In 2008 I took a trip to Detroit to visit the Henry Ford Museum. On the way back to Vermont, I don't remember the road number, but I went to Detroit via the trans-Canada. I passed a truck hauling huge "rolls" of steal. A few miles later I ran into one of those now famous traffic jams originating from those one size fits all highway entrances. (that is where they build a side road covering a lot of areas and all funnel to one highway entrance as seen at the right side of the second picture) Understandably that meant that a lot of cars were all trying to merge on the the highway at the same time causing a massive traffic jam.)
Anyway, I was stopped in the line and all of a sudden I heard the loud sound like tires locked up, looked in my rear view to see that same truck, hit the rear of a small car at full speed. It pushed that car directly toward the back of mine and at the last minute it veered to my right just missing the back of my car and as it went even with me the truck drove up onto the back of that car, and tipped over on its side and causing the car to spin around 180 degrees. The truck at that point was exactly parallel with my car and all I could see was the bottom of his engine and all the drive train. I admit to being in shock as I witnessed it all in my rear view, heard small pieces of the car, (I assume plastic) hit my car, (no damage) and by the time I regained my wits the traffic in front had moved forward and I was able to move. I again glanced in my rear view to see one of the giant "rolls" of steal was on the ground, no more that a foot away from the back of my car. I pulled up and saw the car it had run into, with the lady driving it, hands frozen to the steering wheel, staring straight ahead at the tipped over front end of the truck. Physically, she looked unharmed but she had to have some whiplash or something because that truck had hit hard putting the the rear of the car basically in the back seat. I pulled forward and went to get out and noticed that by then there was a crowd of people that witnessed it from behind had run up surrounding both vehicles. I had never been as shook up as I was at that point. I got out of my car and was shaking badly. I could see that I wouldn't have been able to do anything with all those other people around so I got back into my car and continued on my way.
I'm not sure what or anything I could have helped with at that point, but I must confess that I did feel guilty about not going back there to help and it bothered me for years. I will always remember the sound of those tires trying to stop and the look of pure disbelief to that probably very lucky lady in the car. I can't even imagine what she was feeling but I still hope that she didn't have anything worse than shell shock. As I got out of my car I noticed about a half dozen people climbing up on the truck cab trying to get to the driver. I never could see if he was OK or not. I had planned on driving the rest of the way home that day, but I couldn't concentrate on my driving thinking how close I came to being part of that accident on that major Canada Highway. I don't think I have been up to Canada since then. I am not sure exactly where I was, but I think I was just on the eastern side of Toronto.
Sorry for the long story, but seeing all those cars on the highway (which could have been the 401) the memory flashed back again. I took me hours to regain my composure and the only damage I had was a couple of minor scratches on the car.
