Sunday, August 1, 2010

Freeway Multi-car Collision. Three Apparent Lessons.

Sunday, August 1, 2010, 4:00 PM. A friend sent me three pictures from an accident on H-1 Freeway, Honolulu-bound, near Aiea minutes after it had occurred. Here are a few lessons from the three cell phone pictures received.

(1) This police car is parked at the wrong angle. The police car that blocks and protects the accident scene should be parked in a direction that guides unaffected drivers to the safe way around the scene.


(2) The police officer is talking to involved drivers on the freeway. On a freeway scene all unharmed persons need to be relocated to the shoulders immediately.


(3) This truck appears to be the start of the multi-car "spin outs" on the slick pavement. Notice the old, worn, dirty and off-road style tires. A vehicle with proper highway tires might have not caused this half dozen vehicle collision.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Drivers need to also keep their distance from the vehicle in front of them. This will decrease the likelihood of a follow-up accident as people will have sufficient time to stop.

Anonymous said...

Yes, indeed
Safe distance is calculated ~ as: one car length for every 10 m.p.h. cruising speed. That's when the pavement is dry. When wet, I don't know....

Anyway, let's get some engineers to build an apparatus to be installed on all cars, trucks, that BEEPS when one is to close to the car in front, and takes speed into account. Make it law. And in passing, take out the stupid cell phone ban, until we can go faster than 5 m.p.h. on the freeway !!! As if we didn't have enough stress.... Hey! Our car is our "office", while we wait. Maybe also make it illegal to daydream while driving at turtle speed.