At least seven people were killed Monday morning after a “superfog” of smoke from south Louisiana marsh fires and dense fog caused multiple massive car crashes involving a total of 158 vehicles, authorities said.
Twenty-five people were injured and the number of fatalities may increase as first responders continue to clear the crash scenes and search for victims, Louisiana State Police said in a statement Monday evening.
Gov. John Bel Edwards issued a call for blood donors and asked for prayers “for those hurt and killed.”
I keep seeing this language that the fog “caused” the collisions. No. Reckless drivers who failed to drive appropriately for the conditions are what caused the collisions. The fog didn’t get behind the wheel of those cars and press down on the accelerators to make them go too fast to stop for hazards. The drivers did that.
Something makes me think there’s more to it than that. You’re talking about over a hundred people being reckless which seems hard to believe. I’m guessing that the smoke from the marsh fires wasn’t spread consistently throughout the fog, causing patches of extremely low visibility. The result is that you could have a wreck even when going well below the speed limit because you suddenly go from low visibility to no visibility without any warning (if the smoke is a similar color as the fog it might seem invisible and catch you off guard).
Fog is one of the most dangerous weather events because people don’t think of it as dangerous.
You have the people that do think it’s dangerous and slow down so you don’t hit someone in front of you and then you have the people who don’t think it’s dangerous and go barreling through at full speed and hit all the cars going slow.
Can’t speak for every region, but where I live easily 99% of drivers drive too closely to the car in front to reasonably stop in an emergency
It’s also possible that shitty drivers took out safe drivers that managed to do the right thing. It doesn’t have to be every single driver. A single tractor trailer could plow through plenty.
I think the big patch of invisible road in front of you would be pretty good warning
I hope you never have to drive in Charlotte, NC during rush hour. We sometimes even shoot at each other instead of honking our horns over here.
It doesn’t take a hundred bad drivers. A single bad person can cause a cascade effect that ruins countless lives.
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