[GT182]

It happened this morning at about 6:30am.

This is the worst accident I've ever seen. At least 6 dead and 65 or more injured. What a freekin mess due to ice. People just don't slow down. Not even the cops on their way to work that were in it.

Video: https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/to...?ocid=msedgntp

Writeup: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/te...?ocid=msedgntp

I just hope no one here from the forums was involved.

[The Champ]

People that don't know how to drive on slippery surfaces, shouldn't. Getting 100's (1,000's?) of people that don't know how to drive in adverse conditions simultaneously is a recipe for disaster, as evidenced by what happened in Fort Worth.

[1965gp]

If you’ve ever driven in that area those roads freeze over very quickly. If you aren’t paying attention you can go for a slide very easily

[455Grandville]

You gotta slow down and take it easy. These people on the highways refuse to be inconvenienced.
I’m in a rural area with many turns and steep hills, if you don’t slow down in these parts you’re going to go over the side.

[GT182]

I was out west of Ft. Worth back in the 80s on black ice. The ex and I were on our way to deliver in El Paso. We stopped at a TSA west of Ft. Worth because of the ice. The waitress for our table asked where we'd come from as there were no trucks other than the one I was driving, and a couple of other customers inside. I told her we'd just pulled in from I-20. She said the road is close and we shouldn't even be there. I laughed and said there wasn't a thing that said 20 was closed from east of Ft. Worth to here. We ate and left, and 5 miles west we ran out of it.

I just ran slow and careful and had no problems. Even ran with the right side wheels running on the shoulder so there was traction from all the crap on the shoulder of the road. And the best was, there was no other traffic either way. I've driven on far worse than black ice up in Northern NY and New England.. You just have to use your head and stay slow because there's not always a place to get off the highway. And stopping on the shoulder could get you into more trouble than keeping moving. I've seen that too.

[1965gp]

I know it’s much worse up north from when I lived in Bradford, PA; but in TX we don’t salt or prepare roads at all. When it happens you just buy all the beer, salsa and tortilla chips you can find.

It’s raining in NW Houston now and it’s mid 30’s. Supposed to go down to the teens by Monday. I sill be loading up on Whataburger salsa, beer, chips and meat.

[Stuart]

I was once #2 in a 25 car pileup due to black ice - one moment the freeway was perfectly dry, the next moment the car in front of me started doing a pirouette and I clobbered him. We pulled over to the side to exchange information, and more and more cars started crashing in, so all we could do was stand there and watch. When it was all over, I was one of the few who could drive away - I had a '71 Catalina at the time, that thing was like a battleship and only suffered a few minor dents.

[dataway]

I think roads down south ice up different than the roads in the north due to the differences in the road beds. Up north the road beds are typically deeper to resist frost damage and either change temp faster or slower, not sure which. Probably not many salt trucks in TX either.

When I saw it I couldn't help but think about back in the 70's early 80's when CB radios were big, people would have heard about the pile up miles in advance.

[The Champ]

Originally Posted by 1965gp

If you’ve ever driven in that area those roads freeze over very quickly. If you aren’t paying attention you can go for a slide very easily

Roads freeze over at the same speed all over - strictly based on the combination of snow/sleet/rain and temperature.

Failure to understand that is on the operator, not on the region.

Failure to understand the limitations of what snow/sleet/rain does to the road surface is on the operator.

I understand that accidents do happen.

After my wife got her driver's license in 1978 (a number of years after we were married) the first snow storm that winter I took her out to a deserted parking lot and made her attempt to turn the car while hitting the brakes hard (pre anti lock brakes) so she could see and feel what happens when it's slippery out.

That first winter, she had a 15 mile commute to her job in Tyson's Corner, VA. She made it in to work on time every day without a problem. Even on days when many coworkers didn't even bother trying to come to work.

Her car - a 1971 Camaro with bias ply regular tires.

My training program apparently worked.

[Mr Anonymous]

I saw some FB video of it that probably shouldnt be out there. Watching it happen at speed, knowing people were dying, was pretty rough. My heart goes out to them.

Seeing semis drive over cars is damn awful.

[Mr Anonymous]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0_1EV1GXMw

[TAKerry]

I was on the NE extension (PA) coming home from a nice weekend in the Poconos. It was just above freezing and raining. Went over the next hill and with ever so slight change in elevation the road was freezing. We were cruising along pretty good and all of the sudden I felt the car start to slide and the warning lights came. Dropped to about 20 and hit the flashers, and got off at the next exit which was about 5 miles. Along the way there were half a dozen cars that had slid off the road but no 'real' accidents. We thought we would be smart but Perkins was full of everyone doing the same. By the time the 2 hr breakfast was over the temps had gone up enough that the road was safe.

BUT, boy was it scary when we first started to slide, it came out of nowhere and was a complete surprise.

[ftwmlp]

The accident happened in an elevated section of the highway, in the toll lanes that were constructed a few years back to allow a smoother "pass thru" of southbound Interstate 35W traffic. It was just north of the route I took for many years heading into downtown FTW when still working. As one poster said, the videos are horrific.

Local paper reports this morning that the lanes were properly treated for ice in the hours before this happened, but it was obvious from the videos most of the semi's had no braking ability as they bore down on the building carnage in front of them.

Prayers to all involved and hope we don't see a repeat in the days coming as our weather gets worse (by our standards).

Mike Pearson

[ponyakr]

Probably like most big cities, those freeways in the D/FW area are dangerous enuff in good dry weather.

I'll never forget when back in 1978 TJ & I were going to the bracket finals race at Green Valley. We had a 1-ton dually truck with a crude homemade hauler bed, pulling a homemade trailer with mobile home axles & no brakes. Had TJ's '68 Bird on the truck, & my '69 GTO on the trailer.

IIRC, the stretch of road we were on at the time had at least 6 lanes, or more. I was staying in the far right lane, trying to stay away from the faster moving traffic in the other lanes. We were going between 70 & 75 mph, & traffic in the other lanes were buzzing past us.

Then, out of nowhere, there was a sign in our lane that said "Lane Ends Merge Left". RIGHT! How are you supposed to do that, especially in the rig we were in. And to make things worse, there was a car STOPPED in front of us, because they had got caught in that lane & had not found an opening in traffic to allow a merge. Yep, we had an emergency situation.

In the natural world, there is no possible way I could have stopped that rig, at that speed, within that distance. It was just physically impossible. BUT, we had some serious supernatural help ! We stopped, dead still, within what seemed like only inches to spare. The car in front was still at a stop. I figure the driver never even knew how close they came to being rear ended & probably knocked out into the fast moving traffic.

It took quite a while before the car was able to get back in traffic. Then it took another longer while before there was enuff of an opening for us to get back in. I put the flashers on & got back up to 70 mph as quickly as possible, which wasn't very quick.

It was enuff of a supernatural event in our lives that we have never, & probably will never forget it. We did finally make it to the track. But there were so many cars, & we had to wait in line so long to get a time trail that we decided to go back to Tyler & run Sat night. Was a good decision. We got winner & R/U. And, the traffic in the Tyler area was light & easy to navigate.

Never been close to one of those big pile-ups, & hope we never are. I hate going to a city any bigger than Monroe, LA. Most who live in big cities would consider Monroe a small rural town, I suppose. Hope I never have to go to a big city again. I'm just a country bumpkin, & will try to STAY in the country, as much as possible.

[Chris65LeMans]

The picture in that NBC article that's linked in the OP shows the pileup on a bridge - which would pretty much be an ice factory.

I think that all the electronic nannies in cars today have made people more aggressive. They haven't learned yet that stability control can't override the laws of physics.

I was driving back from Las Vegas last month in my 6,000 pound Yukon. That thing is so big and heavy, I try not to drive it over 80 - but traffic was going 90. (The semi trucks were going 80). Driving along at 90, I had to regularly move right to let faster traffic by: and minivans full of kids were whipping past.

[mgarblik]

I have had one black ice incident in a Pontiac. It was around Christmas in the late 1980's. I was driving my 66 421 HO 9 passenger wagon with my family and all the Christmas stuff on the way to my inlaws house for Christmas. The wagon was recently "restored" but still my daily driver. We were on Ohio St Route 7 which winds along the Ohio river and takes us to a bridge that goes to Weirton, WV, where they lived. Weather was lousy, mixed precipitation on I70 to Stubenville, OH where Route 7 intersects. No issues other than taking it easy until driving on route 7 near Brilliant, OH. All of a sudden, I could see semi's swerving and having trouble bringing the trailer back straight. A mile or so later I saw one leave the roadway at a fairly low speed and grind to a halt on the guardrail. Then more and more swerving and leaving the road along with cars, running way to close getting collected by the trucks. We were down to 20 MPH and then stopped on a gentle hill. I could feel the big wagon beginning to slide backwards from a dead stop on the road. I was able to pump the brakes and steer enough to get the beast off the road and into the grass. Over the next hour we sat there watching crash after crash on that area of black ice. Finally, The State Police closed the road and 2 fully loaded salt trucks went to work on the area. We were stuck about 6 hours but no damage to our car fortunately. Pretty scary stuff, no cell phones.

[dataway]

They are very, very lucky fire did not breakout among the wrecked vehicles. One tanker truck, or propane truck, or chemical truck and it could have been way way worse.

[David Jones]

Apparently, even those winter weather driving experts in Minnesota can have a wreck......

https://www.fox9.com/news/towing-com...vehicle-pileup

[GT182]

The best way to stop on icy and snow covered roads is to put the transmission in neutral. That cancels the driving power of either front or rear wheel drive. Just don't jam on the brakes..... just tap them as many times as you want and you will stop safely. I've done it that way for years and it's kept me from hitting many things, and going off the road too. It works for 4wd too. Taught to me by a driving instructor but not in his class room, and my grandfather. I thought they were both full of BS, but I was wrong.

Do it in a parking lot to practice so you know the results there instead of out on the roads first.

[bird72]

I saw it snow a couple inches once in El Paso. Between nobody having winter grade tires, and most not having winter driving experience, there were cars slid off the road everywhere. In Montana, you learn to winter drive or move somewhere else. The problem IMO, for inexperienced ice drivers, is the ability to get up to high speeds and keep a straight line on ice, coupled with little to no ability to brake. Fine until braking needed. I shouldn't admit, but I have went 80 on ice. That is not the problem.