125 car Pile-up Kills 10 in Georgia

CNN ^ | CNN

[DJ88]

*GRINS* ....OK, I won't get you started.

but..I do have a bumper sticker on the back of my SUV that says, "My TRUCK can beat up YOUR car"....just kidding *grins*

[George from New England]

One car length for every 10 miles per hour.

Anybody use this anymore?

I know that fog makes everything worse but notice that under good driving conditions, almost nobody on the interstates keeps safe distances. I would say 90% of the traffic at 60 mph keeps 2 to 3 car lengths between them and the car in front. I can't drive that way. On the single lane highways, when I have a tailgater behind me that endangers my family I will pump the brakes to light the brake lights. If that doesn't make them pull back I just slow down until they pass.

Too many people think they'll live forever. We need more God-fearing people.

[oyez]

. Maybe you should wrap yourself in cotton and hide in the closet. You will be very safe there!

I don't think so. The cats will find me, scratch off the cotton and pee on me.

I'm sorry you didn't see thrugh my sarcasm. I drive a Suburban, only its a 2-wheel drive. I just find it ironic that these 4-wheelers think they have the solution to all road situations.

[oyez]

I think every one knows how to drive, they just have a problem applying what they know. All you have to do is be a pasenger in their car and they well tell you what everyone else is doing wrong. Most people drive distracted. They are on cell phones, eating, smoking, preening or focusing on some matter at home or at work.

[LTCJ]

I've seen it so bad you couldn't see the outside of your own windshield.

I don't doubt it.

About ten years ago, my brother-in-law and a couple of friends where on a multilane highway in the Smokies at night and ran into such a fog(cloud). They finally sent one guy out to try and guide them on foot to the side of the road but he couldn't find the center or side lines on his hands and knees right in front of the headlights. They finally gave up because the fog was too thick for him to move beyond touch distance of the car without risk of him getting lost.

They spent a longgggg night in the car waiting for the sun to burn it off.

[Techster]

Latest info is that 5 were killed with about 125 vehicles involved. Many were 18 wheel trucks. There appears to have been crashes in north and south lanes, but mostly in north bound side. Forty or so person were transported to hospitals and a few are in critical condition.

South bound lanes are now open, but north bound lanes are not expected to open before midnight. For those familiar with the Interstate in this area, the accident was between the Ringgold/Lafayette and Ringgold/Fort Oglethrope exits.

[babaloo999]

After the last couple of snow/ice storms, I noticed that the vehicles in the ditches and medians were the 4X4 kind. Maybe the enviros are right. We need to get these things off the roads.

Last sentence is BS, but you know the saying, "it's four wheel drive, not four wheel stop"

[MickMan51]

Latest info is that 5 were killed with about 125 vehicles involved. Many were 18 wheel trucks.

These 18-wheelers share a lot of the blame, I think. Driving I-40 last Sunday, some trucker who was drunk or stoned or both, I'm sure, ran two cars of the road and crashed into another truck, rolled his truck, and killed himself. Shut down the freeway for hours. Once we got back on the highway, we had to really watch our @$$ 360 degrees 'cause these rigs drive like maniacs, and us in a Honda Prelude.

Last Friday or Saturday, also on I-40, a 15-car/truck/van/schoolbus pileup/fire killed SEVEN. They are still trying to identify several of them. A school bus driver drove over a car and didn't even know it. Cause was smoke from a brush fire.

Bottom line -- stay alert, stay very alert, and always be prepared to take evasive action.

[Bella_Bru]

Some reports say that in heavy fog situations, the brain gets a little confused and you begin to perceive that you are moving slower than you actually are. Up in Sacramento, CHP has started running "pacers" on the freeways during heavy fog.

[WVNan]

I think Afton Mountain in Va. (I-64) holds the record for multiple car pileups in fog. It's so bad they finally embedded lights into the roadbed. No matter, I still wouldn't drive over that mountain in the fog.

[oyez]

True, I was being flip. Did you hear about the new Ford Excuse? The only good thing you can say about it that it gets 48 miles per gallon?

[stainlessbanner]

people who own these huge SUV's are the ones who seem to think they are invincible on the road

You SUV's really don't do all that stuff they show on TV commercials?

[SocialistSuk]

Lots of room like a truck, but sits lower to the ground, and drives and feels more like a car than a truck.

Isn't that an El Camino....:)

[LenS]

Dateline did a report on this effect. In the fog, the brain loses it's sense of speed. The driver actually believes that he is slowing down when he drives through fog. To counter that perception, the driver speeds up, mistakenly believing that they are either slowing down or just maintaining their prior speed.

[Dan Day]

and WHAM! I could NOT SEE ANYTHING...it was raining SO HARD that you could not see 3" in front of you, you couldn't see tailights, nothing.

My worst driving story was when I was caught in a huge snowstorm while trying to drive back to college (after visiting my folks) through the farmland of Ohio/Indiana.

Flat, flat, *flat* land, no crops (it was winter, after all), and enough snow to make the entire world turn into one gigantic white plain. Road, what road? The only way I could remain on the highway was to keep a constant distance between my car and the line of telephone poles that were running alongside the road. And each time the telephone poles curved away to the right, I had to assume (and pray) that the road actually did likewise.

Visibility due to the falling snow was only a few hundred yards, tops, so using distant landmarks to confirm the path of the road was impossible as well. So three cars on the road (including myself) clustered together for safety and without being able to communicate, we nonetheless ended up "taking turns" being the lead car forging a new path in the smooth snow, allowing the other drivers to relax a bit and play follow-the-leader, letting them take a break from the nerve-wracking game of "where in the hell is the road and am I about to drive off it?" At least if the lead car caromed into a snow-filled ditch, the cars behind would see it and be able to avoid the same fate.

Just pull over, you say? *Where?* This is midwest farmland -- outside of the far-and-few-between towns, it's mile upon mile of empty fields. And just pulling over and parking at the side of the road was not an option. People freeze to death that way. And this was long before cell phones.

We finally crawled back home *hours* later.

[Dan Day]

Living in GA, the drivers I'm most afraid of are the ones from up north who are driving in the snow. The problem is they are used to driving on roads that have been properly plowed and salted. Since it only snows a couple of times a year in GA, pretty much nothing is done to clear the roads when it snows. They see a light snow and think "that shouldn't be a big deal", but it is.

That's nothing.

You should see what happens when a more tropical location gets its first snowfall (or worse, ice storm) in a DECADE or more.

The last time Houston had icy conditions (about ten years ago now) there were *thousands* of accidents, as idiots drove right up to stop signs or traffic lights before thinking, as usual, "time to step on the brake now". It was like watching bumper cars at the amusement park, all over town. Most people had *never* experienced what it's like to be at the wheel of a car that seems to be mounted on ice skates. They had *no* clue.

Meanwhile, I had learned to drive in Ohio in February, and I had no problem whatsoever. But I quickly learned to get the hell off the streets lest I get hit by any of the million-plus drivers who didn't know what they were doing.

[DCPatriot]

"There was a 100 car pile-up in PA not too long ago..."

I was affected by it. Had to get off I-90 at one of the Erie exits to reach I-79 South. It sucked BIG TIME!

[Dan Day]

What's the fascination with these things that suck up gas, and normally have one passenger who never takes it off the road?

Mainly, because they can carry a buttload of cargo.

My wife and I got sick and tired of driving cars that couldn't fit more than four bags of groceries into the trunk, and having to borrow a friend's truck whenever we made a trip to the home repair store to buy a load of [whatever], or a bunch of plants for the garden, etc.

Now friends borrow *our* vehicle when they need to haul stuff. :-)

SUVs are more practical than pickup trucks, overall.

Plus, while we don't technically drive "off road", we still enjoy being able to drive on less than car-friendly terrain sometimes. My wife was helping a friend work on his paintball field, and it was nice having a vehicle that wouldn't puncture an oilpan if you took it here and there around the field. We don't do that sort of thing often, but having the option is great.

Additionally, Houston sometimes gets torrential rains, and since it's a flat city the roads fill up with water pretty quickly. We can drive the SUV through mini-floods that a low-slung car would have real trouble with.

Finally, our last "practical" vehicle (a hybrid mini-van, almost like a supersized station wagon, they don't make anything quite like that any more) was totalled when a woman ran a red light and broadsided the mini-van while my wife was driving it. The offending Buick's bumper basically ended up in my wife's lap. She was pretty much unhurt (actually, it instantly cured her chronic migraines, but that's another story), but she was literally about one inch from being very seriously injured or killed. Her glasses somehow ended up BEHIND the Buick that hit her. She knows that had she been driving anything smaller or less sturdy than the mini-van, she would *not* have been able to walk away from the accident. So when she went shopping for a replacement, one of the first requirements was, "bigger is better, higher is better, stronger is better".

[Aside: Here's the "nothing else quite like it" mini-van we lost in the accident -- it drove like a car, hauled like a truck, and had a *big* engine for its size:]