State must not abide highway death traps

Editorial

Multicar pileups have happened before on Florida interstates, and unless safety improvements are made, they will happen again.

We welcome the arrival of investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board to the scene of a huge crash on Interstate 75 between Gainesville and Ocala. But you don't have to inspect the remains of a dozen cars and 12 big rigs, many of them burned, to picture what happened.

Smoke and fog forced traffic to slow down in both directions. The slow cars were invisible to oncoming traffic and were rear-ended again and again.

The disaster left at least 10 people dead and 18 hospitalized.

In January 2008, a similar series of smashups in smoke and fog on Interstate 4 involved 70 cars and trucks. Four people were killed and 38 injured.

We said at the time that it is intolerable to accept that in low visibility, there's nothing to keep drivers out of a fiery pileup.

The way people drive on the interstates these days, a slow car in broad daylight is at high risk of being rear-ended.

Aggressive lane-changing, tailgating, monkeying with cell phones, and speeding cause crashes every day.

It is only wishful thinking to expect night drivers to recognize total blackness ahead as a death trap. Once they plow into it, it's too late.

The Florida Highway Patrol was wrong to reopen I-75 after temporarily closing it because of fog and smoke from a brush fire, but troopers face a hard choice. For one thing, there are too few troopers to monitor every mile of the state's highway network day and night.

For another, the choice is all or nothing.

Either close the interstate and create major traffic hazards on the inadequate parallel roads, or keep the expressway open and hope visibility stays acceptable.

High traffic volumes on I-75 and I-4 justify speed-limit signs that can be changed based on conditions. With that capability, a trooper could keep the interstate open in marginal conditions but use a radio-controlled trigger to lower the posted speed limit on a certain stretch of highway to a safer 45 mph or even 35 when there is smoke ahead, a wreck or a holiday backup.

There are many conditions that call for slower speeds. A heavy Florida rainstorm can bring visibility to near zero in just a few seconds.

Areas that frequently experience fog, such as Paynes Prairie, where Sunday's wrecks happened, should be equipped with roadside lighting. The lights wouldn't penetrate thick fog, but looking ahead and seeing the long string of lamps disappear would itself be a warning to slow down.

These solutions are imperfect but would be an improvement on the current system.

On I-75 today, it's hard to know what to do if you drive into low-visibility or encounter a traffic backup.

You couldn't be blamed for pulling over to the side of the road, jumping from your car and running as far away from the pavement as you could. That's how some folks survived Sunday's pileup.

It's an intolerable situation, and one that deserves the full attention of the Highway Patrol, the Department of Transportation and safety experts.