In Hérault, around fifty cars broke down in the same place at the same time, here's why

" It's the valley of failure ," according to a motorist who filmed the scene on TikTok and who has a way with words. Last Saturday, on the A75 , the motorway that connects Clermont-Ferrand to Montpellier , an unusual scene unfolded. At Pas-de-l'Escalette, about 70 kilometers north of the Hérault prefecture, dozens of vehicles were stopped on the side of the road, reports France 3 Occitanie. Four breakdown recovery companies were urgently called. Even those that weren't on call. The images are indeed unusual.

So what's the reason for this mass breakdown? Some internet users are betting on a fuel problem at a station below. Others think it's linked to the very steep slope (7%) or even the heatwave: " The hill is steep and people keep the air conditioning on to climb up, so... " thinks Anaïs, an internet user.

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But the reason is quite different. According to information gathered by France 3 Occitanie, it all began very early in the morning (6:30 a.m.) with a power outage in the Pas de l'Escalette tunnel, which led to traffic being reduced to a single lane from the morning. On this busy holiday day on the roads, traffic jams quickly formed. " The overheating occurred because the cars were all behind each other, and so the engines overheated," Franck, from the Franck Dépanage company, located in Gignac, told our colleagues at France 3. According to him, it therefore has "nothing to do with the heatwave" either.

" We don't have the exact figures, but roughly 90% of breakdowns were due to clutch problems," Angélique of Top Garage Sarl Theron, a company based in Caylar, told our colleagues. "On the climb, drivers overheated the clutches by constantly shifting from first to second ^gear ," she explained. The incident was resolved early in the afternoon. In total, around fifty vehicles were towed.