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Peter Hicks
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Joined: 30 April 2004
Location: Canada
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Posted: 12 February 2019 at 4:06pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

"I produce a show for Discovery (Canadian version) about the big highways in southern Ontario. "
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Cool! I've seen that show. I'm from Waterloo, and dread every time that I need to drive in to Toronto on the 401.
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Todd Serotiuk
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Joined: 12 February 2006
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Posted: 12 February 2019 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Peter Hicks: Cool! I've seen that show. I'm from Waterloo, and dread every time that I need to drive in to Toronto on the 401.
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Thanks for watching!  Yeah, driving that stretch can be a very unsettling experience.  But that's part of why we're currently shooting season 4 of this series.
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Jean-Francois Joutel
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Joined: 06 November 2008
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Posted: 12 February 2019 at 5:43pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

 I produce a show for Discovery (Canadian version) about the big highways in southern Ontario.  The 401 is the busiest in North America.

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Isn't there another bad stretch of the 401 near Kingston? Snow squalls cause whiteout conditions, which turn into pile ups.

Here is a video from Montreal, close to the same date:

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Joe Zhang
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Posted: 12 February 2019 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

A superhero who just focused on roadway accidents would be a full time job. 
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Todd Serotiuk
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Posted: 12 February 2019 at 5:54pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Isn't there another bad stretch of the 401 near Kingston? Snow squalls cause whiteout conditions, which turn into pile ups.
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The Kingston/Gananoque area of the 401 gets some bad weather and wrecks.  We had a big pileup in that area later in the same season as the one in the video (which was about an hour east of Toronto).  Squalls are the worst on the 402 between London and Sarnia, where they blow in off of Lake Huron.  I know way too much about this stuff for a guy who lives in Vancouver and rides a bike to the office.
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Paul Reis
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Posted: 13 February 2019 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Todd said: "Squalls are the worst on the 402 between London and Sarnia"

 - and i live just about in the middle !!! 

i drive my absolute BEST in super cold weather (who wants to go out to look at the crumples in the car for even 2 seconds in -40 degree weather?) and in this weather (as shown in the video) i avoid the 402 and drive on country roads through town after town to get to my doctor appointments in London - 2 hours, for a normally 40 minute drive, to not have to worry about a jackknifed transport is fine by me (they stay on the 402, i don't) 

my ex-gf is still dealing with the lawsuits that arise from these things (which are ridiculous: one guy at the front is suing everyone behind, another at the back is suing everyone in front, others in the middle suing everyone from the front to the back, and she was in the middle, purposely drove to the ditch to avoid hitting or getting hit, and watched in a still running (i.e.warm) car, until 'things' got cleaned up)

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James Woodcock
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Posted: 13 February 2019 at 5:33pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

There was a crash on a motorway in the U.K. during foggy conditions where the cars were crashing for something like one to two minutes.
They worked out that the cars @ the back of the crash were over two miles away from the crash point when the first cars hit.

That’s scary. 

That video shows way too many cars driving way too fast for those conditions. I wish people would realise they are driving a potential bullet when they get in a car.
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Neil Lindholm
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Joined: 12 January 2005
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Posted: 13 February 2019 at 9:57pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

I was in complete awe the first time I saw the 401. Coming from Vancouver, where the largest highway had two lanes on either side, that monstrosity was terrifying. Good thing I was in a taxi. 
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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 14 February 2019 at 9:01am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Looking at the video again, I see a second car, on the left, apparently trying to run away from the impending impact, only to get crunch by another driver with the same idea.

The cars ahead of the collision seem not to be moving. How many moved on, I wonder, without knowing what had happened behind them?

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Gundars Berzins
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Posted: 14 February 2019 at 9:07am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Wow what a pileup. Speed and poor visibility led to this demolition derby. 
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Todd Serotiuk
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Posted: 14 February 2019 at 1:08pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

The cars ahead were already stuck behind the first phase of the pileup. So many of those drivers likely knew they were caught in a bad spot. People we interviewed talked about the helplessness of being smashed from behind and propelled into the vehicles in front of them.  It was a very narrow band of bad weather blowing in from Lake Ontario that set off the events.  So it is conceivable that many people drove out the other side of the whiteout unaware of the chaos behind them.
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