…. if I’d been five or six vehicles ahead of where I was I’d have missed it, three or four vehicles ahead and I’d have been part of it, but where I was meant I got delayed!

It was 05:30 this morning and I was driving a ‘Not on Service’ megabus to Bournemouth which would then become the 06:00 Bournemouth to London. I was on the A31 at Ringwood when suddenly hazzard warning lights came on, I braked from about 60 mph and came to a halt at which point I could see a car in front of me straddling the centre crash barrier, one in the nearside lane sideways on with lots of side damage and a couple in the outside lane at least still pointing in the right irection. I could also see a couple of cars stopped on the hard shoulder of the other carriageway – I guess they saw it and jumped out to help. There seemed to be enough people in the road for me not to be needed and nobody seem to be panicking about anybody/anything. I was amazed that an ambulance was there in less than 10 minutes, the cops a little after and then two fire engines, the first put up a tall mast with a floodlight on top and the second cut the door off one of the cars. I’m pretty sure the person in the car wasn’t badly hurt, the medics weren’t attending to them all the time, I guess it was simply the easiest way to open a door which was jammed! By now my view was obstructed by more police cars which had arrived and then the Highways Agency van. Suddenly, all the emergency service vehicles moved over and we were given one lane to pass the accident. I checked my watch and I’d been stopped 45 minutes. I found that pretty amazing considering an ambulance had to arrive, the police do their thing and the fire brigade illuminate it all while their colleages cut their way into a car! I calcualted that with a good run I’d end up only about 30 minutes late to Winchester after doing the Bournemouth pick ups. No chance! My maximum speed on the M27 and the M3 was never above 35 mph and often around 10 mph. When I finally made it to Winchester I was an hour down.