50-car pileup on Ohio Turnpike leaves 1 dead, multiple injured

[wnylib]

15. I am more inclined to blame the drivers behind

the first one for following too closely for conditions. I remember one time when I hit a sudden icy patch like that. In my case, it was black ice. No warning signs for me. My car did a 360 twice and then slid into the oncoming lane and stopped (miraculously) about 3 inches from a guard rail above a 12 foot drop to a river. The side of the highway next to the guard rail had about a foot of old snow piled up from plowing. The old snow had salt and sand in it, which apparently gave me some last minute traction when I literally (and desperately) stood up on the brake pedal. I know about pumping brakes, but that was useless that close to the guard rail. I counted on the snow pile to stop me if I braked hard and it worked.

Then I had to rock the car to get it out of the rut and back on the highway. Talk about scary and tense. Fortunately for me, there was no other traffic on the highway at the time. Then I had to continue for 15 more miles to get to work. I drove SLOWLY with two tires on the berm and two on the highway.

Ever since then, I've been cautious about driving slowly in bad road conditions. More than once I've driven past an impatient driver who had passed me and ended up in a ditch.