Traffic was predicted in connection with yesterday's eclipse in spots all over the country, but a ton of East Bay residents traveling on Highway 24 through Lafayette decided just to pull over and watch from the freeway, creating an awkward backup that CHP officers didn't know how to deal with Monday morning. The cause was apparently the dense fog over Oakland and the Oakland-Berkeley hills, which had residents and their kids fleeing east to places like Walnut Creek or Concord, where the sky was clear.

As CBS 5 reports via CHP Contra Costa County, the backup hit its peak as the eclipse did at 10:30 a.m., right before the 680 interchange on 24, and there was little they could do about it.

The backup built upon itself, because as people were rushing to get out from under the cloud cover, things slowed down, the eclipse was happening, and people just pulled over to watch, creating more of a backup for everyone behind them, as shown in the photo above.

There were no collisions as a result of the situation, but CHP spokesperson Officer Brandon Correia said this was nonetheless an extremely unsafe thing for people to do. "There were so many vehicles stopped, the officer was unable to take any real enforcement action," Correia said to CBS 5. "He gave umpteenth warnings against knucklehead maneuvers. I mean, c’mon man. That’s just ridiculous.”

And as you can see in the photos, most of those people were still a few miles from where the cloud cover had burned off, to the east.

Plan better for 2045, everyone!

Previously: Photos: Here's What SF Saw Of The Partial Eclipse