Sunday January 20, 2008

The vehicles lined up one after another, a seemingly endless stretch of bent metal and flashing lights.

All along Highway 400 Sunday afternoon crashes mounted in a horrific chain of events that forced closures in both directions for hours and left an astounding total of more than 100 vechiles damaged in its wake.

Most of the carnage occurred between Highway 9 near Newmarket and Highway 89 at Cookstown.

The pile up is mainly being blamed on winter whiteout conditions, that left drivers blinded and resulted in a 100+ car pile up along Highway 400.

There were no life threatening injures reported but more than 50 people were taken to nearby hospitals.

I am pretty sure that speed was only one of the factors. I see this terrible trend on the road, as winter comes people drive even more agressive! I'd say speed coupled with following too closely, inability to handle a car in the winter, inadequate tires!!!, poor brakes, lack of ABS, lack of skill to avoid the crash (you can spin the car around great many obstacles), and lack of common sense to a. slow down b. stay further back. Please drive safe on our icy winter roads!

Not necessarily speed was the cause in any pileups.

Easy one here to figure out......Driver's failing to adjust their driving habits for the weather conditions.

Driving Habits - slowing down, following distance, driving the vehicle beyond your capability, driving faster than one can clearly see a safe distance to stop

I see this all the time..and hear the whining...but the road was icy....well the other 200 motorists going past us are not in the ditch....nice little check box on the accident report "speed too fast for conditions" is checked!

hwybear wrote:Not necessarily speed was the cause in any pileups.

Easy one here to figure out......Driver's failing to adjust their driving habits for the weather conditions.

Driving Habits - slowing down, following distance, driving the vehicle beyond your capability, driving faster than one can clearly see a safe distance to stop

I see this all the time..and hear the whining...but the road was icy....well the other 200 motorists going past us are not in the ditch....nice little check box on the accident report "speed too fast for conditions" is checked!