A massive vehicle pileup this past Tuesday morning on Interstate 90 near Cleveland could have brought even worse consequences had motorists not already been driving cautiously because of whiteout conditions.
That is the assessment of one of the drivers involved in the chain collision that occurred near Leroy Township on Christmas Eve. He stated following the crash that the road “was all ice.”
That driver, along with his passengers, suffered only minor injuries in the mass collision. In fact, and luckily, there were no reports of life-threatening injuries among the drivers and passengers involved in the 29-vehile pileup. Eight people were taken to local hospitals for treatment.
Unsurprisingly, traffic was snarled for several hours after the incident, with eastbound traffic on the interstate closed for approximately 10 miles.
The successive collisions reportedly owed largely to a crash that had occurred earlier involving two larger vehicles. As cars began to initially collide with those vehicles, trailing vehicles coming down a hill were flatly unable to stop. Many of those vehicles had scarce room to maneuver as they tried to avoid contact, owing to concrete barriers beside the highway that were being used in a construction project.
One Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper responding to the crash scene and involved in the subsequent cleanup and investigation said that more than a dozen cars were so extensively damaged that they couldn’t be driven following the accident. He added that some vehicles were struck multiple times during the chain collision.
That investigator noted that it is unlikely any motorist will be cited in the matter.
Source: Plain Dealer, “Icy Interstate 90 ‘was like a ski jump,’ as 29 cars crashed and closed the highway Tuesday,” Patrick O’Donnell, Dec. 26, 2013