rode year round, and had one no fault bike RTA when a USA serviceman on the wrong side of the road took me out. Clean licence for 30 years, and only 3 points before that since the 70's. 1/2 million two wheel miles. That's just background info, as said I have had no training or advanced stuff, just been around all over for generations and seen the lot in my time.
It's not cruise control crash. Is just a crash by a very bad driver. You don't use automated functions when the weather is so bad and the closing speed to those big trucks in front is insane in those conditions. Plus looks like he was using bad tires for the conditions if he lost the car to easily....or really yanked the steering wheel hard. All of which lead to bad driver which shouldn't be let driving in the future again.
No instructor should ever tell someone they are a good driver, very few people have the mentality to not let that boost their ego. When ego outweighs ability is when trouble starts - just as here I suspect.
I think, putting cruise control aside for a moment, a key lesson here is that even good drivers can make poor decisions, and changing weather conditions are one of the (I think) most common ways people get caught out.
That's a bit of a cop out. This wasn't just 'he didn't notice' he very much did notice, and even says on camera about how bad the road is, but makes no change to his driving and proceeds into a high risk area (given the conditions). Based on that I'd question if he's at all as good as Ash is making him out to be. A rookie mistake in a situation like that where it's plain to see that great care is going to be needed is just absurd. Then seems to brush it off as if he thinks he was just unlucky in the poor conditions.
It sounds like he was up early to make an appointment. Sounds like the pressure of life impaired his judgement that morning. In an ideal world we'll all have clear minds and plenty of time when we get in a car to go somewhere, but we don't all live in an ideal pressure-free world. I think he's learnt his lesson from this, and give himself a bit more time and head-space for setting off.
Fancy driving past a couple of trucks that you know will throw a bunch of road shit on to your window and not slow down because your visibility is going to be compromised.
I won't claim that I wouldn't have done 70 mph in those conditions, but I have done enough winter driving to avoid using cruise control in those conditions. The "slippy stuff" as you call it, isn't just slippery. It's much more dangerous: the slush may suddenly "grab" one or more of your tires and send you for a spin. That's already bad enough for experienced winter drivers, but an active cruise control will "seal the deal" by delaying or inhibiting the proper response. In conditions like that, you want to remain in full control of the car at all times. Activating cruise control is the same as giving away some of that control, and it may fight you in that crucial moment where you need control.
The car is either aquaplaning or on ice. Cruise control disengaging in those conditions is hardly going to throw the weight forward - hitting the brakes would probably have had little effect as evidenced by the fact that he was heading towards a crash faming hard and very decelleration. Just poor driving skills and recklessness. Sorry but he shouldn't be teaching others to drive if he can't drive according to road conditions. Could have been killed - just slow down - there is no way I would overtake a semi overtaking a semi on a wet road, let alone on an icy road. Don't blame cruise control, blame the driver!
12:50 I can confirm (at least with the cars I've had) that if traction is lost whilst on cruise control, the cruise control deactivates. In a safe environment, I tested this with a sharp turn and the CC deactivated straight away
I guess if the CC deactivates then the car immediately has a closed throttle which will increase weight transfer to the front. Would applying the brakes allow the ESP system to regain control or just make matters worse?
@@dimebarcocker Heavy braking, say, in a corner, can unsettle a car, but then ABS is smarter than that (usually), so I'm not sure re:ABS and the effect.
There is no doubt CC shows down your stopping distance? The time it takes from you lifting of accelerator and touching clutch or break . However numerous comments attested to high speed in poor conditions is the main culprit here ? A high trained driver should know the Highway Code like the back of his hand . Highway Code gives advice, this appears to have been completely ignored here ?
I heard a lot there about cruise control, what I didn't hear is that Owen was travelling at the maximum speed limit permitted for that road in adverse conditions. That was the first issue here, there was no way this should have happened and Owen even admitted that "the road surface isn't great here". That should have been the point he slowed down. To then overtake 2 HGV's who were throwing up a substantial amount of spray whilst teetering into a lane with a fresh covering of snow/hail was his second issue. Personally I'd have chosen to stay in lane 2 at a distance from the HGV in lane 2 until they overtook the HGV in lane 1 then make my move at a speed befitting the road conditions. I think even if he had have stayed in lane 3 after the HGV in lane 2 overtook and returned to lane 1, his overtake would have been successful. It appeared to me from the video that there had been other vehicles in lane 4 by the track marks and presumably they had used that lane without incident so I can't help but think his decision to overtake the 2 HGV's at the speed he did, in the lane he did, contributed to the crash. The combination of the spray and potentially the air displacement of passing these large vehicles could have sucked his car towards them as it appears he over compensated his steering by ending up in lane 4. I'm by no means an expert, but if we're looking for the root cause it wasn't cruise control, it was the driver.
I did use cruise control until I saw your video on using the speed limiter. That's what I use now, even on the motorway. I feel much more in control than that horrid feeling of the car running away from me.
I can’t wrap my head around the “good driver” assessment, and even if we give you that, the “he hadn’t much to do with it” seems unjustifiable. Even more so if you suspect he was using cruise control in those conditions. The video doesn’t suggest a good driver getting caught out, it suggests a driver than has spectacularly low awareness of the road conditions and presented a very high level of danger to other road users. He got incredibly lucky, as we all have from time to time. Messaging aside, it’s a great lesson.
I've recently switched from using cruise control all the time to now always putting speed limiter on. It helps with mpg but also removes the need to turn it on everytime you need to brake 😂
According to VW's car manual; Cruise Control will automatically deactivate if the vehicle's ESC kicks in. It is likely that when Owen starting traversing the slushy ice the wheels started slipping and the ESC switched off the Cruise Control. In this case it actually made the problem worse as sudden throttle back affected the weight balance as you already mentioned in the video.
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CarVertical would probably get more people using it to check cars if the reports where free
@@Life_Through_The_Camera_Lens Yeah. And if your car is fine, you spent £25 - £30 for nothing.
@@Foxii-86
You probably take the same view of insurance, then. What a pudding you are.
@@Life_Through_The_Camera_Lens
Only until the company went bankrupt.
@ No, I don't, that has nothing to do with what I said. Insurance for a car is important in case you have an accident. Car Vertical isn't the same as insurance, if your car is fine you spent £30 pounds to find out literally nothing. But with insurance, it's expensive (On some cars), but it is needed because you always could have an accident.
It's probably not likely to get a car that has been written off and repaired without knowing. Yeah you still could buy one, do a check and see that it's been written off.
But what do you exactly do with that info? If it's a car your looking at buying and you find out its written off, you spent £30 to say 'I don't wanna buy that one' and then presumably you'll do a check on another vehicle your looking at buying. So if you get info that it's been written off and look at a different vehicle, you'll spent a minimum of £60.
And I don't think it's likely you'll buy a poorly repaired car, If it was repaired poorly you'd probably be able to see that a few panels don't fit right.
£30 is expensive considering the info you get. It barely tells you more than a regular car check would, and it doesn't exactly reveal hidden damage because the only way Car Vertical gets that info is if it's been registered as written off, so if it's been crashed and repaired without insurance knowing then Car Vertical couldn't tell you anyway.
Sorry to be that guy but there's absolutely no way I'd be doing 70 in conditions like that. I don't think this is about cruise control. It's about driving to the conditions.
The only guy you're being is someone talking absolute sense.
Exactly. I'm amazed at Ashley calling Owen a good driver. Maybe but not on this evidence. I'm glad he walked away safe though.
The M62 near Irlam has warning signs as it's a terrible surface: grooved, bumpy. It's built on top of a swamp.
Doing 70 mph just after a hail storm and then overtaking an HGV in the lane right next to the spray, rather than going into the outside lane, that's 2 bad decisions. Using cruise control in such conditions would be another. Being caught out is not an excuse.
Yeah, too fast for the conditions and inadvisable to overtake the lorries.
Exactly what I was going to post
Not driving conditions. It's lack of poor judgement. As others have commented, he shouldn't have been driving at that speed, and not observing the muck being thrown up by the HGVs. Maybe, it highlights the lack of experience.
So he says "the road surface isn't great here" and continues at 70mph! That blew my mind and yeah, no way I'm using cruise control in those conditions and nor would I be doing 70 either. No change to his driving for the condition of the weather or the road.
I agree driving too fast for the conditions.
I might have changed lanes in advance, too, as I didn't trust what sort of hazard the truck might present (and rightly so, as it turned out).
Came here to say the same thing as with cruise control you can't lighten up when required it will keep it stuck at 70 regardless but whats more worrying is this was one of his trainee instructers if I heard correctly and they set it for 70 without readjusting it if it where not those conditions to start with, personally it would not be used anyway and cancelled if this were me once I came accros those conditions.
@rustydusty2992 yer i saw the speed when overtaking the lorry and thought WTF plonker
Cruise control in those conditions should be a driving without due car ticket, total insanity.
Whatever the causes. Hitting a tree at 50mph and walking away almost unharmed is a huge testament to modern cars safety standards.
And the fact he was in the fast lane smashing 70 in these conditions is testament to why they need to have them.
@@ExaltedwithFail Sorry but trainee driving instructor. No matter how sudden a hail storm drive to conditions. I think he was eating humble pie after this crash. Thankfully he managed to get away with minor scratches and seat belt bruises I imagine.
So true.
Give credit to the specific manufacturer not just "modern cars" in general. Would a Kia or Ford protect the occupant as much as that? Probably not.
@@antonycharnock299370 was too fast for conditions even before the hailstorm. It was obvious the road surface had very little grip.
He was driving way too fast for the conditions,.
I agree, he was driving to fast on the road conditions as well as the other drivers.
On Boxing day last year there was huge amounts of fog and driving along the M180 doing 50 as I could not see very far there was still the odd car doing 70+. I remember working at Allied Bakeries in Reading and one of the delivery drivers told me of someone doing just that in snowy conditions along the M3 and ending up like this because of as you said not driving to the conditions.
05:37 "Owen is a very good driver" Really? The dash cam footage suggests otherwise. Not sure how 70 mph in those conditions is an indication of a very good driver.
Owen’s a cnut with a lot to learn. But he’s excellent at parallel parking
@@kempy7923 yeah, he absolutely isn't. A good driver would have avoided that scenario with at least three differences to our supposed "good driver"
Would get a straight F if this was a stranger's video submitted for analysis - but Ash knows the guy so he just got "caught out".
I think Owen’s own comment here clears up why he was driving that way. He admits he was in the wrong, and I doubt he’ll find himself in a situation like that again.
After watching this I would doubt Owens credentials to be regarded as a "very good driver". Not a good assessment from Ashley, I'm not a trainee driving instructor but wouldn't dream of doing those speeds nor use cruise control in those conditions. It didn't catch him out, he was unprepared.
I'm not being funny but his speed is far too high even before the crash
Glad you're not being funny
Definitely
70 MPH in those conditions, cruise control or not, is idiotic
My favourite bit is that his cars owners manual will specifically say do not use cruise control in adverse conditions, e.g. rain, snow, icy or low visibility conditions. I really hope his insurance screws him here so he doesn't get back on the roads until he's had a few years to think about his daft choices.
I think the speed he is going is absolutely insane.
I’m a bit disappointed with this video and your focus on cruise control. Yes, he shouldn’t be in cruise control but this is not the issue here. Are you defending him because he’s a fellow instructor? Albeit a trainee. The issue here is his speed, end of. Massively faster than he should have been in those conditions. Also it looked like he had another lane to his right. Whatever the rights and wrongs I would have used that lane to create a gap between the lorry and himself. Lorry was generating a lot of spray and hampered his visibility. However it was his speed, it cannot be emphasised enough. Odd analysis here unfortunately.
I disagree; Ashley chose to talk about cruise control, which is exactly what he did. One could imagine that the loss of stability might have occurred at 50 mph, or, if black ice was involved, a much lower speed. This was a clip about how the car's management systems responded to an incident, whatever caused that incident. The actual initial speed is interesting, but not relevant to the discourse about how cruise control responds once a vehicle has lost traction.
I would not have entered lane 3. The conditions were hail i.e. ice balls and lane 3 was full of them. No, the proper course of action was to stay in lane and slow down. The trucks will have greater traction a) because of the intensity of traffic in lane 1 and b) the weight of the truck would have pushed the tyres through to the tarmac. There was a pair of tram lines of water in lane 2 so that would have been a safer spot to be until well back from the truck's spray.
@@mgprewett I agree, the point is about cruise control and how it can lead you into trouble. This video is just an example of how it probably contributed towards the loss of control here. Obviously the speed magnified the effect, but probably still would have got out of shape at a lower speed on the cruise control.
@@mgprewett lol are you trying to say the car caused the crash ? what a stupid thing to say ! speed, speed, speed is the cause of 99 % of all accidents ! if you cant stop safely, you are going too fast in any conditions, its that simple
@@robertovers1863 and what do you think was controlling the speed in this situation?
Question: Why was he still travelling at nearly 70mph in such poor conditions? Did he skid when he tried to slow down?
The wheels hit the slippy stuff on the right which causes th3 vehicle to become unbalanced and at that point he is a passenger
coz 70mph is a "Target" to most of the ppl
I wouldn't admit to teaching someone if that is the standard of driving.
If his driving is not to the basic standard of not knowing how to drive in different weather conditions, he might need a retest.
If he can't drive without people having to tell him how to think and what to do, he isn't ready to be out in a car on his own. This is why we need to question why so many driving instructors are passing unsuitable people.
He was driving too fast for the conditions of the road, end of story, his fault, no one else's.
Don't make excuses for poor or careless driving, he could have hit other vehicles and seriously injured others.
@@OH2023-cj9if Yes, the scary thing is that this guy is going to be passing his "skills" on to others .....
"The road surface isn't great here" - continues driving at 70 and takes a chance on driving through the hundreds of litres of snow/water the lorry is chucking onto the road surface he just acknowledged isn't great.
Just reiterating what everyone else already said. With 20 year's experience of driving in continental winters, there is no way that I would be going that fast, and no way that I would pass the lorry considering the condition of the middle lane.
I would drive behind the lorry with a lot of distance doing my 56 mph.
I don't think I would want to go over 40 in icy conditions - taking the "10 times the usual braking distance" rule, at about 20mile/h is decently doable for driving on line of sight in an urban setting, maybe 30 if there's decent visibility, but once you get to 70, you're well within train levels of stopping distance, without the advanced warning that trains get of their need to stop.
And people bitch about why car insurance premiums are going up. Drive to the damn conditions.
Paris in the the spring.
And cars are more powerful and complicated than they need to be. I can remember when having a Cassette player and copy of the A to Z and AA Maps was considered the Nav / Entertainment system.
Premiums aren't rising. They are falling at record rates.
@@lee-r56 really? then why has my insurance shot up £300?
@@LukeTR2000 You didn't say when your renewal was, whether you shopped around properly or if any of your circumstances changed. Even if you did everything right, perhaps you were just unlucky somehow. Whether premiums are rising or falling in the market generally isn't decided by looking at what you specifically pay.
Too much speed & lack of attention from the driver. Nothing to do with Cruise control
The saying goes, 'A bad tradesman blames his tools.' yeh it was definitely the 'cruise control' and nothing to do with poor driving and lack of awareness.....
Why do 70 mph when there’s hail and ice
Absolutely mental speed for the conditions, utterly undefendable.
A good example of why people should drive to the conditions rather than the speed limit.
It’s a limit, not a target.
Just to clarify Owen totally accepted he was too fast, but he bemused himself why he didn’t slow. The obvious isn’t the point of this video but the extra information on what happens in that moment. The other thing to take from this is how much impatience to get to work early in the morning can impair judgement. Keep safe everyone 👍
Risk Compensation, taking greater risks when you think you are 'safer'? Could it be that you have been telling him what a 'great driver' he is? 🤔
“Get thereitis”; very well understood and very frowned upon in the aviation world. Let’s be honest, the cruise control was possibly a contributing factor, the cause was his speed was simply far too fast for those conditions.
Owen is a crap driver, that's why he didn't slow down.
Guess it should be called cruising out of control. Turn that nonsense off is what I always say.👍
Not surprising many jump straight onto the speed and miss the point of the video highlighting the dangers of using cruise control in poor weather conditions. Yes, I pointed that out the speed in my comment but that was as a secondary point to the video. The overall message about dynamics, weight distribution and shift was all very interesting and and quite possibly an extension of the “don’t brake if you are skidding or spinning” knowledge
I'm glad Owen is ok. Looking at that as a Norwegian driver, those conditions had "accident" written all over them. Even with my full on nordic winter tyres i would not be going near 70mph there. And you have to be really really careful when you leave the clean line on snowy roads cos the differing grip and differing drag at either side can quickly send you round in a circle. Even without cruise control he was at high risk of spinning out.
I'm afraid that was a big misjudgement by the driver, plain and simple. And he's not alone - those trucks were also way over safe speed for those conditions.
"you leave the clean line on snowy roads cos the differing grip and differing drag at either side can quickly send you round in a circle."
Now that is interesting, bet nobody (except you) thought of that.
@@Steve_7867 It's pretty common knowledge up here in Norway
Same here. No one in Poland, with few exceptions, would be doing 70 on that. Only a fresh, thin snow and ice are worse than that!
what speed is suitable ?
@@adamek9750 I'd say 50 when going straight, sticking to black stripes of tarmac at all times and 30-40 when changing lanes (with great caution), monitoring the car's behaviour at all times. And away from the lorries if possible.
70 mph is the limit for ideal conditions. I find it incredible that he was driving at that speed in those conditions! I remember having a discussion with an instructor many years ago where he explained that 'we' have the heater on and are 'cocooned' in our metal box becoming isolated from what the true conditions are 'out there'. A hard lesson indeed!
70 is the limit in all conditions. The problem is many people think of speed limits as the speed of a road rather than using their judgement and driving to conditions. This would not be a problem if people were taught to drive to conditions rather than an arbitrary speed limit that may or may not be an appropriate speed for the conditions.
Some idiots put their fog lights on thinking that will save them from a problem, and then continue to use too much speed, not enough difference, no defensive space.
@@telmas7183
I have always believed that you relax too much when using cruise control, you start to move your feet, get into a ‘comfortable’ position and maybe your feet aren’t in position when needed. Using cruise control, you are not fully in control of the car. There is always the option to turn it off not just barrel along regardless.
In ideal conditions he could have driven 200mph and everything would be fine. In 70mph is not even that crazy for those condition. It's just bad tires (looks like sumemr tires) and car control. Been there, done that and nothing ever happened. Even with high powered rear wheel cars and i am not a really good driver.
@@amduser86 What a CRASS post! You think everyone is a Formula 1 driver?!
You're being EXTREMELY generous with your assessment of this crash. Owen was travelling much too quickly for the conditions, Everything else you said is also true. Him leaving the tracks in the lane on the slippery surface etc...
70 MPH going into very low visibility (Predictable as you could clearly see how much spray and slush was being thrown out by the heavy) Driving over this slushy 'wake' could get enough of it between Owens tires and the road to lose control while at speed.
Ice on the ground (Hale is falling ice, when it lands it usually melts a bit into slush, which is thick and sits on the road rather than running away. The result is a half inch layer of slush is at least as bad as a half inch layer of standing water which at 70mph you will almost certainly aquaplane on.
The cruise control was not responsible for Owen leaving the tracks he was in. He either already had started to loose control by that point, or somehow he was surprised by the visual impairment all of that obvious flying slush was going to cause and either 'flinched' away from the HGV, or simply didn't see that he was deviating.
Whichever way you slice it it's Owens fault, he even says the road is crap moments before but seemingly takes no action, this is utterly diabolical, especially so if Owen is as 'good' as Ashley says.
Blaming the cruise control in any way is frankly ridiculous. This is 100% a driver error, one which is lucky didn't do more damage. If him skidding over those lanes unstuck one or both HGVs as well then this could have ended much worse.
Just after he passes there is a "ding" and the speed reduces. My cruise control turns off if you start losing control in ice or standing water. I think that's what the "ding" is here. The car senses it slipping and turns off the cruise, pushing the weight forward, inducing a drift. The rest is he is effectively a passenger.
That looks to be exactly right - disengages and just after there's your lift off oversteer 😬
It's also likely the traction control would have applied the breaks to one of the wheels, which when then joining the more grippy tarmac could have started the skid.
it was his turning away from and then back to the lorry that induced the skid on the hail, the weight shift of disengaging cruise control here would have been negligible.
I think the disrupted air coming off the lorries could also have unsettled the car. I mean we've all felt the pull to the left and then to the right as you pass the front of a lorry, and even with just rain it can be dangerous. I'd not have even tried to pass those vehicles in these conditions, esp not at 70.
Thanks for making this video Ash! Appreciate you getting the message out.
The other lesson for me in this was how much your judgement can be impared when it's silly o'clock in the morning and you've not had much sleep... All my gut instincts of not to drive at 70 in those conditions (nevermind overtaking a lorry) seemed to get ignored. I wasn't as switched on as I should have been.
Safe to say I won't be getting in situation again, hope some people can learn the lesson the easy way!
I'm glad you are OK, Owen, that could have been much worse.
Nice one Owen 👊
Glad you're ok Owen I did wonder why you didn't back off in those conditions but with driving there's always something to learn. Stay safe
Glad you are OK Owen and we have all been there. 2am starts for me down the M1 or M40 worh cruise control on looking ahead with really seeing. One reason I stopped using cruise control and went back to old fashioned driving to keep the brain working.
Best advice I have been given is done be hard on yourself, learn from the experience and don’t overthink it (the latter I am still trying to learn)
Take care of yourself
@@OwenArandz You’re a lucky guy Owen! I learnt a similar way driving in similar conditions turning and much slower speeds, glad we can all learn from everybody else’s mistakes
I'm sorry but no surprises - it's a 70 mph MAXIMUM speed limit, not a 70 mph MINIMUM speed limit. Cruise control in those conditions is just stupid - when driving in tricky conditions you need soft hands, gentle inputs, caress the brake / accelerator - feel the grip available. Cruise control blunts the senses - it has its place but a snow-covered motorway with narrow grip tramlines is not one of them.
Wow. 70mph and you can see the hail/snow. Crazy, but not unexpected.
'Written off because of unsafe speed with hailstone on the deck' should have been the title on this one Ash!
Ease off, tuck in a couple of hundred metres behind the heavies, for a minute or two - a none event.
Or, overtake heavies in lane 3 at 70 with hailstone on the deck, taking a huge gamble; hitting that tree broadside next to him, could well have been fatal- he was lucky there.
The multiple RTC situation happens regularly on motorways in hailstone, you've got to slow down through it.
Ploughing on at 70 in those conditions - just wow. What was he thinking?
Maybe he thought he was ploughing.....
@@nelsonhibbert5267maybe he should reconsider his driving instructor career also!!
Forget the cruise control, he should not have been driving at the speed limit in those conditions at all! You should ALWAYS lower your speed in bad conditions, good driver or not.
1:55 why are you doing 70 in these conditions? it's not worth it.
Only one minute in and clearly sitting in a nice warm cocoon relaxes the driver into feeling invincible at 70 per on two strips of tarmac in a sheet of snow and ice. The possibility that it could be frozen on the two black strips as well hasn’t entered his head, even allowing for having to drive very accurately without any deviation as grip is bound to radically reduced in these circumstances. A winter riding a motorcycle would have been a useful experience for this driver that I’m guessing he never had. He was very lucky it wasn’t worse.
Given that it was hail, the black strips probably wouldn't have been icy, just wet. The problem was when he veered onto the white area covered in hail which would have been like driving on marbles.
@davem9204 in those situations a shiny wet bit could be black ice quite easily. Wind chill on a crest of a road, temperature falling just before first light,just cos it's black and shiny never assume it's above freezing. Also window down and listen to the tyre's that's another tip
He reacted to the spray from the truck and moved right onto the slush and "aqua planed". Common mistake in Scandi driving and 100% user error.
Hmm Ashley, I am surprised you couldn't think of anything else he could've done better other than not using cruise control.
I think the fact that you like him and he's your mate might be putting the blinkers on you abit.
You should tell him this. Nobody should be going 70mph in sleety, snowy conditions. He should've been going slower so he has more time to react to adversity. Even if he did a little bit of training, controlling a skid at 70mph is still going to be tough for a non-professional which is what most of us are on the roads. Most people in this country don't change their tyres from season to season most likely got all season tyres or summer tyres. Which is why this country comes to a halt when we get a slight dusting.
I think Ashley wanted to point out an element of the incident which many people may not have thought about. We can all predict going 70mph and veering onto hail-strewn tracks is going to get messy. But the use of cruise control and the dangers of using it are less obvious, so worth talking about. There wouldn't have been much value in the video if he just said slow down and avoid the white part of the lane.
@@davem9204 Yeah I agree, him bringing to light the dangers of using CC like this is important and i'm glad he made the video. However, at the end when he summarised I think he should've mentioned the speed in those conditions. You say "We can all predict going 70mph and veering onto hail-strewn tracks is going to get messy." Obviously not otherwise the person in the clip would've known better. Clearly doesn't know better as he was chuckling at another driver up a tree at the very end and ended up a tree himself 😂
Your trainee is so lucky!!! The road surface would’ve questioned me of should I be driving at this speed in the conditions
Exactly if the speed had being lower before the crash they may not have had an accident
He could of not had an accident by slowing the hell down. What a maniac driving 70mph in that weather. Wouldnt want to be learning from him.
He was driving recklessly in perilous conditions. Far too fast. No caution when passing those truck. No speed adjustment.
Madness to be using cruise control. Drive the car!
He called out the road conditions and didnt drive to them... It was actually a terrible display of driving, it may be out of character but if conditions are slippery and your going 70mph and a close pass on a lorry well your asking for it
A slide in a front wheel drive actually could do with more power as you correct the slide by powering out of it
100% on the driver failing to adjust his speed to the road conditions. As soon as he saw the road conditions deteriorate he should have been reducing his speed.
What an absolute idiot, driving far too fast for those conditions. License should be revoked
"Owen is a very good driver"
Yeah, doing 70 when there's ice on the road is very good driving. Cruise control will disengage automatically if traction is lost, BTW.
Even very good drivers make mistakes.
Hopefully they become better ones by learning from those mistakes.
R04drunner1 We all make mistakes. Only he was described as a ' very good driver ' ! Not just a good driver ? 69/70 mph is not a mistake? Driving in snow and ice conditions Highway Code rule 231 gives advice . Drive extremely carefully. Drive slowly .
This is nether, it is borderline careless driving ? When does careless driving become reckless driving ? If he was driving on cruise control then that was not a mistake? That is a deliberate act of setting your CC at a set speed . His mistake might be arrogance thinking he is a 'very good driver ' and rule 231 does not apply to him . ?
@@R04drunner1 that was reckless- no mistake.
He was travelling at 69mph in conditions that doesn't warrant it.
I was thinking that too.
I live in the Scottish Highlands and regularly see weather and roads like that during winter / early spring. I am astounded that he was still doing 70mph when even he acknowledges the road conditions aren’t great.
If you go outside of the tracks left by previous vehicles, your wheels will spin if they lose traction, usually caused by a build up of snow / hail or a puddle. That’s why using cruise control in these situations is not a good choice. I’m surprised you called him a good driver, but we all make mistakes and I guess Owen will learn from this. 👍🏻
I’m glad Owen walked away from his accident, and the Golf put up a good degree of protection at such an impact speed. 👏🏻
It's not just wheels spinning, you also get very different levels of drag on each side of the car, which further destabilises everything.
Hundreds of comments, and you seem to be the only person to mention leaving the tracks, which to me is clearly the main cause of accident!
I assume that at that speed, with that amount of water, wide tires, and cold tires, he almost certainly aquaplaned, the cruse control cut off with a ding causing engine braking on the front wheels, causing the spin. He could probably have got out of it by flooring the throttle, being a front wheel drive vehicle.
Lucky to survive a tree impact at that speed!
@@15bit62 Yes, like driving though a puddle, different amounts of drag.
Absolutely terrible driving in those conditions, what on earth was he thinking?
Jesus christ, he acknowledges that the road surface is poor, then he continues barelling along at 70mph through a huge amount of spray from the lorry, on roads that have clearly been snowed on recently, and is then surprised that he crashes?
I would not want to be taught to drive by someone who had written off a car.
I wouldn't be travelling at 70 mph in those conditions.
Not to be rude, but this video in 15:40 too long. He crashed because he was going too fast for the conditions.
I don't use cruise control. It makes me feel so disconnected to the speed of my vehicle. I prefer a speed limiter. If you want to slow down without breaking, it's possible to do that with a speed limiter, cruise control will just keep going.
That could have been me writing that comment. My sentiments exactly. My car doesn't have speed limiter btw.
Well you just disconnect the cruise control then, it's literally on the steering wheel
I use it only in average speed scamera road works.
I get what you say completely - however, I’m pretty sure adaptive cruise control saved me from a potential horrific accident on the M6/14 junction. Car in front missed the junction, slammed their breaks on so they could reverse back, that extra second of the car breaking before I reacted made all the difference…
If you want to slow down, without braking (sp), when using cruise control, you just turn it off.
Absolutely nothing to do with cruise control, and everything to do with doing 70 mph in hail and ice
I'm sorry, but that was 100% on Owen. Driving like that, in those conditions, proves he is not "a very good driver". It shows he has a lot to learn. And cruise control did NOT cause that crash, Owen's lack of awareness and lack of ability caused it.
I from a country with a lot of snow, a lot of mountains and a lot of very high-speed motorways. The driver of that car was too fast. Not just a little bit too fast, he was quite a bit too fast. To go that speed past the trucks, he wants to be one lane farther away from them. Can't comment on how much grip there really was on the road, but it looks quite iffy. On alpine snow tires (without spikes), it looks like it would be okay up to about 120kmh/75mph, but on what is normally used in winter in the UK this is just stupid. Genuinely glad there was no serious injury but physics doesn't care about your skill if you are not equipped properly for the speed you want to go at.
Simple. He's driving far too fast for the conditions. No way should he have been doing 69 in those conditions. And as its a GPS reading on the dashcam most likely his speedo was over 70. Poor driving from someone training to train people to drive. TBH says a lot about why driving standards are so poor these days. I doubt you would have been doing that speed. To many people think the speed limit is the speed limit regardless of conditions. Another point on cruise control, the minute the car sensed it was loosing traction the cc would have disengaged.
What an idiot driving at that speed in those conditions, this guy cannot drive properly.
Owen cannot drive safely, I'd hope the insurance company find him liable for the collision if they see this footage.
Written off because of stupidity, doing 69MPH on cruise control in icy conditions, what could possibly go wrong? he even said himself -The road surface isn't great here - before impact... He was driving too fast for the conditions.
Have to say i think he was going a tad fast for the conditions.
Yeah, a tad.
Forget cruise-control (which he should not have been using in these conditions), the bottom line is he was driving too fast for the conditions and even the car's stability control systems couldn't save it.
So because he does well as a student driving instructor, you don't fault him for going 70mph with cruise control whilst passing lorries in those conditions? I personally wouldn't want him as an instructor tbh...
Yes, Ben Collins the ex-stig said the first thing of racing is forgetting not crossing your hands.
As a motorbiker in these conditions I’m 20mph slower and never cruise control (for the feel and control). Yes it’s a motorbike, but traction is traction… the second you let off the throttle, weight transfers forward and gives you more steering as you slow.
Also the fact he not only didn’t drive to the conditions, but drove past the crashed one in the last clip without checking on them says it all…
To fast end of.
WELL..SAID....AROUND..40..F.THEM.CONDITIONS..
To fast or not to fast, that is the question.
Too
don;t jump to that conclusion. is not too fast. i had the exact same situation, doing 90 mph this autumn. on summer tyres. watching this clip was a deja-vu. but i got out of it with no problems, even if my car still has summer tyres.
@@ztrpraetoriangaming262 If control was lost, it was too fast. It's really not that difficult to grasp.
What a plonker. He even comments the road surface isn't very good yet doesn't even bother to slow down and jeep a distance from the traffic ahead. My cats would have better roadsense.
was going wayyy too fast for the conditions.. cmon man!
Amazed at how casually you blew this off. Good driver ha! That's why our insurance is through the roof. "Smart" cars and not so smart drivers do not mix
Sorry but I would be doing maximum 40mph there. Passing the truck with hail and the weather spray at 70mph is asking for a crash. Absolutely irresponsible driving there.
No doubt the cruise control didn't help, but 70mph in those conditions is ludicrous.
Not driving to the conditions. A basic error that you would not expect from an instructor. Really that is driving without due care and attention
😱😱 Had plenty of time to drive to the road conditions... however, decided not to!!! How lucky is he 🙏
Thank god Owen was ok and thank god nobody else was involved. But, yeah, to echo a lot of the other comments; the primary cause of this accident was excessive speed for the conditions, not the use of cruise control.
Unfortunately, the crash was solely down to the cammer's very poor driving skills. He is driving far too fast for the conditions prior to the crash and seems unable to hold a straight course when his vision is temporarily obscured by spray.
I'm afraid Ashley has misjudged this one as it's essentially nothing to do with cruise control but is all about being able to drive at a speed suited to the prevailing conditions.
Here's a tip ...... I drive thousands of miles a year, much of it on 700 mile plus non-stop journeys across Europe and all my cars and motorbikes have cruise control but I have never once used cruise control in any vehicle. I want to be in total control of my vehicle at all times which is perhaps why, in 55 years of driving, I have remained accident free.
I know a lot of 'good drivers' who know their ability and get overconfident, leading to things like doing 70 in inappropriate conditions. I'm a bit more nervy about my driving but it keeps me safe (and no that doesn't mean doing 40 in every situation either!)
how is the cruise control at fault here? lmao. The car started waterplaning
You ask; "How did he get himself into that situation?" Answer: "The road surface isn't great here" - continues driving at 70 and takes a chance on driving through the hundreds of litres of snow/water the lorry is chucking onto the road surface he just acknowledged isn't great. I think you're giving him a soft ride here Ashley.
Not at all. Owen knows the obvious as his told me before I'd even seen the video. What I should've done though is stated the glaringly obvious first before moving onto the main point of discussion. Why do you think I highlighted on the screen "The road surface isn't great here" ?
@@ashley_neal But what should be the main point of discussion? We don't know if Owen was driving on cruise control. Even if he was, we don't know if it was the cruise control that caused him to lose traction. We don't know if the car disengaged cruise as soon as it started sliding. All in all, we don't know if cruise control contributed to this crash. But we do know that he was driving too fast for the conditions. That ought to be the main point of discussion.
Sure, you say that the road surface isn't great here. But you also call the video "cruise control crash". Which it may or may not be.
Everyone can work out speed was the issue, virtually no one understands the dynamics of how cruise control can be dangerous in slippery conditions. You could hear the cruise control disengage with the beep. Let's ask you this then, if Owen had of been doing 56 mph and put his right wheels on the slippy stuff and the car unbalances, could he still have ended up crashing?
@@ashley_neal Sure, you can hear a beep as he loses control. But is that because cruise control has disengaged or because some other safety system had kicked in? We just don't know. Maybe both things happened at the same time as traction control took over and cruse control disengaged. My car bongs when it detects a likely collision, unrelated to cruise control. It may also bong when it disengages cruise control for safety reasons. I wouldn't know. I'd never be using cruise in situations like that. I wouldn't be doing 70mph either.
Maybe he wasn't in cruise control at the time - you said that you "thought" he was because his speed stayed constant. But you don't know. You're making an assumption.
We still don't know if cruise control contributed to the crash.
Would he still have crashed at 56 mph? Again, we don't know. In low friction situations, like a sudden hail storm or black ice, we can get cars losing control even at low speeds. But clearly you are improving your odds by reducing your speed.
Bottom line - in slippery situations you should slow down and disengage driver aids that don't help like cruise control. But this video doesn't prove that cruise control caused this particular accident.
Proving you've missed the point totally. Yes that are many assumptions in this video. However its main purpose is to explain to people how cruise control would react in a situation like this, therefore encouraging people not to use it in slippery conditions. Peoples understanding of weight transfer is awful as proved by the common section as the only focus on the absolute obvious, that speed played a massive factor.
I am glad to learn that Owen is ok. The car is just metal and can be replaced. Whether he was using cruise control or not, the rapidly changing road conditions suggest to me that 70mph was entirely the wrong speed and was far too fast for the ever changing road conditions. Had he relied less on the technology and had used his hands on the steering wheel to understand the road underneath his car, he would possibly have felt the insecurity of the car in those road conditions at that speed. In the UK we do not follow the sensible French example of reducing maximum speeds permitted in wet weather and the roads were both wet and icy. I don't want to sound like an armchair critic because it is far too easy to criticise when one is sat in a nice warm home. However, I suspect I would have been driving no faster than 50mph on the decent straight road of a motorway (keeping ten cars off the rear bumper of the car in front) and slowing to between 30 & 40mph on twisting country roads with potential adverse cambers.
I passed my driving test in the 70s and I am 76 years of age. I drive a 2.2 litre diesel 200bhp Jaguar XF, which is rear wheel drive. To ensure that I was not becoming a victim of skill drift, I recently paid £150 to undertake an assessment of my driving skills and it included 8 hours driving in one day... with a retired police class 1 instructor. I did not display any major faults and I learned a few really useful techniques. Much of the day was spent driving over hills and dales in very changeable weather conditions and with sudden snow flurries and ice. The first two hours was spent driving in ice and snow without using my brakes. This was to ensure that I was driving to the traffic, road and weather conditions and was thinking far enough ahead to remain safe while having due regard to the safety of all other road users. I believe that this type of course is the future and would provide an excellent revenue stream for all advanced driving instructors. I would happily undertake such an 8 hour course every 3 years to remain current and up to date. As stated, I am delighted to learn that Owen is not seriously hurt. Trees are the one immovable object that no-one should want to meet.
"The road surface isn't great here" you don't say, my minds boggled why keep at that speed in those conditions? Blaming cruise control is absolutely no excuse, if it becomes sketchy TURN IT OFF! the ignorance & complacency of drivers these days because they're vehicles near enough drive themselves is rediculous. Iv a 20yearold all wheel drive subaru with all season tyres equipped and wouldn't do over 50mph in those conditions!!!
Cruise control or no crusie control... the driver's choice of speed for those road conditions was absolutely not appropriate in my humble opinion
Way way way to fast for road conditions.
Highway code 231 (in bold print ) Drive extremely carefully...
Drive at a slow speed ....
This is not a debate for me, 70mph is not ' Drive at a slow speed ' is not ' Drive extremely carefully ' !
Sure CC won't help in an emergency. But 70mph in snow conditions is very very poor choice .
70mph in sub optimal conditions.
😮
If Owen was a good driver he would be driving to the conditions not at the speed he was going. Nowt to do with CC ..
These people live among us. Absolute idiot going that fast in those conditions.
I bet he drives 70 no matter the road condition or weather.
A trainee driving instructor?? Jesus
My word. That Owen chap was going far too fast. Even the most inexperienced of drivers should have slowed and held back. You see idiots like that in poor weather every day - sadly.
Manslaughter charge waiting to happen
Could have collected someone else once he lost it, lucky the roads were quiet. As a 50 years motorcyclist I am very aware of grip and various scenarious in poor and other weather, I also have owned driven 4x4 Subaru estates for the last 20 years and use Nokian winters, even so equipped I would not be going that fast!
Passing trucks is bad enough in rain, let alone slush, and it looked to me anyway like the onset of loss of control was being suprised by the amount of spray and then moving slightly off the cleared areas of road to settled deeper slush with less grip.
If he had held on and driven through it probably would have just had a scare and slowed to the speed he should have been going, moving over was the mistake (as well as excess speed IMHO).
No qualifications here, but in my life have driven in something like 20 coutries for work, designated crew bus driver and 7.5 tonne grandad. Never hit another car / had a car RTA in my 50 years driving, had a few falls on the bikes in my early years as rode year round, and had one no fault bike RTA when a USA serviceman on the wrong side of the road took me out.
Clean licence for 30 years, and only 3 points before that since the 70's. 1/2 million two wheel miles.
That's just background info, as said I have had no training or advanced stuff, just been around all over for generations and seen the lot in my time.
The car took that impact very well
It's not cruise control crash.
Is just a crash by a very bad driver.
You don't use automated functions when the weather is so bad and the closing speed to those big trucks in front is insane in those conditions.
Plus looks like he was using bad tires for the conditions if he lost the car to easily....or really yanked the steering wheel hard.
All of which lead to bad driver which shouldn't be let driving in the future again.
No instructor should ever tell someone they are a good driver, very few people have the mentality to not let that boost their ego. When ego outweighs ability is when trouble starts - just as here I suspect.
Hi Ashley sorry but he was way to fast for those conditions . Hope he has bought new pants and learnt his lesson
I think, putting cruise control aside for a moment, a key lesson here is that even good drivers can make poor decisions, and changing weather conditions are one of the (I think) most common ways people get caught out.
That's a bit of a cop out. This wasn't just 'he didn't notice' he very much did notice, and even says on camera about how bad the road is, but makes no change to his driving and proceeds into a high risk area (given the conditions).
Based on that I'd question if he's at all as good as Ash is making him out to be. A rookie mistake in a situation like that where it's plain to see that great care is going to be needed is just absurd. Then seems to brush it off as if he thinks he was just unlucky in the poor conditions.
Someone who goes 70 in those conditions is not a good driver. Any good driver would instinctively know how little grip the road would have.
It sounds like he was up early to make an appointment. Sounds like the pressure of life impaired his judgement that morning. In an ideal world we'll all have clear minds and plenty of time when we get in a car to go somewhere, but we don't all live in an ideal pressure-free world. I think he's learnt his lesson from this, and give himself a bit more time and head-space for setting off.
Fancy driving past a couple of trucks that you know will throw a bunch of road shit on to your window and not slow down because your visibility is going to be compromised.
I won't claim that I wouldn't have done 70 mph in those conditions, but I have done enough winter driving to avoid using cruise control in those conditions. The "slippy stuff" as you call it, isn't just slippery. It's much more dangerous: the slush may suddenly "grab" one or more of your tires and send you for a spin. That's already bad enough for experienced winter drivers, but an active cruise control will "seal the deal" by delaying or inhibiting the proper response.
In conditions like that, you want to remain in full control of the car at all times. Activating cruise control is the same as giving away some of that control, and it may fight you in that crucial moment where you need control.
The car is either aquaplaning or on ice. Cruise control disengaging in those conditions is hardly going to throw the weight forward - hitting the brakes would probably have had little effect as evidenced by the fact that he was heading towards a crash faming hard and very decelleration. Just poor driving skills and recklessness. Sorry but he shouldn't be teaching others to drive if he can't drive according to road conditions. Could have been killed - just slow down - there is no way I would overtake a semi overtaking a semi on a wet road, let alone on an icy road. Don't blame cruise control, blame the driver!
12:50 I can confirm (at least with the cars I've had) that if traction is lost whilst on cruise control, the cruise control deactivates. In a safe environment, I tested this with a sharp turn and the CC deactivated straight away
In which case it would destabilise the car and possibly cause it to spin.
@PointNemo9 exactly. it didn't with me because it wasn't icey/slippery conditions. Instead the ABS just kicked in.
I guess if the CC deactivates then the car immediately has a closed throttle which will increase weight transfer to the front.
Would applying the brakes allow the ESP system to regain control or just make matters worse?
@@dimebarcocker Heavy braking, say, in a corner, can unsettle a car, but then ABS is smarter than that (usually), so I'm not sure re:ABS and the effect.
There is no doubt CC shows down your stopping distance? The time it takes from you lifting of accelerator and touching clutch or break .
However numerous comments attested to high speed in poor conditions is the main culprit here ? A high trained driver should know the Highway Code like the back of his hand . Highway Code gives advice, this appears to have been completely ignored here ?
I heard a lot there about cruise control, what I didn't hear is that Owen was travelling at the maximum speed limit permitted for that road in adverse conditions. That was the first issue here, there was no way this should have happened and Owen even admitted that "the road surface isn't great here". That should have been the point he slowed down. To then overtake 2 HGV's who were throwing up a substantial amount of spray whilst teetering into a lane with a fresh covering of snow/hail was his second issue.
Personally I'd have chosen to stay in lane 2 at a distance from the HGV in lane 2 until they overtook the HGV in lane 1 then make my move at a speed befitting the road conditions. I think even if he had have stayed in lane 3 after the HGV in lane 2 overtook and returned to lane 1, his overtake would have been successful.
It appeared to me from the video that there had been other vehicles in lane 4 by the track marks and presumably they had used that lane without incident so I can't help but think his decision to overtake the 2 HGV's at the speed he did, in the lane he did, contributed to the crash. The combination of the spray and potentially the air displacement of passing these large vehicles could have sucked his car towards them as it appears he over compensated his steering by ending up in lane 4.
I'm by no means an expert, but if we're looking for the root cause it wasn't cruise control, it was the driver.
Far too fast for the road and weather conditions! Dark, slippery and major spray…. 70mph??? 🤪
Doesn’t matter how good a driver you are people should not be driving at speed in bad weather conditions 😢
Reckless, not driving to the conditions. A good driver can recognise threats and adjust accordingly.
70 in those conditions on summer tyres I am guessing based on that
I did use cruise control until I saw your video on using the speed limiter. That's what I use now, even on the motorway. I feel much more in control than that horrid feeling of the car running away from me.
I can’t wrap my head around the “good driver” assessment, and even if we give you that, the “he hadn’t much to do with it” seems unjustifiable. Even more so if you suspect he was using cruise control in those conditions.
The video doesn’t suggest a good driver getting caught out, it suggests a driver than has spectacularly low awareness of the road conditions and presented a very high level of danger to other road users.
He got incredibly lucky, as we all have from time to time. Messaging aside, it’s a great lesson.
I've recently switched from using cruise control all the time to now always putting speed limiter on. It helps with mpg but also removes the need to turn it on everytime you need to brake 😂
Jesus Christ he's teaching people to drive 😮
According to VW's car manual; Cruise Control will automatically deactivate if the vehicle's ESC kicks in. It is likely that when Owen starting traversing the slushy ice the wheels started slipping and the ESC switched off the Cruise Control. In this case it actually made the problem worse as sudden throttle back affected the weight balance as you already mentioned in the video.
yep CC turned off but the driver was already losing control. Thats why its in the manual to turn it off in slippery conditions
'Good drivers' don't do 70mph in those conditions with the cruise control on.