Holy cow! Article says officials say "speed and weather" may be cause. Hmmm...one would there would always be "speed and weather" present. Could they mean "high speed and bad weather"? :smh:

These things happen for two simple reasons, selfish and stupidty to obey the Laws. Everyone has to tailgate the person in front of them and most are driving above the speed limits.

One is suppose to keep one car length for every 10 mile of speed. How many do that? You are lucky if there is ONE full car length between cars. If you leave two car length spaces some selfish idiot will jump into it.

Many years ago some agency stated that most speedometers are approximately 10 PERCENT off their readings. Ever since then Stupid Americans decided that it meant 10 mph so that is why most people will think if they drive just 10 mph over the limit the cops won't ticket them and that it is ok to do it.

I know on my many trips between Fl and Ky I could set my cruise control at 65 or 70 (whichever is the speed limit at the time) and I'd be all by myself on the road. Everyone else is raging along at higher speeds and running in packs bumper to bumper.

You would think with the high cost of gas right now that people would drive the speed their vehicle gets the optimum gas mileage (usually somewhere between 60 and 65 mph). For my old 73 VW Campmobile it was 62 mph. I could hear the engine change right at that spot. I got 2 more miles per gallon that way. In my 97 van Camper I could get 11 mpg instead of 10. That may not sound much to people who have money to throw away but for tight budgets at $4.00/gal on a 1700 mile trip adds up ($70.00 for me).

Wow...that is wild. Yes, people drive way too fast on the highways, but especially when the fog is out. I bet the tule fog was out thick that morning too. It is just like a blanket over the ground that you cannot see the road at all. Often people drive through it at 70 - 80 mph as if it were clear and sunny. For all they know they could be following the car in front of them off a cliff!! But if you have half a brain, you don't want to drive in it at all. It can get so bad that the only way to see the lines on the road is to open your door and look at the ground from there while going 5 mph at the most.

It was definitely rain-slicked and since it was the first rain in probably a year, all the grease from the road floated to the top of it, making it ultra-slippery. Very tough for trucks to brake effectively in those conditions.

Heavy rain is the other scary thing, I don't think it was heavy rain this time, but when we get that, the cars hydroplane.

I am not sure why this is big news worthy of a lot of comment, but here is a much better report from the local news channel:

NEWHALL, Calif. (KTLA) -- Two successive accidents involving a total of nine big rigs backed up traffic Tuesday morning on Interstate 5 in the Newhall Pass.

The driver of a dump truck was traveling south in a truck bypass lane on I-5 at Highway 14 when he lost control about 2:20 a.m., causing a collision involving four big rigs, the CHP said.

Traffic behind the accident began backing up, and a short while later, five big rigs approaching the scene collided.

There had been light rain - the first in some time - and as one local poster remarked this kind of rain brings oil to the road surface and makes it more slick.

It only takes one accident - especially an out of control truck - to cause a domino-principle accident involving trucks which, particularly if fully loaded, require a long stretch of road in which to come to a stop.

Link for #5 where there is also an aerial photograph of the highway.

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-newhall-pass-pile-up,0,2317082.story