01/04/2014 BBC Points West

Good evening. A survivor of a huge That's all from us.

Good evening. A survivor of a huge crash on the M5 has been telling an

inquest how it was impossible to see anything on the night it happened.

Emma Burbull was orphaned in the accident in 2011. She says ht was

"like someone had put a plastic bag around you". Our reporter Scott

Ellis was at the inquest today. It was a night when 34 vehicles

crashed in just 69 seconds. Part of the police evidence given at the

inquest today in Taunton. The coroner was told of a bank of fog so

thick it left one stricken driver wondering, where the hell h`s the

motorway gone? The descripthons are very consistent. Like having woken

in the morning after it snowed, sit in the car they can't see anything.

Or emulsion is thrown over the car or blankets thrown over The coroner

is very keen to explore if the fog is natural or man`made. We've heard

from one eyewitness who says they smelt gunpowder, a referencd to the

nearby fireworks display. Btt in all the accounts today, there w`s no

reference at all to any detdction of the smell of smoke. Although the car

drivers did say it was fog like they've never seen it beford. Such

detail is important for the bereaved families attending the inqudst and

crash survivors were here to give evidence. I think there needs to be

a conclusion. Some sort of understandable explanation of what

happened to all those peopld that were involved in the accident. One

driver told the inquest he was hit three times in five seconds. It was,

he said, like his lorry had been picked up and shaken. So thhck was

the fog, nobody had time to brake. Witnesses told the inquest they

heard no squealing of brakes, just the constant flood of crashhng

vehicles. Thousands of people have johned

their company pension schemd today, without signing a thing. It's a

Government programme called "automatic enrolment", aimed at

getting more people to save for retirement. Our business

correspondent Dave Harvey h`s been to Cheltenham, to meet workdrs who

know all about it. Every day and many nights, Helen

cares for people in their l`ter years at this Cheltenham residential

home. But only recently has Helen started thinking about paying for

her own retirement. I haven't always worked full`time. I've workdd

part`time. But you don't thhnk of a pension. I was married and H was

just relying on my husband's pension. Helen hasn't actually made

a decision. The Government has signed her up for a pension

automatically. She can opt out if she wants but if she does nothing,

her pension pots will just start growing. The same reasons wd never

quite got round to starting to save in the first place ` that it's all

just a bit complicated and we don't want to think about it ` will

hopefully mean that once we're put in a pension, we'll stay thdre. They

can harness that inertia, ptt people in the right place, they'll stay

there and start saving for retirement. Your employer is going

to contribute towards it. The taxman is going to give you some of it as

well. Like many, the care home has brought in pension experts to deal

with the tricky questions. Ht's complicated, it's costly and not

everyone is playing the gamd. Something like 48% of companies

haven't actually got a penshon scheme at the moment. And a good

number of them are saying that, if at all possible, they would avoid

it. Today, Helen's pay will only drop by 1% but over the next four

years, pension payments will rise. And Helen thinks many peopld could

put more in right away. I mdan, if 1% is ?13, a lot of people could

afford to put 5%. And then hf they match it, your fund would gdt larger

more quickly. Wouldn't it? And as part of our series looking at

growing older here on BBC Points West, we're looking at diffdrent

ways of funding your retirelent Tomorrow we're focusing on

alternatives to a tradition`l pension, such as property

investment. People in a village near Bath are

calling for the police to intervene after their quiet country l`nes have

been turned into commuter r`t runs. Upton Cheney is popular with horse

riders ` but many say they won't go out after a horse was hit bx a car

last week. Michelle Ruminskh reports.

I saw this car approaching le from a distance. I could see that ht was

going far too fast and I thought I was in trouble. We can only show a

small section of this picture. The car that hit this horse smashed its

lower legs. 71`year`old jockey Grant Cann was thrown from its back, then

crushed underneath. We had to put it down. But it took an hour and a half

before it could be shot. So it had terrific suffering. A landslip means

the main route from Bitton to Bath is closed for months to comd. And

the quiet village of Upton Cheney is a convenient short cut for hundreds

of delayed drivers racing to get to work. Even if they're not speeding,

they need to be aware that hf they're only driving 30 milds an

hour, if they need to stop suddenly, they will slide an awful long way.

People ride on the lanes evdry day here. Now some say they're keeping

their horses at home. Prettx much every time you go out, you get a

near miss with a car. And it's not cars that we recognise ` it's people

that aren't used to driving through the lanes. South Gloucestershire

Council is reducing the limhts here to 20 mph. Locals hope it whll rein

in the drivers and make lifd safer for the horses ` and their riders,

too. More news on the BBC websitd and

we're back tomorrow in BBC Breakfast. But now the weather

picture and Ian is here. The key difference tomorrow compared

to today will be a greater threat of showers. Western areas will see the

bulk of those. There will bd some drier and brighter interludds and

where we have those, it will be mild and warm. A few showers starting to

develop as the night wears on and they lay open the story into

tomorrow with some heavy showers already by the start of the morning,

some with a rumble of thunddr. We continue this process throughout the

rest of the day. The bulk are out towards the West but some at times

will get into parts of Wiltshire and East Gloucestershire, albeit less

generally and perhaps the bdst of the brighter spells there.

Temperatures getting up into the mid teens, about 14 to 16. As wd look

beyond that, there could be some possibly thundery rain pushhng

northwards during the first half of Thursday. A better day generally on

Friday and then we start to get into an unsettled, if fresh weekdnd.

Particularly wet on Sunday `nd rather windy.

the afternoon. The outlook, rather cloudy with some rain on Thursday.

Good evening. Before we get to the weather details,