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00:00On the 15th of September, 2011, near Sao Paulo in Brazil, one of the largest-ever

00:17traffic accidents in history took place. In heavy fog several vehicles collided,

00:24beginning a chain reaction that ultimately consumed around 300 cars and trucks.

00:31The incident left one person dead and many more injured. While notable for its sheer scale,

00:39this pile-up is just one of many such multi-vehicle collisions,

00:44many of which have, at their root, the same basic cause.

00:49While the accident in Brazil was the largest in terms of the number of vehicles involved,

00:54it was by no means the deadliest pile-up ever to take place. A collision which occurred on the 29th

01:01of November, 1990, on the other hand, had a death toll of 17 persons, despite involving just 104

01:10vehicles. The main cause was a dust storm which descended on the I-5 north of Coalinga, California,

01:21reducing visibility to near zero and causing a chain reaction sequence of collisions on both

01:26the north and southbound carriageways. More than 100 vehicles smashed into five distinct masses

01:34of wreckage. Some drivers were lucky. On the periphery of a crash site they suffered nothing

01:42more than a fender bender and were able to jump from their vehicles and escape the roadway.

01:48Others, caught up in the middle of the mass, were impacted from all sides, hit over and over again

01:55until escape from their vehicle was impossible. The main cause of death, however, was not impact.

02:03Even in 1990 cars were built to offer as much impact protection as possible for their occupants,

02:10and so most victims survived the initial crash. It was the fire which burned through the wreckage

02:16afterwards that resulted in such a high death toll, with many vehicles burned down to their

02:22bare frames and two victims burned beyond recognition. The dust storm remained in place

02:30during the rescue operation. As fire and ambulance personnel tried to make their way out

02:36to the crash site they were involved in minor collisions of their own. With so many people

02:42injured in the incident rescuers were forced to requisition buses to transport them all to hospital.

02:51Similarly, a multi-car pileup in Germany, which took place on the 8th of April 2011,

02:58claimed eight lives, mainly due to a fire which followed the initial crash. The incident took

03:05place on the Autobahn 19 near Rostock, where a freak sandstorm reduced visibility to zero

03:13with almost no warning for drivers. The sandstorm was later blamed on drought conditions which had

03:21existed for the last few weeks, combined with recently plowed fields adjacent to the road

03:27and extremely high winds. For everyone involved in the crash it was a weather condition they had

03:34never encountered before. Survivors described a black wall of sand that enveloped them without

03:42warning, and a road surface made unexpectedly slick by huge amounts of sand and grit.

03:50A truck carrying hazardous materials was involved in the crash, and its cargo ignited, creating a

03:57fire which burned 20 vehicles. Again, the inability to see complicated everything,

04:04preventing rescue helicopters from landing and making it difficult for rescuers to communicate

04:10or to locate those still trapped in their vehicles.

04:15This inability to see what is going on around them is, for many survivors, one of the most

04:21terrifying aspects of these accidents. Many describe the experience of sitting in their

04:27vehicles hearing impact after impact nearby, unable to see far enough to determine if they

04:34are about to be hit again or if it is safe to try and escape their vehicle and run to the side of

04:39the road. Despite the destruction of multi-vehicle collisions, high death counts are rare. Most

04:48crashes of this kind result in a massive number of injuries but relatively few deaths. Where there

04:55is no fire collisions involving hundreds of vehicles may only result in a relatively small

05:01number of deaths. Many people experience a very lucky escape. This was the case during a pile-up

05:09which took place on the 5th of September 2013 in the UK. In this incident more than 130 vehicles

05:18collided within the space of just a few minutes. One very fortunate driver, a man named Martin

05:26Stammers, was unable to stop in time to avoid the pile-up altogether but managed to steer his

05:33vehicle through a small gap between the wreckage and the central reservation. When he came to a

05:39stop all he could hear for almost 10 minutes was the continual smash and crash of cars on the road

05:46behind him impacting the wreckage. Risking their lives, Stammers and his son exited their vehicle,

05:53skirted the wreckage, and ran back up the central reservation to warn approaching drivers of the

05:59crash. Again, fog was the cause. The area where the crash took place had very poor visibility

06:08due to thick fog, and yet many drivers reportedly entered the fog without switching on lights

06:14and without significantly reducing their speed. Some witnesses reported being passed by cars

06:21traveling at motorway speeds just before the crash, despite visibility that extended no further

06:28than nine meters or around 30 feet. A pile-up involving more than 130 vehicles was the inevitable

06:37result. Fortunately, however, though there were extensive injuries and hundreds of thousands of

06:45pounds worth of damage nobody died in this particular incident. Each of these massive

06:53multi-vehicle collisions was caused by the same basic mechanism... a sudden change in weather

07:00conditions dramatically reduced visibility. This change of conditions takes many forms

07:07in different accidents. On the 27th of February, 2014, south of Barrie, Ontario, a 105 vehicle

07:17pile-up was caused by a snowstorm. On the 2nd of December, 1994, intense glare from the sun

07:26on a rain-wet road caused a 127 vehicle pile-up. And on the 9th of January, 2008, fog and the smoke

07:36from a nearby chemical fire mixed to create zero visibility conditions on Interstate 4 in Florida,

07:43resulting in a 70 vehicle pile-up. Where roads are prone to foggy or dusty conditions it is

07:51possible to impose speed limits, improved lighting, and warning signs to give drivers a chance to

07:57adjust, but also often these accidents are down to freak weather conditions that cannot be reasonably

08:04predicted. This leaves only one line of defense against mass vehicle collisions... the behavior

08:12of drivers. Most countries in the world have some variation on a rule of the road which states,

08:19essentially, that drivers should drive according to conditions. In the UK, for example, drivers are

08:27instructed to leave a minimum two-second gap between themselves and the car in front, and to

08:33only ever drive at a speed that will allow them to stop within the distance they can see. The problem

08:40is, of course, that these rules generally aren't followed. Drivers tailgate. They drive at speeds

08:49higher than conditions allow in order to keep up with traffic, to get where they're going faster,

08:55or simply because they underestimate the time it will take them to stop if they need to. These are

09:01all behaviors which aren't really a problem until something happens... and they very suddenly are.

09:19you

A Brief History of Multi-Vehicle Collisions | Historical Documentary | Fascinating Horror

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