Ever get trapped on the interstate?

[monarchsfan16]

I live in New England so getting stuck in traffic is a way of life. But the worst was in 2011. To help get the state budget back on track after the recession, the state came up with some ridiculous plan where the DOT trucks would only hit the roads every 4 hours in the winter. If reports of poor road conditions came in between those set times, oh well. Well obviously a quick light rain fell at 6 am, and it was 31*, so all the roads had a nice icy glaze. I made it about 10 miles into my then 45 mile drive to work before the police shut the highway down. I sat for a solid two hours before the magical 8 am rolled around and DOT was dispatched to treat the roads, and the roads reopened. We are lucky no one died that morning. Those first ten miles of my trip are still etched in my memories...it was all flashing lights from emergency vehicles and hazard lights reflecting off shattered glass and the glaze of ice, since in December it's dark at that hour.

 

[Kittyblue]

Now THAT would have been entertaining at least!

 

[neverlandsky]

Yes. It was shutdown and due to board rules I can’t say for whom. Think BIG Pretty cool to witness. I was in front of the shutdown with several unmarked cars blocking all of us off on both sides for almost an hour. Saw the massive motorcade with law enforcement escort and 10 minutes after they passed they reopened.

 

[kdonnel]

Here is a news story of the fatality accident that caused the closure.

Gruesome.

https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/gw...nd-lanes-gwinnett/TUP3JBSHCBF77K53Q6SEF5OCWE/

Suwanee police told our partners at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that a motorcyclist slammed into the back of an SUV in the northbound HOV lane near the Lawrenceville-Suwanee Road exit. The impact launched the rider and the bike over the median wall and into the southbound lanes.

 

[design_mom]

Yes. Several years ago, we were traveling home for vacation on a stretch of road that approached a mountain tunnel. We came to a standstill for a long time. We assumed that there might have been an accident inside the tunnel (which would be horrible) but we were stuck and had nowhere to exit, so we sat.

Finally the traffic started to crawl forward at a snail's pace. They had opened one lane. When we finally got far enough, the problem was BEFORE the tunnel, not in it. And it wasn't an accident in a traditional sense. There was a refrigerated tractor-trailer truck in the right lane. It appears that somehow the trailer had caught fire. The side of the trailer had given way, spilling its contents on the road. The road was littered with hams, bacon and sausage... and the smoldering truck smelled like a barbecue joint. (The tractor. part of the truck seemed to be fine, so hopefully there were no injuries.)

Now, everytime we face a slowdown, someone asks "do you think it's another ham truck?!"

(In a less happy-ending occasion, we were stuck on the interstate in Florida when they blocked the road so Life Flight could land.) We couldn't see the accident site till things had opened again and only the wreckage remained. But it appeared that the car had gone off the road and rolled several times. And the car appeared to be PACKED (someone was either moving or going on vacation because there were clothes, papers, pillows, and all sorts of stuff EVERYWHERE. And the car was such a mangled mess that I am not sure how anyone could have survived... but we did not hear the outcome.)

 

[2SLM]

No, but I worry about it every time I'm really low on gas.

 

[a1tinkfans]

Yes, sadly a multi car, motorcycle fatality it was a Very long wait as we had just passed an exit and the next was miles off. Cars were turned off. Everyone just waiting. If I recall correctly it was like 5 hours or more. Total trip took us over 8.. exhaustive. We were to spend a leisurely full day before getting family up at Mco airport from overseas.
then…. They missed their flight and we had to grab a hotel As we truly could not even think about going back home.
They then flew into an airport only 1.5 hours away across the coast, 2 days later. But that flight was late at night so once again we needed a hotel as I Have a rule … no nite time/dark alligator alley road trips
Needless to say it a a very costly The debacle. one for the books UGH! Recalling it gives me anxiety.

 

[a1tinkfans]

No, but I worry about it every time I'm really low on gas.

Well here in fla… we always check that tank if doing highway . At one point on 75 it’s more than 50 miles between exits. No joke. I never fall below 1/4 tank.

 

[mylilnikita]

Interstate 64 here in VA. Lol

 

[luv2cheer92]

Another one for I-66 here. Regularly took me over 3 hours to get home 30ish miles from DC. Always at least 2 hours, and that was mostly using the HOV lane.
My brother had it the worst on that road one time though. Got caught in a snow storm, road was closed. He had to abandon his car, walk a mile to a hotel for the night, then walk back in the morning, shovel it out, then drive back to work. And he was far from the only one that did that that night.

 

[Kitty 34]

I've been stuck on the highway a few times but one of the weirdest times was because a horse was on the highway. They finally got hold of the horse's owner who actually helped the police get the horse.

 

[Dan Murphy]

And there are no rest rooms on the highway either.

 

[georgina]

And there are no rest rooms on the highway either.

We got stuck for hours on a highway on vacation, somewhere between the Indiana turnpike & Chicago (a truck had dumped something on the road.) Luckily we had the potty chair in the minivan for the little kids!

 

[snappy]

many times on I-10.

 

[Kitty 34]

And there are no rest rooms on the highway either.

......especially where you're stopped for hours!

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

Yes, and it is always when I have to pee.

 

[lucas]

And there are no rest rooms on the highway either.

That is my biggest fear. Being stuck and having no restrooms!

 

[NotUrsula]

I'm absolutely amazed that no one has mentioned I-4! I've gotten stuck there far more times than anywhere else. It has a tendency to jam up in Orlando, in Tampa, and points in-between.

We once ended up stuck on I-4 on Xmas Day on our way to MCO for our flight home; we had been at USIOA. I'm not proud of it, but I resorted to the Orlando Median U-turn that time, because there were pretty much no hotel rooms available between the holidays if we missed the flight (of course, that also happened to be the day of the Xmas Tornado that grazed MCO -- we were sitting on the taxiway when it hit. That was an interesting experience to top off an interesting day, LOL. When we got home we just gave up and went to bed early.)

Another time we were trying to exit 529 onto I-4 Westbound, and we ended up stuck on the ramp for about 2 hours because of a wreck a bit further west on I-4. There were several trucks stuck on the ramp as well, and it made for a bizarre bit of theatre that was really very nasty. A family in a car that was on I-4 stuck parallel to the ramp had several teenage girls as passengers, and at least 2 of them ended up desperate for a bathroom break while stuck there. They kept getting out of the car and trying to work up the courage to go on the side of the road, but every time they did, the truckers would start honking their horns and yelling out of their windows to harass them. Apparently they didn't have a towel or blanket that could be used as a shield. It was really painful to witness. From that moment, I made a promise to myself never to drive on I-4 without some kind of item that could be used that way; thus the extra twist-spring windshield shade that now lives permanently in the outer pocket of my suitcase.

 

[GreatLakes]

Once there was someone threatening to jump off a bridge onto the freeway so we were stopped for a few hours. I was already past the last exit before the bridge so I had to wait it out. There have been plenty of short delays as accidents were moved over but nothing like that time.

 

[bcla]

Traffic coming to a crawl because of a huge accident has happened way more times than I can count. But even then it's more about merging and some drivers just trying to stop anyone from getting in front, which is really weird. Some drivers just take it personally, like it's the responsibility of drivers in a closed lane to just stay there and wait until the lane reopens.

But actually stuck has happened at least once. One time it was torrential rains that did end up stopping after a few minutes. However, a section in a trench maybe a mile away had flooded as it was a drainage area and was about 4 feet deep in water after pumps had failed. I heard that a few cars ended up going into it and it just flooded their engines. A lot of us were stuck behind where it wasn't moving at all and we could safely get out of our vehicles because nobody could move. There were reports on the radio of this, but it certainly wasn't like today where anyone could see the closure with navigation tools and look up what's going on. I was there not moving for at least an hour.