I remember FD2 in my...thirties, I think, and noting that the pile-up started with the flying logs (which seemed to fly like balsa but hit like tamarack) and was the combination of a lot of things going wrong (which was consistent with theme of death as a petty shit that toys with you before finishing you off.) Really, most of the movies felt more like a vindictive gamemaster, unless the players signed up for being teens in a slasher flick.

On the other hand in the eighties, I remember a 24+ vehicle pile-up on the San Bernadino freeway, my mom investigated as a paralegal. It started as a car stalled in thick fog, and bunches of drivers driving way faster than was safe considering the short visibility. It really showed that the weakest link was, indeed between steering wheel and seat.

That said, industrial accidents are quite normal thanks to the drive of profits leading companies to try to sue OSHA or lobby the department (or lobby congress to defund OSHA), and yes, a lot of them emerge from companies choosing to not adhere to all the precautional requirements, and then having their infrastructure implode like a Seagate submersible.

We have a lot more mad engineering than mad science, though there's a moral hazard when you hire common workers to take the physical risks.

ETA: Full disclosure, I might be biased in my view of death. In 2011, one of the contestants in an air race in Reno had a malfunction that veered the plane into the grandstands. Bunches of injured. ~~Nine~~ Eleven died, including my cousin, and I had to contend for a long time with the reality that an airplane dropped out of the sky to smack my cousin and killed him. (His son, a boy at the time, and the son's friend survived because my cousin shielded them with his body.) I write about the incident here, recalling the incident shortly after Alan Rickman and David Bowie had recently died.

Death is not an antagonist, or an anthropomorphic being one can negotiate with or trick or flee. It's just a thing that happens when your parts can no longer sustain your vitals. Nothing requires sacrifices of life, even when situations might limit survival (such as the Titanic's lifeboat accommodation of 1,178 survivors, fully loaded, in contrast to a passenger load of 2,209). Life is a thing, and when it can no longer continue, death happens.

Yep! This and the LASIK scene still haunt me

For some reason I thought that was a really big log on its way to collide with the truck from the side

My Dad’s friend in college had this happen, except with a plumbing truck and pipe, and it decapitated his wife and daughter.

The final destination scene was one thing but do you all remember that real video where it was I think a brick that just obliterates one of the occupants, you don't see much but you hear the reaction from the other passenger and it fucking haunts you for years.

At least it isn’t a brick.

The opening setpieces were always so well done in those first three movies

The cultural penetration of this scene has become visible when on the highway and you see a truck carrying logs and how everyone avoids being directly behind it.

I can absolutely confirm this. Always joked about it until we found ourselves out in the PNW and that joke became very real very quickly.

What's that?

Keep your distance.