In May 1993, we'd all been away as a family - my mum & dad, me and my family and my brother and sister in law with their 2 kids - down to the West Country
We were in my dad's car and there was a protest by New Age Travellers which held us up for a few hours. It was dark and raining when we were doing the last stretch, up the M6 in Cheshire.
My dad was overtaking a car that suddenly pulled out in front of us. He slammed the brakes on and we went into a skid on the very wet surface. The next thing is that the car is hurtling towards the central reservation barrier and we're clearly going to hit it. I remember sitting in the front passenger seat thinking "That's it, I'm about to die". Fortunately we hit the barrier at a 45 degree angle rather than head-on, and we came to a stop in the outside lane.
My first thought was to put the hazard flashers on and I reached across to do that, with my seat belt still fastened. At that moment there was an almighty bang and the noise of metal being battered and a shower of glass, and the car was flung forward about 20 yards. Clearly someone had hit us and fortunately a number of cars stopped and put their hazard flashers on. We were amazingly all still in one piece and not trapped, so people helped us out, to the hard shoulder while the traffic was stopped. It turned out later that one of my colleagues was in the queue of cars.
I remember that I went down to see the car that hit us and the woman driver was trapped and clearly in a bad way. Fortunately for us, she caught us on the rear wing/boot corner, which dissipated the force of the collision. She'd hit us head on though, so she got by far the worst of it.
Emergency services arrived and we were sat in an ambulance where we were checked. I had chest pains but that was only cracked ribs, from the seat belt. Had I unfastened my belt before the second collision then there's no doubt I'd have been killed. There was another ambulance for her and the one we were in wouldn't leave until that one was also ready. Fortunately none of us were badly injured but we were shocked, battered and bruised. My daughter was two at the time and said her bottom hurt. They took her nappy off and it was full of glass fragments.
I vividly remember one of the Fire crew who were trying to free the other driver talking to the paramedic in charge and one of them saying that it looked like they were going to have to amputate her legs to get her out. I felt sick hearing that but fortunately they didn't need to do that.
After a few days the police took statements and told us she was in a bad way, and that they wouldn't be prosecuting her because of that. The traffic policeman also said he was amazed we all walked away, as he was expecting to find 5 dead bodies.
The child seat my daughter (who was nearest the point of impact) was sat in was concertined but fortunately it was polystyrene rather than metal. Had it been metal, she'd have been crushed to death. She's now unsurprisingly paranoid about her own kids' safety in the car, and I had to return two child seats I'd bought for my car before she was happy.
Very scary and we're all very lucky to be alive. I'm still very nervous about driving on the motorway when it's dark and wet.