At 6:30 pm, VTA buses are still being rerouted.

As of 8:20 PM, only one lane was open on El Camino near the crash scene.

Traffic jams this bad are really rare around here, thank goodness.

It would be slightly better if folks didn't pull out into intersections until there's actually space on the other side. Around 8PM today the El Camino / Grant intersection was approaching honest-to-goodness _gridlock_ because of this.

My husband showed me the pictures of the damaged cars. I hope everyone is ok-from the pics it was a very seriously accident. Amazing that no one got killed.

Not sure if that is right where PAMF is, but the cars speeding off the freeway onto El Camino just makes for an accident waiting to happen. That, and cars trying to get into the right hand land to get into PAMF is one of the worst possible scenarios (and cars getting off the freeway and trying to make a left turn at the first light).

Again, I hope that everyone is ok. From the damage I saw, it seemed like everyone was going VERY fast. Let's slow down folks, and let someone in when they need to get in-nothing is worth being severely injured...or dead.

People stomp on the accelerator and want everyone to get out of their way. If they are seen by others, those drivers maneuver to try and block the first driver from passing. If paths become blocked, maybe they slam on the brakes in time, maybe they kill or maim someone. Oh, and nobody behaving this way has any real reason to do so; it's all just behind-the-wheel ego. Interestingly, many get more excited to gripe about those scoff-law bicyclists than they do about the group causing most all of the tragic incidents.
My advice: don't do that anymore.

I take this way home every day so it's not unusual to see an accident, though never this serious.
However I hope MV takes this as a wake up call as to what can happen when you close a major exit from MV. All side streets and even major roads had heavy traffic. More police enforcement is needed especially around Grant and El Camino. There are always cars making a left from Northbound ECR to Grant that are running the red light and then stop in the intersection. Cars racing up to squeeze into the 85 South entrance line from Southbound ECR. Commuter shuttle buses that always stop at the bus stop in front of Best Buy, which I believe is for VTA buses only, then traffic backs up and people blindly merge to the center lane to get around in the middle of the intersection.

This is clearly more of a rant but something has to get done around here instead of just more construction of office buildings.

How much longer do we have to wait for self-driving cars? They can only be better than us failing humans!

@TECHFAN, don't forget that self-driving cars are designed and built by us failing humans.

As of 3:30pm Friday there is only one lane open.

There is no more civility in driving habits of people.Everyone thinks they own the whole road and have no respect for other people driving on the roads or the pedestrians or even the Ambulances. It is terrible that people are so narrow minded and impatient when they are inside their cars. ONly thing that can people teach lessons is when the cops regularly issue tickets to speeding vehicles on ElCamino and other roads. People ignoring red signals and driving thru well after it becomes red is becoming more common because they know that there are no cops in the vicinity.

We live in a very "selfish" time..not just greed from money from jobs...housing...who has the latest, the hottest material things..but people who do not value kindnesses to one another...we have placed the WRONG priorities at the top of our "soul" chain..and people day-to-day are paying the price for this selfishness.

While everyone is blowing this into some sort of statement about sustainable development and man's implacable incivility to man on the road, you all did see that this was being investigated as a possible DUI, yes?

Web Link

DUI at 1pm? Yikes! I drove past this around 5:30, couldn't believe the amount of damage to the cars, something you'd expect to see more on a highway at high speeds than on ECR.

Prayers to those hurt, particularly the one seriously injured, so sad.

The more we build, and the more people that live here only means one thing, Overcrowding. Our peninsula can only handle so much. Have u heard the term Over-saturated? With the overcrowding our streets will look like that of Mumbia.

I drove by at 7:30, traffic was gridlocked, no sign of traffic officers at Grant/El Calmino intersection, if this incident happened at 1pm, it would seem they could have diverted traffic that was not headed to 85 South.

I am not surprised. This was an accident waiting to happen because the intersection at ECR and Sylva is ver very dangerous. I saw the accident and one car had to be going at top speed to cause so much damage. Fortunately no pedestrian was injured. And we need cops at Grant and ECR because many cars speed through red lights. Where are they?

I sincerely hope drugs or drinking was not part of this accident. Always tragic to see these scenes. I commend the responders, they did a great job. Were on the scene, it seemed, within 2 minutes.

There are so many speculative comments regarding people "flying" off 85... WRONG. I have been coming off 85, since PAMF moved to the old, E. Not speeding, because it's dangerous for me!

The driver of the red car, "allegedly" was speeding down from the overpass, according to an eye witness.

I was seconds ahead of this horrid accident. I was going to PAMF, and came off 85. I am reading, how people "fly off" 85. Not a word about people speeding over 85 towards Sunnyvale. Personally, I take the exit, very alert to my speed. Pedistrians, that saunter, bicyclists that think they can mosey in the middle of my lane. Yesterday, I had an adult skateboarder in the middle of my lane, as I exited 85 to go to the clinic. Had I been, as described in some of these comments: Speeding off 85.... I would have ran over him, right after I would have hit a pedestrian who did not care, they were sauntering while talking on their phone. People speeding on El Camino, pedestrians, skateboarders, bicyclists, lost driver's, who shoot across the road, everyone mentioned on their phones or IPods, are the real dangers, NOT all the people coming off 85.

@Anke: You are so right - humans also design airplanes, antibiotics and a plethora of many other sophisticated and indispensable contributions to our quality of life

I was driving home from a Back to School Night at my Cupertino school at around 8:30, going north on 85. The exits for both Homestead and Fremont off of southbound 85 were totally jammed. I exited 85 at El Camino going west, toward home. It appeared only 1 lane of traffic was open on El Camino going east, as the traffic was backed up nearly to Castro St. I could not understand why the MV police did not divert traffic heading east on El Camino to an alternate route before these poor drivers got stuck in the gridlock.

I agree that the intersection at Grant and El Camino is scary. I have seen people there running the light all the time. I have had the green light on Grant to cross over El Camino to go to Hwy 101 and maybe at least five cars still going through the red light making the left turn coming from 237.

People use that section of road to "Short-cut" 85. The entire approach to ECR from 237 is an exercise in ego battles with everyone trying to "just get ahead of that other guy."

Also, They should prohibit U-turns @ Phyllis from northbound El Camino from 3:00 to 6:00.