Without knowing all the details of this incident, I am not prepared to pass comment except that anyone who has ever suffered total electrical shutdown in 'Lane 3' would not leap to rapid judgment. And hi-tech modern cars certainly make it even more difficult than my experience of this, in 1981 in a mid-engined Renault 5 Turbo, as mentioned in Chapter 13 of my book, The Good, The Mad & The Ugly (not to mention Jeremy Clarkson). The Lamborghini driver may have come to a sudden stop and the van driver may have been unsighted and unable to avoid the collision.
While on a commute years ago I was on the M4 near Swansea. Early morning, dark, doing 70 in the outside lane passing a car doing about 50. ( 2 lanes only). There was a wooden pallet in the middle of the lane. Emergency braking, couldn’t swerve left to avoid it due to the other car. Just made contact square on and came to a halt. Hazards on. Cars flew past inside me so waited to pull onto hard shoulder. Got there, brakes and steering appeared ok. Quick check showed no clear damage apart from a bend in the tow hook. No fluid leaks visible. I was by an emergency phone so phoned it in. Cars were flying past and hitting the remains of the pallet but not stopping. Bits of wood flying about. Scary! I carried on as no apparent damage, brake or steering issues.and apart from the tow hook all was ok but at a lower speed in lane 1.Luckily the impact speed was so low. Did a better check when in work. Two more incidents on M4 commute. Throttle cable snapped so hard shoulder temporary fix done. Other was scary. In a pool car on raised Port Talbot 50 mph section and cam belt snapped. Scary as hell!!! Hard shoulder with a 4’ wall and big drop the other side. Boy was I glad when the tow truck arrived! 20 minutes of waiting a few yards away near a tree just over the wall for escape!
