One Of Them "No! No! No!" Moments...
 

Driving down M4 near between Cardiff & Bridgend last night around 22:00, really chucking down with rain, really attrocious conditions. Nothing behind and only one car in front about 100m when all of a sudden he loses it and slams into the central reservation several times. I haul anchors and pull over to the hard shoulder just past the hapless soul in the middle. Traffic still not aware of hazard, thundering by so safer to stay in car and ring emergency. Just got through when someone didn't see the obstruction in the o/side lane until the last minute, clips it and loses control straight for the back of me! Operator got a load of swearwords, whilst I dropped the phone, looked ahead and braced for impact

It never came and I looked up to see the car pass the front of mine and stop on the hard-shoulder. Phew! Phew! Phew! Must've been very close though.

By this time traffic had slowed enough to run over with another chap who'd pulled over and rescue the shaken driver, who was fortunately uninjured and surounded in airbags. The passenger in the other car had banged her head but fortunately a doctor stopped and came to help.

Certainly makes you think when something like that happens. The car that had the original crash simply aquaplaned, lost control and there was probably nothing he could do about it. It certainly looked like the back end stepped out and just threw him at the barrier. I very much doubt that would have happened if his car was AWD and is one of the reasons I've had AWD cars for the last 25 years

If you suffer from aquaplaning you are simply going too fast. If your wheels aren't on the ground any longer (literally in this case), then no drive system will help.

Going to fast and possibly poor tyre tread depth. Usually its due to going to fast for the conditions... see some idiot in a BMW being cocky in bad rain and he literally just span out in rush hour traffic, lucky no one hit him!

Glad your car survived and all credit to you for stopping to help in the first place. In today's society there are far too many willing to just drive on by.

Perhaps if you find yourself in the situation again, you may reconsider the positioning of your vehicle. Maybe moving forward a hundred yards would have removed yourself from the equation. Whilst it's admirable to help, you don't really want to become another obstruction, or even worse, casualty.

This.

Not just the road, either... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JYLUL9MRyQ

It's obviously scary for the person who has just crashed, but almost every time I've seen someone who's crashed or broken down on the motorway, they've not had any hazard lights on. I can understand why they'd no have headlights on if they don't know how to do this once the engine has stalled, but no hazard lights is crazy.

RE: aquaplaning - although it's unfair to make judgement, I tend to agree with everyone else. Most problems are due to people doing too fast - simple as that.

Aquaplaning or the avoidance of it is why I change my tyres at 3mm tread depth. Even moderate speeds in standing water with less than 3mm can cause you problems and from experience I know the M4 can hold a lot of water.

Paul.

Three young guys in their early 20's were killed on the A38 last year, torrential rain, and high winds and under inflated tyres caused a loss of control.
Van was doing about 55mph.
See the flowers there every day, very sobering sight.

A guy I knew was killed because he stopped to help in a situation similar to the OP. Would I stop No. Its to dangerous and as the OP nearly found you can easily become part of it. Leave it to the people who are paid to do it.

Fair enough but if that guy had been seriously injured and by giving first aid, would have survived or if the car had burst into flames and he'd roasted, then I would not have forgiven myself because I could have done something to save him but didn't.

I'd stop again under the same circumstances though this time I'll have a florescent rainproof jacket in the car as I got utterly soaked standing by the side of the road.