The talk about "rubberneckers" on the other carriageway completely fails to understand what amounts to the fluid dynamics involved in a busy motorway. When such a road is running close to capacity it's very susceptible to even the most minor perturbations in flow. Everybody will have come across situations on busy motorways when traffic flows freely for a while interspersed with queues of stationary traffic only to be followed by another repeat of the same. That's simply caused by a minor disturbance (or even random fluctuations in flow) leading to turbulent flow. Simply as traffic behind starts to close up on a slowing vehicle eventually, as gaps close down, eventually somebody has to brake and this gets worse until, eventually, somebody has to stop. Then you are into stop-start territory. In the case of an accident on the other carriageway, with blue flashing lights and the like, it's only natural (and safe) to ease off the throttle a little and this minor effect is enough, on a busy motorway, to trigger turbulent flow.
Of course the article has nothing whatsoever to do with "rubberneckers" - it's about the length of time that the police take when closing down motorways for investigations.
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Rubberneckers...
The talk about "rubberneckers" on the other carriageway completely fails to understand what amounts to the fluid dynamics involved in a busy motorway. When such a road is running close to capacity it's very susceptible to even the most minor perturbations in flow. Everybody will have come across situations on busy motorways when traffic flows freely for a while interspersed with queues of stationary traffic only to be followed by another repeat of the same. That's simply caused by a minor disturbance (or even random fluctuations in flow) leading to turbulent flow. Simply as traffic behind starts to close up on a slowing vehicle eventually, as gaps close down, eventually somebody has to brake and this gets worse until, eventually, somebody has to stop. Then you are into stop-start territory. In the case of an accident on the other carriageway, with blue flashing lights and the like, it's only natural (and safe) to ease off the throttle a little and this minor effect is enough, on a busy motorway, to trigger turbulent flow.
Of course the article has nothing whatsoever to do with "rubberneckers" - it's about the length of time that the police take when closing down motorways for investigations.