Smash-Up on Interstate 5

I knew it had to be from sometime in the 70s by the look of the vehicles and the timeframe I seemed to remember watching it. I seemed to remember a station wagon in one of the scenes.

I knew there were some big name actors in it, yet I couldn't remember their faces in order to recall their names. It had been too long ago. 

I knew the movie began and ended with a multi-car pile-up on a large highway. 

I knew the title was one that made sense and should be easy to remember, but yet I didn't remember it. 

Have you ever had a movie you wanted to find and just couldn't remember enough about it to locate it? 

The above list is really all I had to go on to find a movie I had seen as a teenager that had a big impact on me. It had forever changed how I saw driving and automobile accidents.

Scenes from that movie have haunted me all my life.

As my own teenage daughter got her drivers license in late 2008, I wanted to find the movie again. I wanted her to have the same appreciation that I did.

I spent time online trying to figure out the name of this movie. It took me a long time, but I eventually figured it out. I now know the name of the movie is "Smash-up on Interstate 5". It was a made-for-TV movie that came out in late 1976. The movie included a great set of actors such as Tommy Lee Jones, Buddy Ebsen, Donna Mills, Scott Jacoby and Robert Conrad.

All the pieces fit with what I remembered. It was in the 70s, it had big-name actors, it involved an auto accident and the title made total sense.

The movie is based on the 1973 novel "Expressway" by Elleston Trevor (writing as Howard North).

For those of you who have never seen the movie, and I'm sure many of you have not, the movie begins with action scenes of a 39 car pile-up on Interstate 5 in California. The camera shots really take you close to the action. It's a pretty horrific way to start a movie, but It certainly grabs your attention.

The movie then backs up and introduces you to the characters only a day or two before the accident. You meet each person involved in that wreck and learn about their lives. You vaguely remember seeing them in the wreck but because you didn't know the characters you didn't pay much attention to individual faces. You were focused on the action. This movie allows you to become intimately familiar with where they were going that day and why.

The entire movie is leading you up to the wreck, and you know it. Some would argue as they did with "Titanic", "why would I want to watch it, I know how it's going to end?!". You continue to be made aware of the time getting nearer by the periodic timetable that displays on the screen. Your heart almost races knowing their time is short. The tension continues to build.

By the time the accident happens again, you are so involved with these characters that you can't help but feel their pain. You know getting on the highway is a bad thing. You know everything is lining up to take place.

The final wreck scene is much more graphic than the intro scenes. They don't hold back on the graphic display of carnage.

Think about, even if you only ‘knew' one person in that wreck it would be enough, but you are now able to identify with each of them. It brings tears to my eyes as I write this 30 years later!

I think, too often, we stop and stare at the wrecks we come upon and look at the cars and think ‘oh what a shame' and forget about the occupants and how this one event may forever change their life and the lives of their friends and family.

This movie made me more aware of the human side of wrecks. I will always identify with the occupants and remember they are someone's son or daughter, they are someone's friend, and someone loves them dearly. Each of them was headed somewhere performing their daily duties when suddenly things changed. It can happen to any of us.

Don't you dare take time or life for granted. Drive carefully!