COLUMBUS, Ohio — The driver of a red van that stopped abruptly on I-71 south Wednesday is being blamed for what ODOT is calling an avoidable multi-car crash. 

What You Need To Know

  • A car stopping abruptly on the highway is being blamed for an avoidable multi-car crash that’s going viral on social media 

  • The Ohio Department of Transportation is warning drivers to use “common sense” on the roadways 

  • Columbus Police told Spectrum News they are still searching for the driver of the red van who stopped on the highway

  • ODOT is also reminding drivers to move over for construction workers and don’t throw trash out your windows

Matt Bruning, the press secretary for ODOT posted a video on “X.” It has about 37 million views as of Friday afternoon. The video shows the van with its right blinker flashing waiting until it was safe to get over to the exit ramp. Seconds later, a gray van and a white van stop behind the vehicle before another van smashes into them. 

Bruning called the situation completely avoidable. He’s asking drivers to “be smart on the road.”

“We see a lot of crazy things on the highway, but obviously, you know, this one is right near the top of the list, I think. You know, it's never ok to stop in the middle of a roadway like that,” Bruning said. “That was a major disruption not only to those three people, but obviously traffic was, would have been backed up for quite some time as that crash scene was cleared. So, you know, this one, this one decision by this one driver inconvenienced a lot of other people because they were inconvenienced that they missed their exit, and it could have all been completely avoided if they had just gone to the next exit and, and flipped around. And that was our message.”

Bruning said “don't make your inconvenience, somebody else's,” and that nothing is worth risking your life or someone else's. 

Other “common sense” reminders he’s now giving drivers is to move over for construction workers and don’t throw trash out your windows. 

“Unfortunately, common sense seems to go out the window too often on the roads, and we've got to change that, whether it's move over or slow down for roadside workers, whether it's give snowplows room to work, whether it's don't throw things out your window and litter along our roadways, I mean, these are all common sense things that we have to constantly remind people and we shouldn't have to remind people,” Bruning said. “We've all missed our exit. When you're in that situation, this is not the acceptable response. You just need to go to the next one and flip around.”

Bruning said there are about 5,000 exit and entrance ramps in the state of Ohio so if you miss an exit, one won’t be too far ahead. 

He also said there were no life-threatening injuries as a result of this crash but the Columbus Police told Spectrum News they are still searching for the driver of the red van who stopped on the highway.

Bruning said ODOT’s cameras aren’t meant to capture high-quality video. 

“In most cases our cameras don't catch license plates. You gotta remember the purpose of those traffic cameras on the interstates for ODOT is to monitor traffic moving,” Bruning said. “The fact that we catch a crash or a shooting or some other incident on the highway is a bonus I guess in some regard, but the purpose of those cameras is to monitor traffic flow. We're not able to get license plates or measure speed or you know these aren't enforcement cameras, they're traffic monitoring cameras, there's a big difference.”

If you have any information, Columbus Police is asking you to contact them.