Motorway accidents are a daily occurrence, and this one appears to be just one more such incident (no one was hurt, but there were delays while the cars were removed). However, the Lancashire Telegraph is highly irresponsible to use the headline “Heavy rain causes M65 crash”.
As several of the commenters at the bottom of that article have correctly said, weather doesn’t cause accidents – people do.
And a point about using fog lights in heavy rain, which one of the commenters is getting a lot of stick for. Driving: The Essential Skills (the official DSA driving handbook) says in the Driving On Motorways section:
Wet weather
Visibility can be made worse because at higher speeds vehicles, especially large ones, throw up more spray. So
- use your headlights to help other drivers see you. Don’t use rear fog lights unless visibility is less than 100 metres (328 feet)
It IS correct to use fog lights if heavy spray is causing poor visibility. It doesn’t just have to be “when it’s foggy” (something I stress to my pupils when we’re going through the show-me-tell-me questions). It’s conceivable that dust or smoke could also lead to conditions where fog lights would be useful. I remember one summer a few years ago when combine harvesters in fields in Suffolk were causing whiteout conditions due to the dryness and wind. Fog lights may also have been of use in the M5 pile up a few years ago due to the smoke blowing across the road, but certainly if smoke was causing poor visibility in other situations.