Update: A34 northbound to be shut until 6.30pm after lorry crash

5:23pm Tuesday 22nd January 2013 in Didcot Photograph of the Author By Freddie Whittaker, covering Politics and Kidlington. Call me on 01865 425498

The two lorries at the scene The two lorries at the scene

Police say the A34 northbound is expected to remain closed at the Milton Interchange until about 6.30pm.

Two lorries were involved in a collision which resulted in barrels of beer being spread across the carriageway at around 11.45am.

The drivers of the lorries were taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

One had pelvis and leg injuries and the other was suffering from neck injuries.

Updates will be posted on our Live Traffic Service.

Comments(22)

Grunden Skip says...
5:33pm Tue 22 Jan 13

I hope they let the traffic through. On Radio Oxford this morning was a Bantam fan on his way to the biggest match for him for years, hope he made it.

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tinsel84 says...
5:36pm Tue 22 Jan 13

Doesn't surprise me at all given the one metre stopping distance a lot of truckers on the A34 seem to allow

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gel says...
7:04pm Tue 22 Jan 13

Why did they not open up the locked off access gate accessible via Drayton for A34 Northbound traffic.?

Much more environmentally instead of routing all that traffic into Wantage.

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EMBOX2 says...
8:13pm Tue 22 Jan 13

Total nightmare today with the traffic. I don't think I have ever seen it this bad through the villages and Abingdon.

Hope the injured truckers are OK though.

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jameswalton says...
9:37pm Tue 22 Jan 13

At least one of these drivers should be banned for 5 years and fined £1m. Clearly they were driving too close, and caused HUGE problems for everyone else, not helped by Old Plod being so unimaginative with their traffic control. e.g immediately shut Culham bridge south-bound. But Old Plod finds 'driving too close' too difficult compared to the easy hits of catching people doing 34 in a 30 zone, so no doubt they'll be let off with a caution. Methinks Old Plod has past his sell by date.......

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Oflife says...
10:33pm Tue 22 Jan 13

jameswalton wrote:
At least one of these drivers should be banned for 5 years and fined £1m. Clearly they were driving too close, and caused HUGE problems for everyone else, not helped by Old Plod being so unimaginative with their traffic control. e.g immediately shut Culham bridge south-bound. But Old Plod finds 'driving too close' too difficult compared to the easy hits of catching people doing 34 in a 30 zone, so no doubt they'll be let off with a caution. Methinks Old Plod has past his sell by date.......
Indeed. Am fighting a 40 in a 30 zone I have driven through 1000s of times safely yet seen examples of bad driving all the time, with no police around to watch, tail and pull over. Cameras only spot 'speeding', not bad driving.

It's called dystopia, and it's all about for profit law and order. Ethics? Huh!

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livid99 says...
8:43am Wed 23 Jan 13

Chaos trying to leave Didcot at around 5.30pm last night. The link road from Didcot to the A34 was just a line of cars not moving right the way along the road. Anyone trying to go south were unable to even reach the A34. This road desperately needs to be upgraded to a dual carriagway - it carries far to much traffic nowadays and any kind of incident just causes gridlock straight away !
I hope the drivers involved recover quickly, but unfortunately the A34 + Lorries nightmare continues...

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Adrian1 says...
12:13pm Wed 23 Jan 13

Quick note reference the Drayton access gate, you'd have to deconstruct the crash barrier at the top of the road too,... which one should and have an operational slip road instead of a near waste of space. (currently serves as a rest stop).

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TonyH says...
12:23pm Wed 23 Jan 13

I've commented for years about the slip road at Drayton that was (stupidly) shut off some years ago. The 'official' reply (ie until they change minds/ get embarrassed) is that the junction between Drayton/Steventon would be too complex (nonsense, plenty of room for a r'bout) and the 'on-slip' at the top is too short (also nonsense, go and see those opened more recently near Newbury further down that same A34!!). Opening that slip road again would ease traffic trying to get into Abingdon, and have obvious benefits for this sort of incident.

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Imaximus says...
2:21pm Wed 23 Jan 13

Oflife wrote:
jameswalton wrote:
At least one of these drivers should be banned for 5 years and fined £1m. Clearly they were driving too close, and caused HUGE problems for everyone else, not helped by Old Plod being so unimaginative with their traffic control. e.g immediately shut Culham bridge south-bound. But Old Plod finds 'driving too close' too difficult compared to the easy hits of catching people doing 34 in a 30 zone, so no doubt they'll be let off with a caution. Methinks Old Plod has past his sell by date.......
Indeed. Am fighting a 40 in a 30 zone I have driven through 1000s of times safely yet seen examples of bad driving all the time, with no police around to watch, tail and pull over. Cameras only spot 'speeding', not bad driving.

It's called dystopia, and it's all about for profit law and order. Ethics? Huh!
Am i reading this right??? you are moaning about getting caught doing 40 in a 30? dear oh dear......you should be banned for having such a flippant attitude to driving.

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jameswalton says...
2:27pm Wed 23 Jan 13

dear lmaximus
it would be considerably more interesting and helpful if you could comment on how these traffic problems could be addressed, and not just make personal comments about other posters. Twice in a week bad driving on the A34 has caused chaos for miles around. There are several big picture issues to address, all alluded to in my original post, got any bright ideas?

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Imaximus says...
2:29pm Wed 23 Jan 13

Whats a really good idea is to not break the law.

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jameswalton says...
2:47pm Wed 23 Jan 13

Thanks you, stating the obvious always helps any debate considerably...

Have you ever considered that maybe the law is wrong? Certainly, the Police's position on chasing speeding offenders over tail-gating offenders needs serious consideration. That's how most of the chaos on the south-east's roads starts, with tail-gating.

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Imaximus says...
3:02pm Wed 23 Jan 13

The law maybe wrong however it still cannot be broken. You have made a big assumption that this incident was caused by tailgating and the fine should be £1m. thats not really adding much to the debate either is it. How do you know it was caused by tailgating? and isnt tailgating just really speeding in the wrong traffic conditions? Perhaps if you didnt feel so flippant about speeding then the police wouldnt feel the need to keep looking out for you and could spend their time in a more productive manner. Whilst you continue to speed and be an easy target then they shall continue to try to catch you. It really is that simple.

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jameswalton says...
3:12pm Wed 23 Jan 13

Lmaximus
I suggest you study your facts more closely and look at the pictures. It is not me who was talking about 40/30 speeding, it was another poster. It was obviously tail-gating, and no, tail-gating is not another name for speeding. The braking distances for safe travel are ignored by most vehicles nowadays, with predictable consequences. The second lorry is rammed hard into the back of the first, pretty obvious really, it happens every day on every motorway, it causes huge tailbacks because there are so many cars to clear up, and it isn't dealt with severely enough, because Plod doesn't have direction from UK Gov to pursue it. It should be an automatic 7 points on license for every car except the first one in a chain of crashed tailgaters, an easy win for UK Gov, don't know why they don't adopt it.

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Imaximus says...
3:35pm Wed 23 Jan 13

Sir, it was you that commented on my post not the other way round. I quite clearly stated about being caught doing 40 in a 30 which is in clear ref to the post below yours which was quoted by that person....you asked if i had any bright ideas. Remember. As for it was obviously tailgaiting.....do you know for fact....no you dont. you are assuming. How do you know there was no mechanical fault.....you dont. How do you know if the driver was not struck down with something medical.....you dont. Please do not comment on "facts" you cant substanciate.

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jameswalton says...
3:46pm Wed 23 Jan 13

as usual, public debate descends into a farce.

address the big issues, next time you are tailgated, photograph it, start a campaign to get rid of it

next time the roads are totally jammed, photograph it, ask the council and police why they allow this to happen, what they might do about it

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Imaximus says...
3:49pm Wed 23 Jan 13

dear oh dear....... *shakes head and tuts.

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Grunden Skip says...
4:16pm Wed 23 Jan 13

Imaximus wrote:
dear oh dear....... *shakes head and tuts.
What a jolly jester you are Sir or Madam. How wonderfully super it must be to have never broken a law in your life. And coming back to reality, speeding in itself on a road with an artificially low speed limit, has never caused a mass pile up. Tailgating causes them every week. Speed cameras bring in £millions every year, catching Tailgaters cost money. Hopefully you are getting the idea now.

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Imaximus says...
4:20pm Wed 23 Jan 13

Its like shooting fish in a barrel isnt it..... Speeding is illegal....if i get caught then its my own fault. I wont moan about it....I will pay my fine and be more careful. You too are making an assumption this was caused by tailgating? I might well have been but we cant state it as fact because we dont know.....are you getting the idea now?

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jayzee says...
7:31pm Wed 23 Jan 13

There seems to be a lot of blame going on. I'm not looking for that as an answer. Just the answer to why does it always seem to be that section of the A34, not further south or further north? Why always there? Is my impression incorrect, is it as often just further north and just further south? Why does it always seem to be the Didcot bit?

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Grunden Skip says...
8:10pm Wed 23 Jan 13

jayzee wrote:
There seems to be a lot of blame going on. I'm not looking for that as an answer. Just the answer to why does it always seem to be that section of the A34, not further south or further north? Why always there? Is my impression incorrect, is it as often just further north and just further south? Why does it always seem to be the Didcot bit?
Because it is a busy junction. You have vehicles who have misjudged the junction braking and cutting across traffic, and vehicles joining not at 70 mph. This has a knock on effect of other vehicles having to brake sharply, and other vehicles behind not being able to see the road in front hitting the vehicle in front. That is why it is nearly always lorries and vans involved as they block the view ahead. A good driver always drives to the car two in front, as to give you time to react when you see their brake lights, when you can't see in front of you stay back. A simple but effective way not to have a rear ender.

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