- In 2020, nearly 20% of all motorists killed in the UK died in crashes involving three or more vehicles…also known as a pile up.(1)
- Someone is killed or injured on British roads every 17 minutes.(2)
- Almost 75,000 car users were injured on UK roads in 2022, and nearly 800 car occupants died.(3)
- 45% of UK drivers exceed the speed limit on British motorways and 24% of fatal crashes involve speeding drivers.(4)
- 24% of drivers who die on British roads aren’t wearing seatbelts.(5)
8 cars, 94 cameras, a 30-ton HGV, hundreds of hours of planning and preparation, and a team of drivers with no idea what’s about to happen… Pile Up – The World’s Biggest Crash Test is the most ambitious experiment of its kind. Produced by Blink Films for Channel 4, the programme heavily involved experts from 91ºÚÁÏÍø, who helped the team construct the scenario and examine what happens to cars in a real-life motorway pile up.
Multi-vehicle accidents are poorly understood, and questions about vehicle safety, driver behaviour, and crash dynamics remain largely unanswered because researchers only ever arrive post-crash. This experiment will allow experts to understand how safety systems fare, how drivers react and why some people survive while others don’t.
Professor of Automotive Engineering at 91ºÚÁÏÍø, James Brighton, and his team from the Advanced Vehicle Engineering Centre worked closely with the production team to design a high-speed multi-vehicle pile up. Expertise from the 91ºÚÁÏÍø Impact Centre was brought in to gather highly detailed crash data, with motorsport crash data recorders installed in each car’s internal structure.
Professor Brighton said: “Creating a high-speed motorway crash really was a unique challenge and there could be no second takes. There was a lot at stake, and we had to plan meticulously to get it right first time. It was a fascinating opportunity to look at a real-world crash scenario and get very detailed data from driver reactions to the events unfolding before them. That’s something we will now feed into our teaching materials across all our Automotive and Motorsport MSc courses and especially our new MSc in Virtual Prototyping so that students taking our courses can help develop even safer and more efficient cars in the future.”
The experiment
In the west coast of Scotland, a former RAF base with a taxiway almost 2 miles long is transformed into a stretch of motorway, with white lines, a hard shoulder, and motorway-grade varioguard barriers designed to contain the crash.
Professor James Brighton and his team create a high-speed multi-vehicle crash involving 8 different vehicles and 30-ton HGV coming into their lane head on.
The range of vehicles that will be driven at motorway speeds each have a different size, weight, wheelbase, and engine layout, that will take part in the pile up include:
- A pioneer of the hybrid era, 2012 Toyota Prius
- A convertible, a mid-engine Porsche Boxter series 1
- A high-performance hatchback, a Volkswagen Golf GTI from 2009
- A pick-up truck, and a US favourite – the Ford F-150
- An Executive Saloon car, the Audi A8
- A people carrier, the 8 seat Dodge Grand Caravan
- A sport utility vehicle, the Mercedes ML
- And no motorway scene would be complete without a white van… in this case a Vauxhall Vivaro
To stage such an incident and keep everyone safe requires cutting-edge immersive remote-control driving technology. Track cars are controlled from remote ‘pods’.
Four members of the public, selected to represent a cross-section of road users, join four of James Brighton’s team, each controlling real cars via the pods. As they drive as a pack at motorway speeds, a lorry driving the opposite direction swerves across the central reservation into their lanes. A pile up is inevitable.
Over 90 cameras, go-pros and drones capture the resulting crash. Black boxes fixed to the track cars record vehicle data and driver responses. Cameras record the drivers’ reactions. Not one car is left unscathed after the crash. Some are barely recognisable. But who would have survived the crash and why?
US crash analysis expert, Dr Janet Bahouth will evaluate how the cars and their safety systems perform, she says: “My main interest will be looking at the damage of the vehicle and to see how that influenced the survivability of the crash and learn from that so that tomorrow somebody else can benefit from it. Automotive manufacturers would love to be able to design against multiple impacts for one vehicle. It's difficult, though, because you can't have an airbag deploy twice. The seatbelt in conjunction with the airbag is really the best combination. And then from there, the safety structures of the vehicle, keeping the occupant compartment intact.”
The final part of the experiment tests crash investigators. Marcus Rowe, a crash investigator, is let loose on the scene. His job, having not witnessed the crash, is to figure out what happened using crash forensics. This experiment will reveal how accurate current accident analysis really is, and how it can be improved to make roads safer for all of us.
The members of the public
To make the pile up as realistic as possible, and to capture genuine reactions, the four selected drivers will be members of the public who have no knowledge of the true nature of the experiment. All four believe they are taking part in an experiment to improve motorway safety and advance their driving. They are unaware that they will soon be involved in a high speed multi car pile-up.
Caitlyn, 19, health care assistant from Liverpool
She represents the 2.8 million relatively inexperienced drivers aged 17-24 on British roads (6) – 1 in 4 drivers crash within two years of passing their test (7). Caitlyn says:
“When I passed my driving test, I was literally over the moon. It's just like one of them feelings where it's like, so surreal and then when I got my car, obviously it was just that's where your freedom began really… Usually, I'm just picking my best friend up, and we just drive around and have a little bit of karaoke and go shopping and just all the essentials, what girls do. I'm the happiest ever when I'm driving.”
Luke, 26, construction worker from Brighton
Young male drivers account for 65% of those killed or seriously injured on British roads (8). Luke says:
“As a driver I’m more of a boy racer. I love driving really fast when it’s safe to do so, but at the same time you know there’s got to be an element of risk to really get the adrenaline pumping… When someone’s either up your arse or tries it on with you I do like to dish it out and have a bit of a humbling match. I definitely think I’m an adrenaline junkie – and just the feeling of 'oh my God – did I nearly die?' You know like a ‘phew – let’s not do that again’ …but then really you do want to do it again.”
Lynn, 66, grandmother from Rochdale
She flies the flag for the 26% of drivers aged 60 and over on British roads (9). Lynn says:
“I see all these young people on the motorway whizzing down, I mean it’s absolutely ridiculous the way some of them drive – it really does annoy me…especially young men.”
Tito, 57, surfer, originally from San Diego and now lives in Glasgow
Having driven in both the UK and the US, Tito believes he’s developed into a confident yet chilled out driver. Tito says:
“Driving in Scotland definitely has its hazards because of the beauty
that surrounds it and I see waves on the coastline, it takes my eye off
the road – so I could probably improve on that aspect.”
The findings
While all experts recognise this is a one-off experiment, the crash threw up interesting results:
- Crash forensic investigation is highly accurate. The team managed to pinpoint extraordinary details about the crash, including a freak one in a million occurrence of one car careering under the lorry.
- Crumple zones work – despite a massive rear shunt from a white van, the Prius electric battery remained intact thanks to crumple zones. Others’ lives were saved by them.
- Air bags might not deploy depending on where the vehicle is hit, leading to disastrous consequences.
- Safety systems struggle with multiple impacts – crumple zones and airbags in the Dodge did little after the first or second impact.
- A panicked driver isn’t rational – despite coming to a stop safely, one of the drivers then accelerated into the lorry.
- High driving position enables earlier response to events ahead – as shown by the measured braking of the utility vehicle.
- The hard shoulder is a dangerous place to be – any drivers or passengers in the cars on our hard shoulder would most likely have lost their lives.
Pile Up – World’s Biggest Crash Test airs Sunday 15 June at 9pm on Channel 4.
(1) “In 2020, multi-vehicle collisions accounted for approximately 19% of all fatal road accidents in the UK, often described as pile ups.” “Crashes involving three or more vehicles are significant contributors to serious injuries and fatalities, comprising around one-fifth of all deaths on UK roads.”
(2) 2023-2024 figures. Every 17 minutes someone is killed or seriously injured on UK roads.
(3)
(4) “A 2022 survey found that approximately 45% of UK drivers admit to exceeding speed limits on motorways.” “Speeding is a factor in around 24% of fatal road crashes in the UK.”
(5) An estimated 24% of drivers killed on UK roads were not wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash.” “Failure to wear a seatbelt significantly increases the risk of fatal injury, and nearly a quarter of drivers who died in crashes were unrestrained.”
(6)
(7) Around 23% of 18–24-year-olds had crashed within six months of passing their test, and 28% had crashed by the time they were 21 years old.” “18% of newly qualified drivers were involved in at least one collision within a year of passing, with risk decreasing as experience is gained.”
(8) “65% of Killed or Seriously Injured (KSI) casualties from collisions involving younger car drivers were male.”
(9) “By 2022, nearly a quarter (25%) of all UK driving licence holders were aged 60 and over, with numbers rising steadily over the past decade.” “The number of drivers aged 70 and over in the UK has risen by two million in the last decade.”
