Toll barrier incident

slimshady007

I had an incident this morning at an express lane toll barrier. The tag beeped but the barrier came down after the car in front passed through. Inevitably I hit the barrier and it broke one of my wipers. The barrier also bent back.

I'll admit I was over the speed limit at approx 80km/h. However, in my experience almost everyone is over the 50km/h limit when passing through it. I travel this road daily for the past 6 months and it's never happened before.
Has anyone experienced this before or made a complaint? If so how did they get on?

magicbastarder

i wonder if instead of you contacting them to make a complaint, will they be contacting you for the cost of repairing the barrier...

savagethegoat

if your tag beeped that will be on record and it can be shown it wasn't your fault. As for the speed, I don't think they can prove how fast you were going.

You did stop and report the incident I assume rather than keep going?

slimshady007

savagethegoat wrote: »

if your tag beeped that will be on record and it can be shown it wasn't your fault. As for the speed, I don't think they can prove how fast you were going.

You did stop and report the incident I assume rather than keep going?

I didn't as there was a flow of traffic behind me and it wasn't until later when i put on my wipers that I realised they were broken.

Checked my online account and there is a record of me passing through it so the tag definitely beeped like I thought.

slimshady007

magicbastarder wrote: »

i wonder if instead of you contacting them to make a complaint, will they be contacting you for the cost of repairing the barrier...

The barrier drops after the tag has beeped and they'd be seeking compensation?

ThisRegard

savagethegoat wrote: »

if your tag beeped that will be on record and it can be shown it wasn't your fault. As for the speed, I don't think they can prove how fast you were going.

You did stop and report the incident I assume rather than keep going?

Not really true. The OP doesn't say what toll it was at, but some will continuously flash that you're going too fast and if so, you'll hit the barrier as happened here.

slimshady007 wrote: »

The barrier drops after the tag has beeped and they'd be seeking compensation?

It dropped after the car in front. The barrier did open for the OP, but he was going too fast, probably expecting it not to drop after the car in front, and hit it by the sounds of things.

I've almost been caught out myself at some of the tolls, some won't close after the car in front until you pass through, but at times they will and as you're not expecting it and most likely are speeding up again you can come close to hitting it.

Jawgap

savagethegoat wrote: »

if your tag beeped that will be on record and it can be shown it wasn't your fault. As for the speed, I don't think they can prove how fast you were going.

You did stop and report the incident I assume rather than keep going?

Don't they have CCTV? And see the time taken for the car to travel between 2 fixed points?

Won't they be able to measure the distance travelled?

After that it's a case of basic maths.....

distance / time = speed

markpb

Jawgap wrote: »

Don't they have CCTV? And see the time taken for the car to travel between 2 fixed points?

I'd be surprised if they didn't also record the speed that they measured (and displayed to the OP) when the car approached the barrier.

911s

Sometimes the car in front hasn't got a tag or their
tag hasn't activated barrier. If you're travelling too
close to them the barrier opens for your tag, car in front passes through and barrier closes on you.
Some people had the timing perfected to avoid paying toll charges.

ThisRegard

Yeah, lots of chancers used to try that, barriers seem to be smarter now and you'll see a big flashing arrow directing a car out of the lane if there's no tag or it hasn't been read.

Bargain_Hound

As a previously regular user of the automatic barriers (M3), I can confirm this happened to me on two previous occasions also. Both times nearly caused me to crash as I escaped the express lane with little or no warning.

cml387

You need to keep a decent distance behind the car in front.

savagethegoat

Bargain_Hound wrote: »

As a previously regular user of the automatic barriers (M3), I can confirm this happened to me on two previous occasions also. Both times nearly caused me to crash as I escaped the express lane with little or no warning.

hence the speed limit I guess.

Whenever I use the cash basket I usually go for the extreme right one as it rarely has a queue and people exit the express lane alongside me at huge speed, much more than 50k! You have to watch them

The Nutty M

I had an incident at the coin only barrier at Enfield. Barrier went up,pulled off but it came down again. It clipped the top of my helmet. I stopped,waited for the man to come out to me,filled up an incident report form and got a copy of it before I left. Emailed receipt for new helmet,had the cheque within 20 days.
Your recourse will be limited in my opinion by your failure to stop and report it. But its worth a try anyways.

dudara

This can happen if you are too close to the car in front. I know, it happened to me yonks ago

shietpilot

The toll operators should be sued to bits. If a toll is adding a high risk of a collision on a piece of road, even if it's caused by tail gating which otherwise wouldn't have happened if said toll didn't exist, then it simply doesn't make sense to have it. I'm surprised that it doesn't work properly if you are close together to another car.

I understand that there are people who like to drive close together and get through for free but it's unacceptable to endanger drivers for the sake of €3!

pippip

shietpilot wrote: »

The toll operators should be sued to bits. If a toll is adding a high risk of a collision on a piece of road, even if it's caused by tail gating which otherwise wouldn't have happened if said toll didn't exist, then it simply doesn't make sense to have it. I'm surprised that it doesn't work properly if you are close together to another car.

I understand that there are people who like to drive close together and get through for free but it's unacceptable to endanger drivers for the sake of €3!

Yeh but its really €4million a year for the Eastlink alone!

I had a simliar incident years ago with Eastlink, tag beeped and barrier proceeded to go up and as I passed under slapped back down on windscreen.
Hell of a bang but nothing broken. As others, I was probably going a bit too fast and had I been goings snail paced as they want you to it probably would have been a slight tip and thats all.

ThisRegard

shietpilot wrote: »

If a toll is adding a high risk of a collision on a piece of road,

Sure why not sue car manufacturers? After all, they've disgracefully put you in the position of potential death every time you sit in one of their deathtraps. It's a disgrace.

HeidiHeidi

shietpilot wrote: »

The toll operators should be sued to bits. If a toll is adding a high risk of a collision on a piece of road, even if it's caused by tail gating which otherwise wouldn't have happened if said toll didn't exist, then it simply doesn't make sense to have it. I'm surprised that it doesn't work properly if you are close together to another car.

I understand that there are people who like to drive close together and get through for free but it's unacceptable to endanger drivers for the sake of €3!

Or you (generic you, not you personally) could try, for the few seconds you're in the toll/barrier area, keeping to the recommended speed limit (to which the barrier timing is presumably linked) and then maybe you won't crash into the not-quite-yet-opened barrier?

shietpilot

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

Or you (generic you, not you personally) could try, for the few seconds you're in the toll/barrier area, keeping to the recommended speed limit (to which the barrier timing is presumably linked) and then maybe you won't crash into the not-quite-yet-opened barrier?

Or they could also switch to a barrier-less toll for the express lanes because people with tags don't need a barrier.

If you drive through a barrier-less toll without a tag you have to pay double online!

golfpaul

slimshady007 wrote: »

I had an incident this morning at an express lane toll barrier. The tag beeped but the barrier came down after the car in front passed through. Inevitably I hit the barrier and it broke one of my wipers. The barrier also bent back.

I'll admit I was over the speed limit at approx 80km/h. However, in my experience almost everyone is over the 50km/h limit when passing through it. I travel this road daily for the past 6 months and it's never happened before.
Has anyone experienced this before or made a complaint? If so how did they get on?

This happened me on the M6 express toll before.They confirmed that my tag was read and the car in front of me had no tag. Barrier put a dent in roof of my car. They asked me to send in quote for damage and they sent me out a cheque.

shietpilot

golfpaul wrote: »

This happened me on the M6 express toll before.They confirmed that my tag was read and the car in front of me had no tag. Barrier put a dent in roof of my car. They asked me to send in quote for damage and they sent me out a cheque.

Terrible design then! You can find a car going for the express lane and then undertake them. Could also happen if you have 2 cars and only 1 of them has a tag and you drive through forgetting about it with the car that doesn't have one

savagethegoat

oddly the last time I used the cash bin, the system was insisting I was a bus, not easy given the headroom. Pressing the button got no response, so I leant on the horn. On the way back, I noticed a hold up on the other carriageway, the same fault I'd guess

ThisRegard

shietpilot wrote: »

Terrible design then! You can find a car going for the express lane and then undertake them. Could also happen if you have 2 cars and only 1 of them has a tag and you drive through forgetting about it with the car that doesn't have one

There's nothing wrong with the design. And you can't forget that you don't have a tag before you get to the barrier, you're directed down the exit lane before you reach the point of no return if nothing is read.

You can't undertake them either as the lane is blocked off.

Sounds like you're unfamiliar with them and never use them.

Avatar MIA

slimshady007 wrote: »

I'll admit I was over the speed limit at approx 80km/h.

Yeah, I'm going to guess higher than 80 km/h.

You were breaking the speed limit, just accept it was your fault and be happy it wasn't your windscreen that got damaged.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

magicbastarder

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Yeah, I'm going to guess higher than 80 km/h.

You were breaking the speed limit, just accept it was your fault and be happy it wasn't your windscreen that got damaged.

i'm still chuckling at the notion of doing 50mph through a narrow toll lane - with a barrier operating in it.
and then complaining that you didn't have time to stop because of a barrier.
taking the OP at their word on the timing involved:

The tag beeped but the barrier came down after the car in front passed through

they had passed through the detection area before the car in front had cleared the barrier. the 50kph limit is probably there as a reaction to people who do this.

i would wonder - given the OP was 60% above the posted speed limit - what speed would they need to be doing before they'd admit it was them who was the one who was negligent?

Charles Babbage

The OP did not crash into a stationary barrier, it came back down. So the toll company launched their barrier at his car and so are entirely at fault. All of this is compromising safety just so as a handful of people do not get through, the latter should be treated as people who go through the M50 are.

HeidiHeidi

Charles Babbage wrote: »

The OP did not crash into a stationary barrier, it came back down. So the toll company launched their barrier at his car and so are entirely at fault. All of this is compromising safety just so as a handful of people do not get through, the latter should be treated as people who go through the M50 are.

My reading of the OP is that the barrier came down behind the car in front of him (as they always do), and due to his speed he did not give enough time for it to rise again for his car.

So no, the toll company did not "launch their barrier at his car". Jaysus.

purplecow1977

So you didn't notice the damage done to your wipers, but knew the barrier was damaged but you still drove off anyway????
Presumably because you thought 'I'm alright Ted'?
The speeds some vehicles travel at through those tolls is far too fast.
A hard lesson learned.

Calahonda52

slimshady007 wrote: »

I had an incident this morning at an express lane toll barrier. The tag beeped but the barrier came down after the car in front passed through. Inevitably I hit the barrier and it broke one of my wipers. The barrier also bent back.

I'll admit I was over the speed limit at approx 80km/h. However, in my experience almost everyone is over the 50km/h limit when passing through it. I travel this road daily for the past 6 months and it's never happened before.
Has anyone experienced this before or made a complaint? If so how did they get on?

So you are a victim here, attacked by a barrier?
I would consult my lawyers pronto as if a girl can get 25k for running across the road after a dog, you should be good for .. who knows
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/girl-8-who-was-knocked-down-as-she-chased-dog-across-the-road-awarded-25000-34858446.html

The dog was from Ballyfermot and ran across the road in Portarlington..:D

TheDoc

Charles Babbage wrote: »

The OP did not crash into a stationary barrier, it came back down. So the toll company launched their barrier at his car and so are entirely at fault. All of this is compromising safety just so as a handful of people do not get through, the latter should be treated as people who go through the M50 are.

This is absolutely mental. How is this being perpetuated on this thread.

It is clearly the OPs problem, and the fact they didn't stop to report the incident is also bat **** mental. Expect some follow up on the repair bill here OP.

The speed limit is there for a very clear and valid reason. That the OP was speeding, going through the lane faster then he/she should have, meant the barrier came down as the beep from his tag hadn't registered through their system quick enough.

I cannot believe people are blaming the toll operator here. Is it any wonder insurance costs are on the rise when there is such bewildering interpretations of a situation.

OP was breaking the speed limit, not allowing adequate distance to the car and barrier in front. Like holy jesus.

As someone who also goes through a barrier on a bi-daily basis, and uses that lane, I always keep myself vigilante to that portion where the barrier is.

This is literally the equivalent of you pulling up to a booth, handing over cash to an attendant, then smashing through the barrier, saying its there fault they didnt raise the barrier quick enough, you'd handed over the money.

**** me

BnB

Completely and 100% the OP's fault.

He was traveling too fast (which he has already admitted) and was more than likely too close to the car in front of him.

His best bet now it to keep his head down and hope that the toll operator doesn't contact him for damages to the barrier.

dr.fuzzenstein

Calahonda52 wrote: »

So you are a victim here, attacked by a barrier?
I would consult my lawyers pronto as if a girl can get 25k for running across the road after a dog, you should be good for .. who knows
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/girl-8-who-was-knocked-down-as-she-chased-dog-across-the-road-awarded-25000-34858446.html

The dog was from Ballyfermot and ran across the road in Portarlington..:D

Isn't it great? Personal responsibility is finally dead in this country.
I will go into town now, see the nearest parked bus and I will launch myself at it with a running jump.
I expect to get at least €50k for that, since the principle is "if you sustain injuries, no matter how, you get money".

slimshady007

Jeez isn't it great that there are so many perfect law abiding citizens in the country. For those saying I should have stopped - I got a shock when it happened and as the car appeared to be ok I drove on. It wasn't until later when I turned on the wipers that I realised one wasn't working - not something you'd automatically think to check at the time.

I rang the toll company later on to report the incident and they confirmed my tag was read. It was never my intention to make a claim and nor have I, it was merely to question how or why it happened as I've used the toll Mon-Fri for the past 6 months and never had so much as a close call and that's been in heavy traffic, no traffic, under the speed limit and over it. For those of you amazed at the speed I was doing I can tell you for a fact there are drivers that don't drop their speed at all passing through the express lane. If the barrier wasn't to open for anyone speeding then there'd be incidents like this full time.

I posted here to see if anyone had any experience of this happening before, not to have a character assassination. I wasn't doing some mental speed endangering lives. I've never made a claim in my life and I certainly won't be doing so over a wiper. I wasn't even remotely close to the car in front, it was at least 100m further on and the barrier remained up as it has done on several similar occasions but for some reason it dropped just as I was passing through it.

Jawgap

slimshady007 wrote: »

.....

........

I posted here to see if anyone had any experience of this happening before, not to have a character assassination. I wasn't doing some mental speed endangering lives. I've never made a claim in my life and I certainly won't be doing so over a wiper. I wasn't even remotely close to the car in front, it was at least 100m further on and the barrier remained up as it has done on several similar occasions but for some reason it dropped just as I was passing through it.

You admitted to being 60% over the posted speed limit - those figures aren't plucked from ar$es, they're there for a reason.

slimshady007 wrote: »

.......

I'll admit I was over the speed limit at approx 80km/h. However, in my experience almost everyone is over the 50km/h limit when passing through it. I travel this road daily for the past 6 months and it's never happened before.
Has anyone experienced this before or made a complaint? If so how did they get on?

markpb

slimshady007 wrote:

Has anyone experienced this before or made a complaint? If so how did they get on?

slimshady007 wrote:

I've never made a claim in my life and I certainly won't be doing so over a wiper.

Presumably you can see why people might assume you were contemplating making a complaint?

pred racer

There is some amount of bollocks talked on this thread!

the barrier is designed to be hit, happens several times a day.if you report it straight away they will be very helpful incase of damage to your car, if you wait they won't.


Happened to me, tag didn't read, car in front went through, barrier closed on my windscreen.

Jawgap

pred racer wrote: »

There is some amount of bollocks talked on this thread!

the barrier is designed to be hit, happens several times a day.if you report it straight away they will be very helpful incase of damage to your car, if you wait they won't.


Happened to me, tag didn't read, car in front went through, barrier closed on my windscreen.

No, the barrier design is based on an assumption that a certain proportion of drivers won't observe the posted speed limit

pred racer

Jawgap wrote: »

No, the barrier design is based on an assumption that a certain proportion of drivers won't observe the posted speed limit

Who said I was over the posted limit :rolleyes:

FYI anyone used to going through the the M7 toll (which can easily be taken at 80/90kmh), be careful on the m4/m6 one it's much slower

Jawgap

pred racer wrote: »

Who said I was over the posted limit :rolleyes:

FYI anyone used to going through the the M7 toll (which can easily be taken at 80/90kmh), be careful on the m4/m6 one it's much slower

Yes, I'm sure loads who roll through within the limit smack the barrier.

Anyway, it's no biggy to take a bit care rolling through - personally, I like 'my' car (it's provided by my employer) undented so the few seconds saved by ploughing through are hardly worth the risk.

slimshady007

markpb wrote: »

Presumably you can see why people might assume you were contemplating making a complaint?

By complaint I meant I wanted to point out to them that it happened so that they could take a look at their systems and see what caused it. Not that I wanted any compensation. Another driver in the same circumstances could've swerved to try and avoid the barrier at the last second and ended up injured if they hit the wall or bollards.

The Royal Scam

slimshady007 wrote: »

For those of you amazed at the speed I was doing I can tell you for a fact there are drivers that don't drop their speed at all passing through the express lane. If the barrier wasn't to open for anyone speeding then there'd be incidents like this full time.

So due to the fact that most of these are on motorways, you are telling us "for a fact" that there are drivers doing 120 through the express lane? Ehhhh. Ok .... lol . 😂 It's very simple and explained on the signage, go a certain speed and keep a certain distance and you will never have a problem. You were 100% at fault whether you like it or not.