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20 Car Pileup on Snowy Canadian Highway Involving a Semi Is Truly Scary

Whether you like of profoundly despise winter, you have to admit that snow can make even the most mundane scenery look beautiful. Not only that, but it also dampens the sounds, making us feel as if inside a huge recording booth.
Pileup on Canadian highway 3 photos
Photo: Facebook screenshots
Canadian highway pileupCanadian highway pileup
These two things coupled with the slow fall of snowflakes are usually better than any anger therapy, helping lower your stress levels and blood pressure instantly. Well, unless you're driving, that is.

That's not entirely true either. People tend to drive slower on snow, be more considerate and more willing to help each other, which is a nice change from the usual race against time where it's you against everybody else. You're less likely to see road rage incidents on a white background, and that's largely why.

However, the thing with winter driving is that even though it's all nice and serene for most of the time, once things go south, they usually do so in spectacular fashion. Mistakes are amplified, the consequences increased tenfold.

This video shot at Ontario's Highway 401 in Canada clearly demonstrates that. It starts off with the cars silently gliding over the layer of snow as they were slowing down and coming to a halt. However, if you look closely you'll realize that, for some reason, none of the drivers are using their hazard lights to let the people behind know... there is a hazard ahead.

With visibility reduced to a quarter of a mile due to significant snowfall, the drivers were left with too little time once they acknowledged that the car in front of them was actually stationary without the help of the hazard lights. You can see a few vehicles - two pickup trucks, if we're not mistaking - choose to go wide and avoid the stopped cars. That was wise.

And then the going south thing happens. A large truck enters the scene, tractor head going sideways pushed by the big (and presumably heavy) semi with no chance whatsoever of stopping in time. From there to a bona fide pileup it was just a matter of seconds. According to the video description, there were no fatalities, which is always a good thing to hear, but a few persons were taken to the hospital. And while we can't know for sure whether that would have been the case, it sure looks like had a few of the drivers pushed a red button with concentric triangles on it, this could have been avoided.

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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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