This is unsourced, purports to be from the current bomb cyclone.
I was a street medic for 15 years — this absolutely terrified me.
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Peter I send this to my grandchildren who have to drive on the dangerous roads we now have. It is terrifying!
Thanks (I guess!) ann
This happened over two years ago. It’s still incredible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUSxLYZtXx0
Just idiots driving way too fast for the conditions.
Happens all the time.
My thoughts exactly. Too many drivers lack the necessary skills and intelligence to be allowed on the roads (although I AM surprised that some of the supposedly professional truck drivers were among the fastest)
And why didn’t any of the “victims” try to go back down the road and warn oncoming traffic? They could have done so safely. Same for the morons who filmed it—-they could have driven a quarter mule down the road and signaled drivers to slow down—-that would have been a true “help”.
Mocking and blame laying is shamefully unbecoming.
Just as well no-one is mocking than isn’t it.
It is however simply a self-evident fact that the drivers were going way too fast for the conditions. That’s why they crashed. The most basic rule of driving in snow and fog is you ‘drive on what you can see’.
They didn’t – they crashed – they are to blame – no-one else.
I spent 30 winters driving in the Highlands of Scotland – I know what I’m talking about.
Truck drivers are told if it’s not on time you’ve lost your job/contract.
As for going back down the road – unless you have high vis gear (orange for snow), appropriate cold weather clothing, a high intensity lamp and can tell someone else where you will be then you are just another casualty.
The preparedness kit should be in your vehicle but how many do you know actually carry such kit
I appreciate where you are coming from re the pressure truck drivers are under but from over the pond it seems that the US as a society is prepared to accept that in return for cheaper ‘stuff’.
History shows that the only way to combat the imposition of dangerous management systems by corporations is mass resistance in some form.
Unfortunately history also shows that the resisters usually end up eating rats to survive.
I don’t know what the answer is – and I’ve been looking for 60 odd years now.
But technically it’s a separate issue anyway. It wasn’t the immediate reason and the law of averages would suggest that there were also plenty of drivers who were under no real time pressure at all. Probably the majority.
Re your other valid point – I always kept a spade (better than a shovel), a bag of salted grit and a ‘Dooney’ (feather quilt?) in the boot (trunk).
Everyone does – except a few idiots. I didn’t have a hi-vis right enough. It was more about self-preservation rather than shining knight.
It’s an old one. In was in Michigan 2015. The message is the same.
Search indicates this is Jan 2015, 193 car pile-up, I-94 Michigan.
Good find, Harry and Gary. It turns out that this pileup was a far bigger deal than it appeared from the video clip—it involved both east and westbound lanes, extended for 1/4+ mile, involved fire, explosions, and toxic chemicals, and took two days to clean up. Some relevant quotes from other “hits”:
“State Police said late Friday that 193 vehicles were involved in the wreck: In the eastbound lanes, 26 semi trucks and 34 cars crashed; westbound, 50 semis and 83 semis crashed”.
“One person was killed and 22 injured in two accidents on I-94 in Kalamazoo County Friday”.
“Two firefighters were hurt when a load of fireworks exploded on one of the wrecked trucks, which caught fire. A wrecker driver also was injured at the scene”.
“It took investigators over a month to go through all the reports and pictures from the scene. They ultimately determined that although the weather conditions were a factor in the pile-up, driver error was primarily to blame. Sixty-three people received tickets for driving too fast for conditions”.
To RC—-I am not “mocking” the incompetents—-I am disparaging them, and yes, blaming them for the deaths, injuries, and inconvenience suffered by so many that day. Do you understand “Sixty-three people received tickets for driving too fast for conditions”?. I live in the Washington DC metro area, which, along with LA and Atlanta, has the worst traffic (and the worst drivers) in the nation. I have more than once been driving on I-66 and the Beltway (I-495) in winter conditions and had people spin out in front of me, behind me, and alongside me for no reason other than they don’t know what they’re doing.
Many in my area would like to see the incompetents given beatings by the side of the road when they cause accidents. (The only accident I’ve been involved in during the last 45 years was when I was sideswiped by someone texting while driving).
To ShwaD—-you’re right, in that this thing was too big for anyone to ameliorate with some arm-waving, but truck drivers piloting 80,000 pound missiles on wheels shouldn’t be gambling their own and others’ lives.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sot6mEUhWt0?rel=0&w=560&h=315%5D
One more…
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUZvc3MFU50?rel=0&w=560&h=315%5D
Wonder if he still thinks /is going to claim its a Chinese hoax?
Yes indeed it is truly terrifying, yes the drivers are going far too fast, the video doesn’t give a location, I guess the drivers haven’t met Arctic conditions before in that location and are imperfect and human flaws. This is global weirding – is the solution to robotize driving, let computers handle it ? Come on people we have to change too, just like the climate has to because of the greenhouse gases we have placed in our thin and vulnerable atmosphere. I have just read that temperatures are likely to reach extremes in the Arabian gulf’s summers in the not to distant future. Temperatures that humans cannot naturally exist in. What do you think will happen ? how will people react. ? Let us start and really accept the pickle we are in, because today we are nowhere near that.
According to an international urban planning expert, the GCC region will see temperatures rising to 60 degrees during summer very soon if the problem of global climate change and urban planning is not properly tackled by the governments in the region and the residents will have to migrate to other parts of the world.
“Climate change is having its impact in the Gulf. There is a significant evidence to suggest that very soon we’re going to be dealing with temperature experiences that push this area beyond the habitable zone. In the other words, it will be so hot in this region in summer that the humans will have difficulty to survive.”
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/local/hot-topic-how-climate-change-is-impacting-the-uae-and-gulf
GCC = ??? please?
Forget the Gulf. Temperatures in AUS hit ~43 C (117 F) and asphalt is melting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/07/world/australia/heat-wave.html
Yep. Hume highway.
Oh & its forecast to be 38 degrees Celsius (100 F) tomorrow & I’m working outside.
Plus other Aussie climate news :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-10/annual-climate-statement-2017-third-hottest-year-on-record/9314364
Third hottest year on record for _*Australia*_ = 2017, hottest = 2013, 2nd =2005, 4th = 2014, 5th = 2016, 6th = 1998, 7th = 2015, 8th = 2009, 9th = 1998, 10th = ???? (Not on the table @ the Bueau site sadly.) A certain pattern is pretty undeniable isn’t it? Well, really, although sadly so many keep trying todo just that.
(Arabian) Gulf Cooperation Council
Thanks. 🙂
This is also a metaphor for climate change, by the fossil fuel industry polluting faster than it wants to see in front of it.