Californians will drive with their hood ornament up the next guy's trailer hitch at freeway speeds. Very much a faith-based insbreastution.
In this case, however, I'd speculate the main cause was a combination of speed and inattention, not following too close. The guy in the blue Mustang who started it all by rear-ending the stalled van appeared to be sailing along at a pretty good clip for a CONSTRUCTION ZONE. Hello? There are lanes coned off, work lights and four-ways or beacons on the other side, all sorts of indicators that you need to be driving with your head up and your speed down.
Some of the people who piled on later also seemed to be carrying a lot of speed very deep into what was not only a construction zone but also the scene of an evolving accident, with brake lights and cars in weird positions and so forth. I've seen any number of accidents, though none as spectacular and dangerous-looking as this one, caused by people braking too little too late in a situation they might well have taken in stride had they been looking and thinking further ahead.
It's also interesting to note the variety of responses by subsequent drivers. Some stop in plenty of time (including some whose vehicles are not stereotypically buttociated with high-effectiveness braking). Some combine braking with maneuvering whereas others might have been well advised to do so but did not even try it. At least one proved unable to stay in one lane with the pointy end forward during an emergency stop.
Lucky somebody didn't cream a highway worker or two.
Complicating the issue, it isn't clear to me whether the van, stalled in what appears to be the #1, HOV lane (or is it a breakdown lane?), had its hazard lights on, or maybe the battery had gone down and they weren't very bright anymore. It is however possible to imagine an electrical failure so utter that he couldn't get to anyplace better and didn't have any lights to show. And it *was* a dark-colored vehicle, at night. He did have the highly reflective license plate that is the usual issue these days, though -- this is plainly visible in people's headlights.
So what was done well?
* Several people handled it with some semblance of aplomb and avoided being caught up in the various chains of collisions. (For the most part these seemed to be the people who bled off a good bit of speed well in advance, presumably because they were well "ahead" of their cars. At least two of the three drivers who wiped out in the subsequent accidents, and a fourth who was saved from doing so only by good skill and-or brakes applied very hard at the last possible moment, seemed to be carrying a lot of speed deep into the accident scene.)
* The driver who appeared to get slightly sideswiped by the van kept a level head and didn't allow the mishap to turn into either a loss of control or a collision with another car.
* The accident victims appeared to stay with their cars and presumably belted in. A couple of times I've seen people get out and go wandering around on the freeway when it is still early in the evolution and other cars are flying past very fast and close. This seems to be a fairly common reaction. I guess in some situations (fire, or an obvious short path to a safe haven) it might be justified, but in something like this, with no way to run and no place to hide, all it does is increase the likelihood of being the guest of honor in a subsequent car-pedestrian accident.
--Joe
