I Thought I Read Once This Was Based On An Actual Event

Especially with the officer being killed when his wife had a baby, the two runaways escaping in the van and the motorcyclist being killed like that.

Granted, for Hollywood 'based on a true story' means an absolute work of fiction, but I could have sworn I'd seen these people identified somewhere online when I looked this up before.

I just watched the smash up on youtube, and seeing the old car Ebsen was driving and another old model there made me suspect it was based on something from the sixties that might have happened.

Anyone know if this was true or not?

Mainly an auto mishap involving 38 cars like that, while that seems to be commonplace nowadays with fog conditions and slick roads.