Remember - you don't have much information at that moment.
You could have driven right into a fire or into a tangle of live power lines. You could have endangered the lives of the road crew working on the power lines, or could have caused an incident that prevented the road from being opened at all, preventing anyone from escaping that way - you don't know when or if it was going to be reopened. So possibly worse? Absolutely. And keep in mind that the "burning alive in your car" wasn't a guaranteed outcome here - many people survived.
You could have driven right into a fire or into a tangle of live power lines. You could have endangered the lives of the road crew working on the power lines, or could have caused an incident that prevented the road from being opened at all, preventing anyone from escaping that way - you don't know when or if it was going to be reopened. So possibly worse? Absolutely. And keep in mind that the "burning alive in your car" wasn't a guaranteed outcome here - many people survived.