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Miracle escape for driver after horror A64 crash

8:15am Tuesday 9th March 2010 in


A MAN had a miraculous escape after a major crash on the A64 near York left his car trapped under a lorry.

Firefighters fought for more than two hours to free the 30-year-old from his Volkswagen Lupo, but said he had suffered only a minor cut to his head.

The A64 near Stockton on the Forest was closed for about 9 hours but re-opened at about 8am today.

The injured man's car had been pushed under a recovery truck in queueing traffic when he was apparently hit from behind by another large goods vehicle.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said the accident happened at the temporary traffic lights near the Highwayman Cafe just after 10.50pm yesterday.

He said two cars were queueing, followed by the recovery vehicle, followed by the Lupo, when the crash happened.

He said it was believed a German van or lorry had collided with the Lupo.

A crane had to be used to lift the recovery vehicle off the Lupo and firefighters then removed the car's roof to get to the driver but he escaped serious injury.

Police closed the A64 following the crash, while the wreckage was cleared and investigations carried out, but the force said the road had now re-opened.

Comments(11)

Shouter says...
8:34am Tue 9 Mar 10

Hope poor man who was injured makes a full and speedy recovery. He was very lucky to have survived such a nasty accident. It's not surprising that it was a foreign lorry driver. They are a danger on our roads and have caused a lot of serious accidents. Their driving tests may not be as rigorous as ours is. Have seen quite a few near misses thanks to the bad driving of these idiots.

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Fred the Shred says...
8:46am Tue 9 Mar 10

There are plenty of idiot British drivers too!

Glad the chappy in the Lupo is ok.

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Gromit says...
10:02am Tue 9 Mar 10

Our driving test are not that rigorous, we allow people to drive for years without taking a re-test. I'm shocked at the rubbish driving I see on most roads.

Highway codes are discarded by people after the test and not referred to again by most drivers.

How many times have you driven somewhere and the 2 second has not been observed by the fool who insists on driving as close to your bumper as humanly possible? Or the prat who is insistent on speeding no matter what?

Hope the driver makes a full recovery.

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Guy Fawkes says...
10:07am Tue 9 Mar 10

The difference is that foreign drivers are effectively beyond the law. Most other European countries don't recognise licence points and driving bans handed out in the UK (hence drivers have no incentive to obey our traffic laws), and on the rare occasions where they are charged most simply return to their country of origin and don't come back. Furthermore, most European vehicle safety checks are nowhere near as rigorous as our MoT, and thanks to EU law we cannot impose our standards on visiting foreign vehicles. If the vehicle is registered in another EU country and is road legal in its country of origin, we have to accept it as road legal here. When you consider that countries such as Poland and Greece have no minimum legal tyre tread or brake pad thickness, you begin to appreciate the scale of the problem.

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RingoStarr says...
4:46pm Tue 9 Mar 10

Really! How unbelievably interesting!

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hesmanes says...
4:49pm Tue 9 Mar 10

actually the guy is fighting for his life

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tcrown says...
6:14pm Tue 9 Mar 10

Guy Fawkes wrote:
The difference is that foreign drivers are effectively beyond the law. Most other European countries don't recognise licence points and driving bans handed out in the UK (hence drivers have no incentive to obey our traffic laws), and on the rare occasions where they are charged most simply return to their country of origin and don't come back. Furthermore, most European vehicle safety checks are nowhere near as rigorous as our MoT, and thanks to EU law we cannot impose our standards on visiting foreign vehicles. If the vehicle is registered in another EU country and is road legal in its country of origin, we have to accept it as road legal here. When you consider that countries such as Poland and Greece have no minimum legal tyre tread or brake pad thickness, you begin to appreciate the scale of the problem.
Very good points and a succinct summing-up of the problem with European drivers on UK roads. The problem is particularly bad on motorways, where the left-hand-drive position means they have a huge blind spot when changing lanes. A lot of accidents caused by this issue.

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tubbs says...
8:28pm Tue 9 Mar 10

and also our drivers are only allowed to drive a permitted amount of hours, where foreign driver can drive as many hour as they like, thus causing accidents by driving while being tired

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Jimbo of York says...
8:52pm Tue 9 Mar 10

I've seen a number of occasions where foreign truck drivers have nearly caused accidents. Once I was driving through a trading estate when a foreign plated truck turned out of a hidden works entrance on the wrong side of the road, forcing an emergency stop to prevent a head on crash. When I asked the driver why he had done that, his reply was he had 'forgotten' he was on a UK road so had turned as he would on the continent, and only looked to his left.
Looking at the photo of that Lupo, it really is a miracle that the consequences were not far worse.
Hope the guy makes a full recovery.

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Jimbo of York says...
9:18pm Tue 9 Mar 10

tcrown wrote:
Guy Fawkes wrote:
The difference is that foreign drivers are effectively beyond the law. Most other European countries don't recognise licence points and driving bans handed out in the UK (hence drivers have no incentive to obey our traffic laws), and on the rare occasions where they are charged most simply return to their country of origin and don't come back. Furthermore, most European vehicle safety checks are nowhere near as rigorous as our MoT, and thanks to EU law we cannot impose our standards on visiting foreign vehicles. If the vehicle is registered in another EU country and is road legal in its country of origin, we have to accept it as road legal here. When you consider that countries such as Poland and Greece have no minimum legal tyre tread or brake pad thickness, you begin to appreciate the scale of the problem.
Very good points and a succinct summing-up of the problem with European drivers on UK roads. The problem is particularly bad on motorways, where the left-hand-drive position means they have a huge blind spot when changing lanes. A lot of accidents caused by this issue.
tcrown, that is a very good point you've made.
There is something that anyone can do when presented with this situation. Check the number plate of the truck you're catching up to, if it's foreign assume it has left hand drive and then hold back slightly off the rear offside (right hand side) corner of the truck, especially if lanes 1 and 2 have a steady flow of traffic occupying them. This creates an 'empty zone' alongside the truck. Then only when the traffic in lane 2 has moved on sufficiently for you to overtake the truck should you accelerate past it. However, before accelerating have a look in front of the truck to ensure it's not catching up to a slower moving vehicle in lane 1, which could cause it to change lanes. As a rule, if you can see the mirrors and a basic view into the cab, then the driver should have a view of you.
Another possible danger are the service stations on dual carriageways that don't have slip roads for vehicles to accelerate along. On these types of service stations there is a long moment when the driver of the left hand drive truck is completely 'blind' to what is approaching in lane 1 as they pull out.
Hope this helps?

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again says...
2:16pm Wed 10 Mar 10

Why does the Press allow people to comment on stories such as this when the incident is still being investigated?

Particularly as the comments above are almost entirely complete and utter xenophobic garbage?

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