Actually it did happen to us about 3 years ago on our return home from a wonderful week in Sowal--we were in south Alabama near Opp--on the 331 bypass around Opp. We were cruising along in the left lane, but tho the highway there is a four-lane, divided highway, it still has "grade level crossings". A very old man (in his 80s) pulled out of a cross street --it was clear he didn't see us. I managed to see that the guy had done this, yelled to my husband , he tried to veer off the highway, but it was too late, and we "t-boned" him. Thankfully, we had been slowing down for a light (way in the distance), and we had airbags. It was a rental car--a full-sized Buick--but it was totaled.
My husband and I had back and shoulder injuries, but they weren't serious. Our kids in the back seat were shaken up, but ok. The old man was taken to the hospital--I am truly hopeful that he never was allowed to drive again. His big Ford truck even had a trailer on the back--he was totally oblivious to what was going on traffic wise when he pulled out. The only disconserting thing in this accident was that his son was one of the police officers who answered the accident!!
It was a truly awful way to end our Sowal vacation--and every time we've come down since then, we've avoided the Opp bypass (which is engineered badly--we were told by the police that there had been many crashes like ours--people "weren't used to the four-lane highway at the grade-level crossings."
We were very lucky--the airbags really saved us, and as my physicist husband just explained to me, our accident had far less total acceleration than did the accident with the Rooks. My husband explained that a head-on crash like that actually means that the two velocities of the cars are added together--thus, the total force might have been as high as 120 mph.
May God have mercy on all of them and bless the Rook family. And may all of us be safe--this story has really affected me for obvious reasons!!