Wyoming Pileup 4-15

Hi joseph, your avatar pic is great. I see stuff like that, and think, what if there was a face on that. I think you are the cleverest( is that a word?)person here. What are you doing in a truck?.

 

When the roads are just starting to show blowing snow across pavement, and you already have guys out there driving 20 mph, that's a hazard that does not need to be there. Being able to avoid the hazard is irrelevant to the conversation up to a point. The relevant point is that for some, they need to know when they are in over their heads and need to have the good sense to get off the roadway and park it and stop being obstacles for others trying to do a job.

Now once conditions deteriorate to a point and get bad enough, then I guess it's every man for himself, but this does not change the fact that if it's that bad [for you] then you need to park it.

 

Yes I did watch the videos...and the ones off the road got there taking evasive maneuvers which wouldn't have been necessary if the road hadn't been blocked. Nobody expects the road to be blocked, and when people aren't listening to local radio and don't have their CB on, they have no way of knowing what lies ahead.

As long as traffic keeps flowing at a reasonable pace, a brief white-out or foggy area is no big deal. It is when some idiot panics and slows down to a crawl when nobody else can see them that causes these clusters. If you want to cause a wreck, drive slow and obbstruct the travel lane. If not, maintain at least the minimum or get the #### off the road.

 

no there is no minimum speed limit on the interstate in wyoming.

 

If you are driving beyond your ability to see and stop for any unknown event, you are driving too fast for conditions....The idiot is not the one that slows down, the idiots are the ones who don't.

 

For those of you not familiar with that stretch of I-80 between Laramie and Cheyenne, they do sometimes enforce/enact a "trucks right lane only" rule when the weather dictates. So no matter how fast you want to go, you're only going to go as fast as the trucks in front of you, or you risk being ticketed for using the passing lane. I've only had to do the right lane only once a couple years ago (25mph all the way from Laramie to Cheyenne, and was happy to be going that slow). Most of the time if the roads are just really snowy, the variable speed limit signs will be dropped to 40-45, blackice and fog they will set the signs down to even lower speeds.

If I remember correctly, that accident happened after they reopened the interstate after it having been closed, so you had a bunch of trucks coming out of Larimie and all trying to get back to Cheyenne before they closed it again. But between that wreck and the one West of Laramie a little while later, I-80 was closed for days. Nothing was moving out of Cheyenne and I'm glad I took a few days vacation (fuel Hauler) as business was slow LOL.

 

Funny, a lot of the people who are saying "don't push yourself" and "slow down on snow" and "drive only as fast as you feel safe" ... are probably the same one's speeding 65 mph in a 45 mph work zone looking for an in because they're losing their lane and were told about it 2 miles back

 

Yep won't be long and the snow will be coming down in the high parts of WY, UT, ID, MT get those snow chains all polished up now won't ya. gitda-done

 

I was there on that day. The road was very treacherous. The Amber speed limit sign was flashing for posted speed limit of 35 MPH. I departed Laramie around noon after the big rush of eastbound trucks. It was snowing & what little bare pavement I could see was disappearing. With my flashers on, I was driving 25-30... On a slight downgrade the truck would roll up to 35. I gently eased on the brakes, noticing I had good traction, & eased back down to driving within the limits of my forward vision. The road was snowed over with almost 100% whiteout... I could only barely see truck tail lights maybe 3 truck lengths ahead... no lane lines to be seen. Only the rumble strip, snow depth sticks, & mile markers to help me stay on the road. There were a lot of trucks in the hammer lane passing me... Driving well over the posted speed limit of 35 MPH. I drove for 2.5 hours at about 30 MPH with a steady snowfall. Then suddenly ahead, I saw truck tail lights getting brighter and brighter... Indicating the truck was stopped on the road. I eased on the brakes and gently slowed to a stop. I had safely joined a group of trucks that were stopped because of the massive truck pile-up. We were routed off I-80 eastbound to take the frontage road down to the next on-ramp. From the frontage road you could see all the mangled trucks that had crashed into each other.