14-Truck Pileup Ties Up Traffic on Freeway

A 14-truck pileup on the Golden State Freeway in Sylmar on Saturday morning caused moderate injuries and delayed traffic throughout the day, officials said.

The Los Angeles City Fire Department and the California Highway Patrol spent nearly 12 hours clearing the roadway of 18-wheelers, a process delayed when firefighters discovered what looked like a hazardous material escaping from a tractor-trailer.

A hazardous-materials team determined that the substance was ordinary housecleaning fluid, CHP Officer Wil Dixon said.

The chain-reaction accident began at 3:44 a.m., a driver said, when his truck was sideswiped by another tractor-trailer. That collision forced his truck across the roadway and into a concrete barrier about 250 yards south of a truck tunnel at the Foothill Freeway interchange, the driver said.

After hitting the barrier, the truck blocked southbound truck lanes. The other truck left the scene, the Highway Patrol said.

Five separate collisions followed the initial accident within two minutes when several trucks--coming out of the tunnel at more than 60 mph in a 40 mph zone--came upon the truck blocking their path, the CHP said. Wet roads from the overnight rain made it harder for the truck drivers to brake in time, CHP officials said.

“It wasn’t a case of these trucks running into a fog bank,” Dixon said. “They just had no time to stop from hitting the truck that was in their way. It’s just a matter of speed and physics. We were lucky no one was seriously injured.”

Most of the drivers stayed in their trucks for protection until the crashes stopped. Two utility poles were knocked down, and two drivers were treated and released from Providence-Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills.

“It was pretty incredible,” Dixon said. “It looked like when you’d play with your Tonka trucks.”

The cause of the initial accident remains under investigation.