Four car pile-up on Adelaide Avenue

One I see all the time is heading West on Hindmarsh Drive around 5pm the traffic banks up from Tugg parkway back toward Lyons. There’s regularly ‘surprised’ drivers running up the back of other cars.

While tailgating is never ok, it’s quite amusing that the cars with probably the worst stopping distances seem to follow the closest. If you’ve got a crappy old Pulsar with balding cheapo tyres, worn brakes and suspension and the car was average even when new, then it might be an idea to leave a little more room perhaps.

Calling it a “pile-up” might just be a little bit of an exaggeration, “four car nose-to-tail” is probably more accurate. Perhaps it’s just me, but when I hear pile-up I imagine cars on top of eachother and strewn about.

Regardless of what it was called, it was a beautiful monument to tailgating.

I noticed a bit of creative navigation in the queue of traffic leading up to the accident. Just before the Cotter Road underpass, a few cars were turning left off Adelaide Ave onto the grass and up towards Cotter Road. Anyone know what the story with that is?

Every time you drive along William Hovell Drive or Parkes Way you see countless examples of lines of 7 or 8 cars all following each other at ridiculous distances.

I don’t see what’s so hard about keeping a safe distance between you and the car in front or how you could feel safe driving with no stopping distance between you and the car in front.

@ comments 22 & 23
If you drive the same way you post comments here then it’s surprising there’s not more carnage on our roads.

Standard Canberra story, car 1 brakes heavily (probably not paying proper attention), subsequent cars following too close (probably not paying attention either), next 3/4 cars plough into into the car in front of them. Other story, you leave safe room, every other car sees it as their spot so applies indicator (sometimes) and immediately pull into other lane making other car brake to let them in, or accident occurs. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t..

Who do you blame? The driver in front breaking? I think not!

Its likely 3 retard drivers that were tailgating, expecting everyone just to wander out of their way, thinking that no the car in front will never stop suddently.
I must point out that it could just be 1 persons fault if you had a real idiot tailgaters driving in car 4 position they might hit car 3 as its trying to break. The way the retards drive in canberra you could expect that car 3 has no chance when another car a metre behind takes it into car 2 and this 3 car mess smashes into car one that had to stop because someone changed lanes infront of them.

On a deeper level you could also blame the government for installing speed camera and thus have less cops on the road sorting out the dangerious drivers that cause most of the accidents. Speed alone along a straight stretch of road can not cause accidents idiots doing the speed limit weaving in and out of traffic will always contribute more.

Speed camera are a false sense of safety for everyone

Diggety said :

You’d be asking forgiveness too if you had the alter boy steer with the back of his head.

(Apologies, I’m in Friday pub mode)

Pedophile jokes are not OK.

imarty said :

Car 7: Catholic driver, busy with the rosary beads praying not to crash.

Don’t joke, I saw some sort of priest driving south on Yamba the other week, prayer book/bible in one hand, signing the cross (or whatever they do) with the other. This continued on and off from near the mint oval to where he turned off at Wisdom.

You’d be asking forgiveness too if you had the alter boy steer with the back of his head.

(Apologies, I’m in Friday pub mode)

Pretty sure the pile-up I was involved in on the Tuggeranong Parkway in 2008 had over 7 cars. Managed to close 3 lanes of the parkway too! Only one lane northbound stayed open. Getting up close and personal with the concrete barrier isn’t something I would recommend! Gotta love wet weather, peak hour traffic and dumb a$$ drivers in the ‘Berra…

Car 7: Catholic driver, busy with the rosary beads praying not to crash.

Don’t joke, I saw some sort of priest driving south on Yamba the other week, prayer book/bible in one hand, signing the cross (or whatever they do) with the other. This continued on and off from near the mint oval to where he turned off at Wisdom.

Im sure I remember a multi-car pileup on the parkway above Hindmarsh Dr, maybe 15 years ago, which involved over a dozen cars. From memory one of the fatals from that accident was a pedestrian who was standing on the road getting happy-snaps on his camera, who got hit by a car.

davo101 said :

Yawn. Let me know when we manage to get to some real numbers.

Good to see the German Police laying blame where it’s due: “Many drivers were driving too quickly and closely for the weather conditions, police said.”

M0les said :

Diggety said :

Car 1: driver evades cyclist does something stupid.
Car 2: male driver ogling girl with big boobs walking past
Car 3: tourist driver trying to catch a glimpse of PM
Car 4: female driver doing her make-up

It’s all too easy.

Must try harder: You missed racial, age and religious stereotypes too!

Car 5: wog driver, seat too far back to see
Car 6: HenryBG driver, cursing the world for jury duty
Car 7: Catholic driver, busy with the rosary beads praying not to crash.

Is that everything?

Yawn. Let me know when we manage to get to some real numbers.

Saw something similar at the form one lane near the Hopeton cct exit a few months back. Four cars nose to tail… very next day, the same thing but with three cars involved a bit closer to the lodge.

I must draw attention to your incorrect use of the word “accident” though (no offence intended). Have you never seen Hot Fuzz? 🙂

A pile up can only result when several people are driving poorly in the same vicinity at the same time.

“Accident” implies that nobody is to blame. I would argue that the drivers of car 2, 3 and 4 are all to blame. It is almost certain that all of them were travelling too fast, too close, and not paying proper attention to what was going on ahead of them.

Possibly the driver of car 1 as well, unless they had scanned what was going on ahead of them and come to a gradual, controlled and panic free stop.

A pile up can almost never be classified as an accident.. it is a series of motor vehicle collisions.

I hope everyone involved was OK and not injured. I also hope that every person involved walks away from this thinking “what could I have done differently to avoid winding up in that situation”… rather than the inevitable “it’s not my fault, everyone just stopped out of nowhere.”

Postalgeek said :

Diggety said :

Car 1: driver evades cyclist does something stupid.
Car 2: male driver ogling girl with big boobs walking past
Car 3: tourist driver trying to catch a glimpse of PM
Car 4: female driver doing her make-up

It’s all too easy.

Get with the times. There’s at least one mobile involved in that equation.

True that. I blame my phone 😉

Diggety said :

Car 1: driver evades cyclist does something stupid.
Car 2: male driver ogling girl with big boobs walking past
Car 3: tourist driver trying to catch a glimpse of PM
Car 4: female driver doing her make-up

It’s all too easy.

Must try harder: You missed racial, age and religious stereotypes too!

Diggety said :

Car 1: driver evades cyclist does something stupid.
Car 2: male driver ogling girl with big boobs walking past
Car 3: tourist driver trying to catch a glimpse of PM
Car 4: female driver doing her make-up

It’s all too easy.

Get with the times. There’s at least one mobile involved in that equation.

buzz819 said :

AmarooStu said :

Four cars? Meh……. 😉 My wife was Car 1 of a 5 car pile up on the GDE Bridge a few weeks back……driver of Car 4 had to get cut out of the car. Poor lass.

Last night, it was six cars on Barry Drive near the intersection of North Rd, westbound.

So, when will it be 7 car? Going once, going twice…………any takers? Am sure it will happen soon enough due to the fact too many numpties leave less than a 1 second gap behind the car infront.

7 cars happened on Drakeford Drive last year… So already happened…

Well there you go. Just goes to show how uninformed I am about Canberra traffic! And here I was thinking that a four car pile-up was newsworthy.

nup – last 2 times its rained here there have bee multiple pile ups south bound at the bridge over Hopetoun Circuit Yarralumla/Deakin.

3 lanes merge into 2 there and everyone is obviously too far up each other. So traffic banks up back up around Parliament House and almost back to the lake. And I zip past it all. 🙂

AmarooStu said :

Four cars? Meh……. 😉 My wife was Car 1 of a 5 car pile up on the GDE Bridge a few weeks back……driver of Car 4 had to get cut out of the car. Poor lass.

Last night, it was six cars on Barry Drive near the intersection of North Rd, westbound.

So, when will it be 7 car? Going once, going twice…………any takers? Am sure it will happen soon enough due to the fact too many numpties leave less than a 1 second gap behind the car infront.

7 cars happened on Drakeford Drive last year… So already happened…

AmarooStu said :

…So, when will it be 7 car? Going once, going twice…………any takers? Am sure it will happen soon enough due to the fact too many numpties leave less than a 1 second gap behind the car infront.

Or pissing about with mobile phones instead of watching the road 🙂

A few years back I was number 5 car in an 8 car pile up on Kings Ave bridge. The car behind me was swerving in and out of traffic and was doing 100km/h and I took the full impact, both my front car seats broke instantly, back windscreen went straight through me, etc, my car was a pancake and to top it off car number 8 was stolen and the driver did a runner after impact. Classy! Lol.

There was a 6 car pile up on the parkway last year…. just past the cotter road overpass heading north.

That caused some headaches and whiplash from all the rubbernecking.

Car 1: driver evades cyclist does something stupid.
Car 2: male driver ogling girl with big boobs walking past
Car 3: tourist driver trying to catch a glimpse of PM
Car 4: female driver doing her make-up

It’s all too easy.

My second such viewing in a week! I passed the one this morning before any emergency vehicles arrived.

Witnessed a similar one about 7pm on Tuesday night, on the Parkway just past the Cotter Road (heading towards Belconnen). 4 cars concertina style, the second one squished in quite badly, had the fire brigade in attendance. I was thinking that one was as a result of people not knowing how to merge into traffic doing 100kmh.

My mother always wonders at how such accidents can happen ‘they’re all heading in the same direction’.

Four cars? Meh……. 😉 My wife was Car 1 of a 5 car pile up on the GDE Bridge a few weeks back……driver of Car 4 had to get cut out of the car. Poor lass.

Last night, it was six cars on Barry Drive near the intersection of North Rd, westbound.

So, when will it be 7 car? Going once, going twice…………any takers? Am sure it will happen soon enough due to the fact too many numpties leave less than a 1 second gap behind the car infront.