Boom: Cars collide on turnpike; traffic a mess

Or had a near rear-end and spun out trying to avoid it. This happened in front of me on Route 2 one busy day - driver of a truck was following close and must have looked away, then looked back to see that the car in front of him had checked speed for whatever reason (I think someone cut right in front of him). Frantic horn blare, screech of brakes, complete loss of control, truck spins out and ends up facing backwards, mostly in the left breakdown lane. Miraculously, not so much as a bumper touched, mostly because I was farther back, the person behind me was also at a somewhat sane distance, everyone else was paying attention and no one else (except the hypothesized nimrod who started the problem) was changing lanes at the time.

Moral of the story: you can follow close, you can go fast, you can make sudden moves, and you can sometimes look away from the road...but only one at a time.