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Officials say at least 7 dead in massive vehicle crashes in south Louisiana due to ‘superfog’ (apnews.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/news@lemmy.world
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At least seven people were killed Monday morning after a “superfog” of smoke from south Louisiana marsh fires and dense fog caused multiple massive car crashes involving a total of 158 vehicles, authorities said.

Twenty-five people were injured and the number of fatalities may increase as first responders continue to clear the crash scenes and search for victims, Louisiana State Police said in a statement Monday evening.

Gov. John Bel Edwards issued a call for blood donors and asked for prayers “for those hurt and killed.”

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[–] 94 points 2 years ago (1 child)

I keep seeing this language that the fog "caused" the collisions. No. Reckless drivers who failed to drive appropriately for the conditions are what caused the collisions. The fog didn't get behind the wheel of those cars and press down on the accelerators to make them go too fast to stop for hazards. The drivers did that.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    Something makes me think there's more to it than that. You're talking about over a hundred people being reckless which seems hard to believe. I'm guessing that the smoke from the marsh fires wasn't spread consistently throughout the fog, causing patches of extremely low visibility. The result is that you could have a wreck even when going well below the speed limit because you suddenly go from low visibility to no visibility without any warning (if the smoke is a similar color as the fog it might seem invisible and catch you off guard).

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  • [–] 21 points 2 years ago*

    Fog is one of the most dangerous weather events because people don't think of it as dangerous.

    You have the people that do think it's dangerous and slow down so you don't hit someone in front of you and then you have the people who don't think it's dangerous and go barreling through at full speed and hit all the cars going slow.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago

    Unless they experienced something like spontaneous failure of their braking system due to smoke, they were driving recklessly. Driving recklessly is the norm, such as driving too fast to be able to respond to hazards. Easy to believe 90% of the people in the collision were driving recklessly and a small percent probably responded appropriately, but got rear ended by people driving recklessly anyways.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago

    It's also possible that shitty drivers took out safe drivers that managed to do the right thing. It doesn't have to be every single driver. A single tractor trailer could plow through plenty.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    You're talking about over a hundred people being reckless which seems hard to believe.

    I hope you never have to drive in Charlotte, NC during rush hour. We sometimes even shoot at each other instead of honking our horns over here.

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    • [–] 26 points 2 years ago

    This is why i want less car centric infrastructure, i dont wanna be driving with these folks

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    [–] 7 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    The fuck is a “marsh fire”? Aren’t marshes supposed to be wet? How TF does a fucking marsh catch on fire?

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago

    Louisianian here. We're seeing a lot of wildfires in marshy areas due to the extreme drought conditions. The marsh grass is really dry and several areas near me have experienced these fires in normally wet areas that would not burn.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Their slow organic decomposition process brings a kind of a non-efficient fuel. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peat Thus in swamps fire can linger for a very long time.

    Peat has a high carbon content and can burn under low moisture conditions. Once ignited by the presence of a heat source (e.g., a wildfire penetrating the subsurface), it smoulders. These smouldering fires can burn undetected for very long periods of time (months, years, and even centuries) propagating in a creeping fashion through the underground peat layer.

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    • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    thought it said "superfrog" at first

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    [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Fuck people who drive too fast in bad weather. I hope they live with the burden of their bad decisions for the rest of their painful lives.

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