I-80 Exit 242 Highway Crashes (Cheyenne, Laramie: 2015, dangerous, safe)

[sunsprit]

as it not unusual during inclement winter driving conditions here, it doesn't take much to trigger some serious accidents on the interstate West from Cheyenne through to the Rock Springs area.
There are some especially dangerous locales, such as by Elk Mountain/Arlington areas.

The recent I-80 crash scene resulted in over 24 vehicles tied up and 3 fatalities, with about 20 more folk seriously hurt.

What was striking was how so many more vehicles kept piling up into the wreck carnage. A pretty clear case of those pro drivers overdriving for the conditions.

WYDOT posts that the highway won't be opened again until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.

There's a youtube video posted which shows many additional trucks plowing into the already crashed vehicles in a similar accident scene from years ago. Search youtube: " 4/16/2015 I-80 Wyoming crash as it happened. Video by unknown"

[DOUBLE H]

ABC News with David Muir just did a 30 second seg on this situation. Had a few pictures that were, well, an eye opener. Whew, what a mess!

[nm9stheham]

Yep... folks won't slow down enough for visibility and condtions. It is not just truckers.. it is everybody; there are just a lot of trucks on I-80 in that region.

We had a 100 car crash here on Afton Mtn VA about 15 years ago: over-driving a safe visible distance in fog. The interstate there has light buried in the roadway edges that make that easy to do.

Same at Batavia Pass in 1966 on the NY Thruway.... 100 cars eastbound with 40 mph winds driving snow from Lake Erie.... the snow was going with the drivers, and so they did not perceive their speed.

[Hal Roach]

Originally Posted by nm9stheham

Yep... folks won't slow down enough for visibility and condtions. It is not just truckers.. it is everybody; there are just a lot of trucks on I-80 in that region.

We had a 100 car crash here on Afton Mtn VA about 15 years ago: over-driving a safe visible distance in fog. The interstate there has light buried in the roadway edges that make that easy to do.

Same at Batavia Pass in 1966 on the NY Thruway.... 100 cars eastbound with 40 mph winds driving snow from Lake Erie.... the snow was going with the drivers, and so they did not perceive their speed.

Afton Mountain is the worst fog I have ever seen, with the exception of the Grapevine, Central Valley in January. When I heard about Kobe, my first thought was deadly fog..the police were smart enough to ground their copters. Nothing is worth travelling in conditions like that. RIP.

[nowhereman427]

[OneDawg]

I was VERY surprised they had not closed the road down.

[WyoNewk]

Originally Posted by OneDawg

I was VERY surprised they had not closed the road down.

I saw it on a couple different TV news channels that I-80 was closed in both directions, and yesterday (Tuesday) they were still guessing when the interstate would reopen. They were guessing it would be late yesterday but not certain. I read it in yesterday's and today's newspapers as well.

Or maybe I'm getting WACKO with my age. My wife says I am. She always says she's right. Hmmmmm....

[WyoNewk]

From an artcle in today's News Record:

I-80 closed Sunday because of multiple crashes so extreme that the interstate still wasn’t opened until Tuesday evening. One involved 80-100 vehicles by the Creston Junction/Highway 789 exit in Sweetwater County while another saw a 30- to 40-vehicle pileup just a few miles away.



Or were you meaning that you were surprised they hadn't shut the road down earlier, before these accidents?


Let's not mention this to my wife! LOL

[nm9stheham]

Wow.. those are some bad sounding wrecks.

[OneDawg]

Before, when they knew there was a whiteout. Truckers talk to each other. There's the big stop in Rawlins and the other in Laramie. You can't tell me they (WYHP) didn't hear.......