Hello, John here and i'm currently on the Isle of sheppey, I woke up a stupid o clock
this morning and drove down here to show you this bridge.
Why am I here you might be thinking, well this bridge in 2013 was the scene for one
of the UK’s possibly even Europe's largest multi car pile ups, involving upwards of 130
vehicles no less.
Right, well it's time for me to drive back i'll hand you over to John in the studio.
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It is a foggy september thursday morning, and traffic is flying along the A249 over
the sheppey crossing, the road is a main artery for the some 40,000 inhabitants on the isle
of sheppey to the rest of kent.
The Bridge the traffic today is flowing over is 1 of 2 road links in the area, and can
be deadly in poor weather.
This was the case on the 5th of september a thick fog had descended upon the sheppey
crossing.
Visibility for the cars on the bridge was not far beyond the bonnet, which common sense
would dictate to maybe slow down, but for many drivers getting to their destination
quickly was more important.
At around 0715 a car crash initiated a 10 minute long pileup, where a seemingly endless
number of crashes, bumps and shunts would bring the crossing into national news and
would not only show the stupidity of drivers but also a few inherent design flaws of the
bridge which was at the time fairly new.
Background
It is 2006 and a new bridge is being unveiled as part of a multimillion pound improvement
project modernising a vital link between the town of sheerness and the m20 motorway.
The isle of sheppey throughout its history has suffered from connection issues to the
rest of The Kent county region.
This is due to the island being surrounded by the Thames estuary to its north and to
the south the swale channel, this part is closest to the rest of Kent and is also vast
marshland.
Oh yes and it’s around here on a map.
In the uk, roads that connect population centres are divided into 3 category’s motorways
which are large multi lane routes that connect regions A roads which connect towns and villages,
these can be multi lane or just 1 lane in each direction and B roads which are minor
road that connect smaller settlements.
All of these types are numbered and the route that connects the M20 motorway and sheerness
is called the A249.
Sheerness is a vital financial center for the island due to its port,
It is one of the largest foreign car importers in the UK, as well as handling thousands of
tonnes of fruits and meat products from all over the world.
As such road links are vital to the area, but before 2006 the island's main trunk route
had one hell of a pinch point, the kings ferry bridge.
The swale channel which kings ferry and 2006 crossing bridge span is used as a shipping
route, which would require a bridge design to account for this.
The kings ferry was a lift bridge design which carried the roadway and a single track rail
line, now this is fine and all but for one thing, around 30,000 vehicles used the crossing
per day.
And up to 20 ships navigate along the swale every day as well.
Which means traffic had to be stopped to raise the deck and allow a vessel to pass underneath
this was a roughly 20 minute ordeal.
Not something ideal for a major trunk route.
As such a new £20 million pound bridge was commissioned, instead of a lift bridge the
new crossing would be built tall enough to allow ships underneath without stopping the
flow of traffic.
It would be around a mile long have two lanes in each direction, no street lighting and
no refuse points or hard shoulder, the two directions were separated by a central Barrier.
Initially a tunnel was considered but the local wildlife impact put an end to that plan,
and thus the bridge was conceived.
Great you might think but this came with a new added problem, because of the steep gradient
needed to get the required height over the swale estuary vehicular traffic making their
way over the bridge are unable to see the summit.
This opens the risk of accidents as any incident beyond the summit can’t be seen to vehicles
approaching the crossing.
To add more visibility issues the roadway was unlit meaning issues in weather conditions
such as heavy rain, mist or fog.
The latter was a common sight on the sheppey crossing, as the surrounding area was marshland,
a breeding ground for fog.
But I digress: the new bridge was opened in July 2006 and proved to be a vital addition
to the island's transport infrastructure, the earlier kings ferry bridge remained, giving
an alternate route and access to Swale train station.
The disaster, cars just kept on coming.
It is the morning of the 5th September 2013
A thick fog had descended upon Sheppey and the crossing over the swale.
Visibility was less than 20 meters; many were seen to be driving at or even in some cases
in excess of the 70mph limit.
This is pretty common for normal weather but with the fog obscuring the road ahead combined
with the steep gradient of the bridge driving at the speed limit was just wrecklas.
At around 07:14 am two cars and a van made contact with one another and with no hard
shoulder to pull into they partially blocked carriageway.
Some traffic were able to react in time and swerve the crash, the fog now with visibility
of less than a meter in some places would blind following vehicles.
Witnesses could saw car after car disappear into the fog only to be followed shortly after
by the sounds of screeching and crashes.
Many cars did not put on their fog lights.
As a side Note for all you non brits here’s a quick mention about fog lights, in the uk
it is a legal requirement for all cars to have 1 rear red high intensity fog light.
Many cars have front fog lights as well but aren’t a legal requirement.
But although legally required on uk cars many rarely use them, my personal theory is that
ironically it’s illegal to use them when there isn’t fog, because it can dazzle other
road users.
As such many just don’t bother all together, here’s an annoying experiment you can do,
ask someone to show you where the rear fog light switch is I reaction around 70% wouldn’t
know.
Sorry, well with several cars and vans now in a mangled mess, countless numbers of following
cars trucks and vans continued rear ending more and more stranded smashed up vehicles.
The first 999 calls came into the emergency call center, all whilst the cars continued
to pile up.
Here’s a little snippet of the audio recording of one of those calls.
Crashed Cars backed all the way along the southbound carriageway over the summit and
onto the approach section of the bridge.
After roughly 10 minutes of the sounds of crashes tyre screeches and crunches it was
over and upwards of 130 vehicles were damaged with tens more stranded.
But minor shunt would continue even after the police had arrived.
Anyone who could, got out of their damaged vehicles and started milling about.
Rescue and recovery brought on a whole other level of logistical issues, the sheer weight
of vehicles needing removal required an endless number of flatbed trucks.
To deal with the walking wounded police guided them to a make shift triage where they would
be assessed.
However some required cutting out of their cars.
The More serious injuried were stabilised before transport to hospital, in total 69
people were sent for medical care with the majority being discharged the same or next
day, only 1 person was kept more than a few days.
By 11:05 all casualties were off the scene and miraculously no one was killed all roughly
200 people involved had survived.
Even more amazingly especially when looking at the aftermath pictures was that the bridge
was reopened at 5:30pm.
Aftermath
Even though The bridge had very little damage the cost was still into the millions in vehicle
damage and the cost of rescue and recovery work.
The police looked to investigate what the cause of the crash was and a number of motorists
were thought to be driving recklessly in the thick fog.
Although controversially instead of criminal proceedings Kent police decided to go a more
educational route, by offering the opportunity for the offending drivers to attend a driver
awareness course.
However if any driver refused then they would have to go to court.
But highways England also had some questions to answer.
Right from its first day of operation questions had been posed about the bridge's safety,
with its lack of hard shoulder, steep incline, lack of lighting and no warning signs.
The chief police constable called for a speed reduction along the bridge, something that
still hasn’t been done.
This wouldn’t be the last accident on the crossing; sadly July 2014 would see the bridge's
first fatal accident.
Now where would you rate this on my disaster scale and legacy scale I’m going to say
a 4 for the former and a 6 for the latter, maybe less if your not from
the uk.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282125913_Major_incident_in_Kent_A_case_report/fulltext/56297d5108ae518e347cbfb0/Major-incident-in-Kent-A-case-report.pdf?origin=publication_detail