158 car pileup in 'super fog'

[Rob S.]

7 dead...158 cars...

I really don't miss driving all that much!

[Grimly]

7 dead...158 cars...

I really don't miss driving all that much!

Something I saw happening years ago when I started driving. Asshats in fog driving at pretty much the same speed as they would in clear conditions.
"It'll never happen to me."

[earlfor]

158 idiots driving bumper to bumper, blind.

[Grimly]

158 idiots driving bumper to bumper, blind.

Each seemingly totally unaware of the hard brutal nature of cold physics, and how flimsy car structures are.

[dpep]

These incidents aren't necessarily the result of irresponsible driving. These are essentially fog traps. You can be moving along on a perfectly clear day and the the next instant you are in a dense fog with near zero visibility. There is a place along the Interstate up in Tennessee where the terrain features combined with the right weather conditions cause this to happen. I got caught in it one time and had to ride through a short stretch with extremely white knuckles. They now have a series of sensors and advance warning signs on that section

In this most recent case in Louisiana there were a bunch of marsh fires combined with normal heavy fog along a particular stretch of the Interstate.

Hitting one of these pockets is the most terrifying motorcycle riding scenario imaginable to me. Once you are in it there is no right answer. If you do not slow down you may run into the back of someone. if you slow down too much someone may run into the back of you. You would have to know what is in the minds of all the drivers both several cars ahead of you and several cars behind you at least. Pulling off to side? maybe plowing right into a vehicle the driver decided to pull off to the side there earlier. And if you are lucky enough to find the side and get parked there a later vehicle might try to do the same thing and plow into you. No right answer.

Only rarely but I have had nightmares of being back in that situation.

[trent]

My uncle worked as a paramedic in the 80's and 90's.

He said he worked two separate pile up wrecks from fog.

He said worse on was on I-74 in east central Illinois....

Even when it was all over with, fog lifted and all dead and injured were gone from the scene...... some wrecker operators had to get help dealing with what they had seen and these guys had been to stuff before but I guess the aftermath told a horrible story.

I was reading a story related to this that said studies have shown people actually speed up in fog......

Best thing to do in fog is find a way to get off the road and find a place to wait it out.

Month ago I was driving through small riverside town....hwy goes through it.

In the river bottoms there was heavy fog almost every morning.

But it was often patchy, hundred yard or so couldn't see but twenty feet of road.

Then it would be somewhat better for a while and back to heavy fog.

I got past the town and in an area that wasn't normally foggy, but this one morning it was.....on the hwy a garage I would pass had some bright outside lights...I could see the lights but not the building...heavy fog.

Few miles later....I pass it again...I'm thinking "that's weird thought I'd already passed that"

It kinda bothered me, cause I really do think I went by it twice.

Any way I get to next town and notice banks clock , and its five minutes behind my trucks clock...? The day before they were the same....
I look at my phone, it's the same as the banks clock...they were all sync up day before.....
something strange happened in that fog.

[argonsagas]

These incidents aren't necessarily the result of irresponsible driving. These are essentially fog traps. You can be moving along on a perfectly clear day and the the next instant you are in a dense fog with near zero visibility. There is a place along the Interstate up in Tennessee where the terrain features combined with the right weather conditions cause this to happen. I got caught in it one time and had to ride through a short stretch with extremely white knuckles. They now have a series of sensors and advance warning signs on that section

In this most recent case in Louisiana there were a bunch of marsh fires combined with normal heavy fog along a particular stretch of the Interstate.

Hitting one of these pockets is the most terrifying motorcycle riding scenario imaginable to me. Once you are in it there is no right answer. If you do not slow down you may run into the back of someone. if you slow down too much someone may run into the back of you. You would have to know what is in the minds of all the drivers both several cars ahead of you and several cars behind you at least. Pulling off to side? maybe plowing right into a vehicle the driver decided to pull off to the side there earlier. And if you are lucky enough to find the side and get parked there a later vehicle might try to do the same thing and plow into you. No right answer.

Only rarely but I have had nightmares of being back in that situation.

I have had identical feelings when riding in sudden downpours of rain..

It is not just the rain itself, but tires from other vehicles toss up smaller droplets and they mix with the falling ones.
While this does not exactly simulate the conditions of fog, visibility is highly compromised .
.
n city traffic it is not so bad, but is troubling when it happens on major highways as you are already moving at high speed and so is everyone else, but no one has the ability to see very well or very far ahead..

[dpep]

In city traffic it is not so bad, but is troubling when it happens on major highways as you are already moving at high speed and so is everyone else, but no one has the ability to see very well or very far ahead..

Has happened to me more than once but the time that has stayed with me to this day is one several years ago riding south on I-95 in South Carolina hitting a sudden storm with horizontal rain so heavy I could not see the road directly in front of my bike and the wind gusts trying to blow me off one side and then the other. I was able to make out the image of a semi-trailer ahead of me and pulled into the draft pocket directly behind it where I was shielded from the worst of the wind and water.

Of course if the truck had to slam on its brakes for any reason t would most certainly have plowed into it. I remember thinking to myself at the time that here I was riding along at 70 mph on wet pavement a few feet from the back end of a semi because it was the safest option available to me. It was one of those rare times in my life that it might have crossed my mind that maybe I might need to reconsider this motorcycle thing.

Fortunately the truck didn't stop but the rain eventually did and by the time I got back to Florida my two wheel passion and supporting denialism had fully restored.

[earlfor]

Has happened to me more than once but the time that has stayed with me to this day is one several years ago riding south on I-95 in South Carolina hitting a sudden storm with horizontal rain so heavy I could not see the road directly in front of my bike and the wind gusts trying to blow me off one side and then the other. I was able to make out the image of a semi-trailer ahead of me and pulled into the draft pocket directly behind it where I was shielded from the worst of the wind and water.

Of course if the truck had to slam on its brakes for any reason t would most certainly have plowed into it. I remember thinking to myself at the time that here I was riding along at 70 mph on wet pavement a few feet from the back end of a semi because it was the safest option available to me. It was one of those rare times in my life that it might have crossed my mind that maybe I might need to reconsider this motorcycle thing.

Fortunately the truck didn't stop but the rain eventually did and by the time I got back to Florida my two wheel passion and supporting denialism had fully restored.

I had a near identical experience crossing Atlanta on the return home ride from a Tail of the Dragon GSR meet. There was not even enough warning to have time to stop and put on a rain suit. Heavy winds, black skies, four lanes of heavy traffic plus feeders, rain so hard that visibility was near nothing. I could see the rear three feet of the car that was six feet in front of me and there was a car six feet behind me. Traffic did not slow down and no way out or place to go. That may have been the worst 45 minutes I have ever had.