I was driving a van along the M4 with about 2 tonnes of marketing material in the back.
When I came across two lanes of standing traffic, and tried the brakes, they didn't really work.

I swerved into the outside lane, just in front of another car, missing the stationary car in the middle lane by inches. Had I hit it, the van would have stopped (or slowed down significantly), I would have stopped, and the two tonnes of leaflets in the back of the van would probably have kept going. I would have been crushed to death by junk mail.

I was not crushed to death by junk mail. And so 160,000 leaflets were dropped through people's doorways, annoying a small percentage of the population. Hurrah!

After the incident, I pulled over to the inside lane, and slowed to about 30mph for a while, and tried to remember how to breathe. I will never load a van with twice the recommended weight again. I will never drive an overloaded van at 80mph on slightly damp roads again.
(sabre-tooth monkey, Thu 19 Aug 2010, 13:43, Reply)