Michigan City IN

ABC News in Chicago is reporting that this was a narrow band of lake-effect snow... it went from sunshine to zero-visibility in a matter of a couple of miles. That means traffic was moving along at 65 mph in good conditions to zero visibility in about 2 minutes.

Lots of posts condemning drivers here driving too fast for conditions... so these folks had practically no time to adjust to CHANGING conditions. Someone did slow down rapidly... followed by the lead semis in the accident slowing down rapidly, and apparently one of them jacknifed... a chain reaction followed. Even if they were following at a safe distance for "good conditions," the rapidly CHANGING situation to "crappy conditions" means once you're in the crap it's too late.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local/indiana&id=9405660

 

I'm slowing down in bad weather. But, if I could stop and park instead and not starve because of poor paychecks I'd be in a lot better shape. I could sleep until all the idiots had their accidents and the road cleared up and run the rest of theway.

 

I agree with what you're saying but having driven that stretch yesterday I can assure you vehicles of all kinds were driving much too fast even when it was sunny outside. The roads were just about as slick as I've seen in a long time and there were multiple single vehicle accidents from cars and trucks going in to the ditch for miles and miles before the point of this accident. However, the weather did enter near zero visibility very quickly. Just an unfortunate situation all around.

 

I'm sorry I disagree. I drove through this yesterday. Yes the weather went from clear dry and sunny to #### near whiteout conditions very rapidly. You know what we did? Imagine this, we slowed down increased distance and kept other drivers aware of traffic situations via the CB. and no one wrecked going our way. This was simply people overdriving the conditions thinking they are friggen invincible because they got a big bad truck and they are big bad truck drivers, I'll show these fools how to drive in snow, bunch of pansies. I've got video of conditions yesterday, unfortunately this was later in the evening after i was parked, the time of this wreck was already overwritten but the conditions were the same when another band pushed through only darker at this point. as soon as i can cut it up ill upload it.

 

okay hope that worked. now this was later in the day and I wasn't moving but you can get an idea of what it was like

 

You're not the only person on the planet who's driven in lake effect snow. I find it's rather interesting how drivers (yours truly included) with a couple of years on the road find it so easy to lay the blame so easily on everyone else who didn't get slowed down. Count yourself lucky driver.

 

I don't care how much experience a driver has.
My 30 years is no match for Mother Nature. She
will screw the Best!

 

some of the comments here confuse me. If you can not stop before striking the vehicle in front of you, you were driving to fast and not giving yourself proper following distance. It's really that black and white simple.

 

I've logged some miles in plenty of blizzards and ice last year.

There's no way I'd trust my life to a trainee in it.

 

You're confused because you want to make black and white statements about an incident you weren't involved in and haven't seen except in pictures of the aftermath.

I suspect you've never been involved in a true unexpected whiteout situation while driving. I've been in two in the past 5 years where visibility went from good to cant see the road in less than 30 seconds. One of those cases occurred on I-75 close to Bowling Green Ohio on a sunny day with dry roads. Yes my 65 mph speed was to fast for a whiteout but it wasn't like I can anticipate an extreme wind gust that nearly blew me off the road in addition to making every loose snowflake in the area airborne. Particularly when there was no noticeable wind to that point. My second experience was on Sandstone in WV at night in light to moderate snow, rolling maybe 15 mph down a 7% grade. Salt shaker ahead of me about 100 yards, total visibility about 200 yards. No warning, no noticeable increase in snow fall. World disappeared.