Did my usual drive upto Mid Wales from London last Saturday morning leaving London at 6.30am, was very concious of the outside temp driving west as it was dropping to around 0.5 as I approached Oxford and I knew the roads were slippery.

After bombing down the Witney bypass to get past a group of lorries before the duel carriageway runs out I noticed two cars on my tail one in each lane, I was in the left lane and slowing to take the 1st left on the roundabout back onto the A40 towards Cheltenham when a Merc overtook me on the right then attempted to take the 1st left on the roundabout. I saw the car moving at a very strange angle on exit which turned out to be a bad slide into the oposite lane, then all of a sudden the back end of his car started to jump all over the road while spinning and sliding ending in the car flipping up onto the grass verge on the left. Lucky for the driver the car stayed upright as I think if he had hit the verge at the wrong angle the car would have flipped up in the air and probably over. Also lucky for me the guy behind must have seen the sliding car ahead and hit the anchors at the same time as me after which we both proceeded towards Cheltenham driving like granny's.

I slowed and checked the driver looked ok, he just looked in total shock so I decided to leave him alone in his embaressment, but i'm not sure if he would have got back onto the road without getting stuck in the mud. I reckon his braking system was in meltdown. :P

So the moral of this story is they paint those yellow bumpy lines on the road for a reason when approaching a roundabout.... and don't overtake on the right and try to leave the 1st exit onto a small A Road even if you are in a Merc.

Serves him right. Good job he didnt hit anyone or you!!

Sounds like he learnt his lesson, glad he didnt hit anyone and glad he wasnt injured to.

I get it all the time at a certain roundabout on my way to work, makes me chuckle, everyones so rush rush these days !

rush rush, lol

I like to think my rushing is measured, I guess he's will be too now.

Incidently, does anyone else find it disturbing the amount of roadside shrines set up at accident spots? It seems a lot worse this year and I passed a couple with flowers, notes, even hub caps etc and rather large gaps in hedgerows where someone has left the road. Quite worrying really as most of the places I see them in are locations where you just can't imagine what went wrong.

I'm not saying it's wrong to do this but it is distracting. Not sure what I think about them really but it's not easy to ignore them.

Sounds like a lucky escape!

Lucky guy indeed, it seems its a thing for merc drivers though. Had the samething when I was up at MK for a service, woman in a merc was gagging to to pass me on the roundabout, it was wet and the tail started to slide, luck for her I had seen the car twitch so I had backed off. She fought for a bit and it all came back into line.

She did slow any just put for foot down again! :eek:

I know exactly which roundabout you are talking about. Bloody good job there wasn't an HGV coming up the 'old A40' from Witney or there wouldn't be much of a Merc left as I assume the guy had absolutly no intention of stopping.