Some accidents are very very bad, tip for drivers doing the long haul, always drive defensively.
Look ahead as far as possible, check your mirrors every 30 seconds. When stopping quickly put on your 4 way lights and flash your brakes if possible, watch the upcoming traffic behind you.
Getting my motorcycle license 10 years ago really opened my eyes to the way most car drivers behave.
The drive can be a blast or pure exhaustion.
I wish the big rigs had their own separate lanes apart from everyone else. Most of the nasty accidents always involved an 18 wheeler.
Take care everyone.
Covid will be in our rear view mirrors hopefully soon.
Sorry... the length of this is almost criminal. Read at your own risk.
The ones that I witnessed, didn't involve any semi's. The first one was a car that had passed me on I-95 about 10 minutes earlier who just drove off the road at full speed into a cluster of trees. I don't know what happened but no attempt was made to put the brakes on. I pulled over but a whole bunch of people did as well and since I had no experience, at the time, in medical anything. I decided that I would just be in the way. Another one, which was on the Washington Beltline was an old stake body truck loaded with junk. One of the side supports gave way causing what seemed to be a waterfall of junk and a chain reaction to the cars behind. To my knowledge no one was hurt in that one, but it was spectacular with stuff flying all over the place.
I did see one however just to the east of Toronto that I was almost involved in. I had passed a flatbed truck carrying large rolls of sheet metal destined to probably be a car at one point. We were cruising along at a good rate and came up upon one of the group entrances from side roads which caused a large literal traffic stop. I had just stopped when I glanced in my rear view and saw the smallish car coming up behind me followed by that same truck. She started to slow down, but the truck never let up and crashed into the back of the car pushing it forward toward my car.
I braced myself and prepared for the collision. At the last moment the car, still being pushed by the truck moved slightly over to the right just missing may rear fender by inches. At that same time the truck climbed up the back of that car pushing it around 180 degrees so it was facing that truck. Then continued to climb up the back of the car causing the truck to tip over on it's side and came to a stop about 4 inches from the front of that car. If I looked out the passenger side windows I was about 2 feet away looking at the undercarriage of the truck. I also saw the lady that was driving that car. Clutching tightly to the steering wheel just gazing straight ahead at the grill of the truck.
Looking behind me one of the gigantic rolls of sheet metal had fallen off the truck when it tipped over and was about 3 feet from the back of my car. I don't usually react to stuff, but I was in shock. I witnessed the whole thing. The road was clear in front of me and since I didn't think I had been hit I drove around in front and pulled over. I was trying to stop shaking so I could move to see if everything was OK. I quickly glanced around the car and did find a couple of chipped paint marks where debris had been thrown in my direction.
Then again looking up I saw that there were about 50 people trying to see if the two operators were OK. From the best I could tell the lady was at least talking to those around her but I'll bet she was hurting the next morning. Her rear bumper ended up in the back seat, but the driver area was not damaged. There were people trying to climb up to the cab of the truck and I can tell you now that there was no movement coming from there. I don't know what happened to the driver. Very shortly after a police car pulled up and a few minutes later ambulances appeared. Then out of nowhere every policeman in Canada converged on the scene. I searched one out and told them that I had seen the whole thing in my rearview and told them what I just told you. After about a half hour I finally calmed down enough to continue on with my trip, but that image has stayed in my mind for a very long time. That happened in 2008. Since I was on my way home to Vermont I never did find out what happened to everyone. While talking to the police all I could imagine is the driver fell asleep at the wheel.
I've put a lot of miles on in my lifetime and saw many minor things. The one I recall the most was when happened all in one day. I was in college and drove a delivery truck part time for a hospital supply company. The first thing happened as I was following a truck around a corner in the city. The load shifted on the turn and made the trailer brake away from the tractor and flip on it's side. No injuries on that one. About an hour later I was driving around a city park and heard a loud noise. It was a gunshot as I glanced over I saw a guy slumping to the ground. He had killed himself in the park just as I was along side it. Flash ahead about 4 hours and I was on the other side of Lake Champlain on my way back to the office from a delivery and was loading on one of the ferry's that traversed the lake at that point. As I pulled on I heard tires squealing and look up to see a car about two vehicles ahead, literally fly through the boundary chain in the front into the water. The chain had come up on top of the hood and smashed the windshield of the car. As soon as it hit the water it sunk well below the top. An employee of the ferry company jumped in and found a lady desperately trying to get out through the windshield area. He grabbed her and got her up to the surface where a couple others had also jumped in to get her to the shore. The guy dove back under and was down there for a long time and then came back up because he couldn't get the driver out. According to the news report he had a heart attack and his foot pushed down on the accelerator and that was that. That was in the summer of 1967 I think.
When I got back to the office and told them of my day they all wanted to know when I was going to be on the road so they could stay home. Sorry for the length of this, I apparently have diarrhea of the brain this morning. It is amazing how some topics can just trigger a flood of memories.