Last night around 19h30 a terrible accident happened on the A9 motorway direction Lausanne just above Chexbres. I didn't see anything but slowing down we were running over pieces of cars, so you know it wasn't that far away.

Traffic completely stopped and ambulances started to arrive in about 4-5 minutes. Great job, that was quick. After that police cars. After that fireman, now you know something bad happened up there.

The only message I could see on my GPS was "motorway closed, stay in your car". Everybody was pretty patient.

Around 4 hours later we could see some police cars and ambulances going back on the motorway among the stopped cars in the opposite way, now this thing is really serious. It was close to midnight, people started going out of there cars, car batteries were giving up, some were honking non stop, others had called friends to bring them food from the bridges above.

Finally somebody came back from the very front to explain that indeed the motorway is closed until tomorrow morning due to a victim in the crash and no chance of passing through. At that moment situation escalated and a small passage from the direction Lausanne to direction Vevey which was barricaded by a chain got quickly broken and everybody started to do U turns and proceed the wrong way on the now closed motorway with some 500 cars blocked and everybody joining the A9 motorway without no signalization on the other lane that cars were joining in the motorway from basically a standstill.

So blocked for almost 5 hours with no explanation and no action from the police to free some 500 cars blocked in front of an accident that they knew from the first moment it was no longer possible to reopen the motorway until the next day. It's ridiculous.

Just another myth about Switzerland - that police are doing their job. They are bunch of clowns.

Now, of course, squatting in a bush with a speed binocular - they are world champions in that.

I had a notification from SwissAlert saying A9 closed in both directions.

Me too.
And another when it was reopened.

+1

I was in that area about an hour earlier, so didn't see it, but I would always go straight to the TCS website (or app, on my Android head unit or phone) who are always really good at this sort of thing. You could also pretty much guarantee that any radio station would have it on their RDS travel bulletins.

Sitting there for four hours without actively looking for information sounds like something you might have expected to do thirty of forty years ago, but in this information age I can't begin to imagine the sort of person that would do so.

__________________
http://www.chaletbeauroc.com

I was 150 meters behind the accident when it happened, so I among 400-500 cars were blocked in the very section where the accident happened, there were cars parts on windshields and around our cars no use of TCS telling me the motorway is closed 15 minutes after the fact.

The police not doing absolutely anything during 4 hours when they know they can not reopen the motorway is ridiculous. People literally broke the chain connecting the opposite direction and started on their own something which was no doubt very dangerous and easily avoided if the police did their job. FFS they had 4 hours to organize themselves.

@ OP - And what would your response be if you or your loved ones were seriously involved in the accident? Would you want the first responders to do everything to help you, secure the scene, protect the evidence or worry about the folks stuck in the traffic? Dealing with the seriously injured must be a horrific job - we should be glad they get up the next morning to potentially do it all again instead of whinging - get over it!

I have to agree with the OP. Decisions regarding traffic should have been made much earlier. There is usually enough staff to manage the accident and subsequent traffic.

The A9 is quite winding there and on two different levels. The opportunity to cross traffic back in the other direction are few. But once they closed the previous entrance they should have started turning around traffic to return to that point. One person could have done that. That and a dozen cones.

A person died in the accident, certainly a chilling reminder how fragile we are especially when cruising down the motorway going home, like any other day, but by all means I am not complaining to be stuck behind this accident, as I said, for the first 3.5 hours literally nobody went out their cars and everybody was patient, after almost 5 hours people started to be restless because there was absolutely no info on when and if hundreds of cars could continue, not to mention people with small children in their cars that had no dinner/water etc, people started peeing next to their cars in the end, it was total mayhem

My beef is with the Police / Civil Protection that didn't organize a safe U turn for everybody stuck in the immediate vicinity, which the traffic jam was going back at least to the last exit and not for people to have to tear down barricade and slip onto the opposite direction of the motorway and incoming cars at full speed. I'm sorry but if people can't be evacuated in 5 hours after an accident to wait at -2C at midnight and no police action in sight is plain reckless and hopefully somebody will be held responsible from the traffic authorities

There were somes "cons" instead (French for idiot) :-)

Sure it is. That's why when I worked for Eurotunnel, we suggested the acronym CON , an older French woman went bright red and said "Non!"

Don't expect too much from the police.
In canton Vaud it is 12 month of "police academy" and 12 months of practice make you one, if you could master a vocation learning track. I guess a supermarket security guard isn't far away when it comes to human capital and competences. These guys are hired to "police".

It’s not easy to be a police officer or a gendarm... they hard a tough work.... if you think there’s points to be improved, write to the canton or directly to the police...
criticize only won’t change or help. Keep it positive....

Did anyone trapped called the police? Maybe the problem was 500 calls at the same time.

PS. the Vaud police is looking for witnesses to collaborate in the accident investigation https://www.vd.ch/toutes-les-autorit...ppel-a-temoin/

This and this don't seem to add up

I didn't see the accident happening, traffic was dense in 120 kmh zone, lots of glass and plastic pieces flying, accident was after the climb while my car was at the beginning of the climb. If you've traveled on this road one direction of the highway is elevated some 60-70m while the opposite direction stays flat

Basically we were trapped between the police securing the scene and the flashing truck closing the motorway with nobody in charge to evacuate the cars that got trapped with no exit or return. In total there was a traffic jam of about 1.5km long, if not more

maybe they were busy with something?

FTFY.

Tom

Understand that police are often caught between maintaining traffic order, saving lives, investigating the accident and securing evidence. They need to act with the limitations they have, and you can't make everyone happy.

One of the most annoying things police have to deal with is wannabees who think they know how to do the job better.