Reckless truck driver crash caught on dash cam

[Captante]

Nobody is debating that it's a tragedy anyone was injured in this completely avoidable accident to be clear. Accidents like that DO happen extremely quickly and the ONLY way to avoid them is to be constantly in a state of hyper-vigilance when driving which is why it can be so stressful doing it professionally.

Watching that video though, you CAN see that huge truck flying at you with PLENTY of time to do something about it.

AGAIN if you see it.

People in passenger-vehicles NEED to understand that when it comes to heavy trucks your "solid" SUV or pickup might as well be made of tinfoil and tissue paper... in any accident you'll most likely be crushed and/or shredded by them! (fear is sometimes your friend!)

 

[skyking]

. He missed the entire front of the trailer too, as it was tracking behind the truck. The only part that reached out and got him was the end of the trailer as it skidded sideways. Watch what the impact does to the trailer afterword. It swings around the other way.
The truck was half in his lane and he had a good 5 feet on it with his evasive maneuver. Then the trailer whipped sideways. I know you keep looking at the clip over and over and say you would avoid that. I get that your heels are dug in. If the trailer was tracking behind the truck as they are intended, they slightly CUT inside the corner. There is no way to anticipate a trailer that is suddenly tracking 10' plus outside the tractor's track.

 

[MrSquished]

. He missed the entire front of the trailer too, as it was tracking behind the truck. The only part that reached out and got him was the end of the trailer as it skidded sideways. Watch what the impact does to the trailer afterword. It swings around the other way.
The truck was half in his lane and he had a good 5 feet on it with his evasive maneuver. Then the trailer whipped sideways. I know you keep looking at the clip over and over and say you would avoid that. I get that your heels are dug in. If the trailer was tracking behind the truck as they are intended, they slightly CUT inside the corner. There is no way to anticipate a trailer that is suddenly tracking 10' plus outside the tractor's track.

Yeah well the Ryan Gosling from the movie Drive could have done it

 

[skyking]

LOL. If his car had not stopped it, the trailer would have gone across the other fog line and off the pavement in the other lane. Sure, he could have avoided it. When he impacted it there was 1' of pavement left and that trailer was still coming around.
go look at just that detail alone and the vectors, guys. Sure, he could have gone on a fun offroad adventure and I would heartily recommend that to the outcome. But to do that after missing 50' of truck and trailer first? Yeah no.

 

[Captante]

. He missed the entire front of the trailer too, as it was tracking behind the truck. The only part that reached out and got him was the end of the trailer as it skidded sideways. Watch what the impact does to the trailer afterword. It swings around the other way.
The truck was half in his lane and he had a good 5 feet on it with his evasive maneuver. Then the trailer whipped sideways. I know you keep looking at the clip over and over and say you would avoid that. I get that your heels are dug in. If the trailer was tracking behind the truck as they are intended, they slightly CUT inside the corner. There is no way to anticipate a trailer that is suddenly tracking 10' plus outside the tractor's track.

There's PLENTY of ways to "anticipate" that being anywhere near a speeding TANDEM-truck coming straight at me might result in me being dead on a two-lane highway. (or badly hurt... really that guy is lucky to be alive)

If I saw that freaking monster coming at ME I would have been in full-on panic/survival mode and put as much distance as possible between myself and it as I could... and they could have put 15-20 more feet easily. (which MIGHT have come in handy no?)

This is a "judgement" issue more then a "reflex" issue ultimately.

 

[Captante]

But to do that after missing 50' of truck and trailer first? Yeah no.

Pretty much made my point for me.... the 4-wheeler driver screwed up by not looking far enough ahead and seeing the CLEARLY VISIBLE danger (huge speeding truck) approaching on a narrow 2-lane road.

They then "reacted" to that serious danger by acting like they were trapped in its path by a concrete "Jersey-barrier" on a highway or something instead of a grassy median which they could have used to steer out of harms way and they got creamed as a DIRECT result. (which sucks)

That's what really happened.

 

[mindless1]

People usually think it won't happen to them and so they resist going off the side of the road. Even then, I have to wonder why the SUV driver didn't even slow down when there was a semi half into his lane.

 

[sandorski]

Hit throttle, aim for the ditch, let the invisible wall steer you around the corner. Everybody knows this.

 

[Captante]

Hit throttle, aim for the ditch, let the invisible wall steer you around the corner. Everybody knows this.

Jeebus take the wheel ?!?

 

[dank69]

LOL. If his car had not stopped it, the trailer would have gone across the other fog line and off the pavement in the other lane. Sure, he could have avoided it. When he impacted it there was 1' of pavement left and that trailer was still coming around.
go look at just that detail alone and the vectors, guys. Sure, he could have gone on a fun offroad adventure and I would heartily recommend that to the outcome. But to do that after missing 50' of truck and trailer first? Yeah no.

After watching it again I don't know if I would even call it an evasive maneuver. He basically just brakes. I thought he moved into the shoulder but honestly he was already driving almost in the shoulder before the truck was even visible through the trees. If you focus on the alignment of the shoulder line with his hood you can see he never even really pulled to the side because he was already there.

Lots of people lock up and as mentioned act as if there are guardrails or something. He also wasn't going very fast so it's not like he'd be rocketing into the grass at speed.

 

[JEDI]

One day he was riding behind a truck with several mattress's on the back and was thinking about what he would do if one flew off and came right at him. You know what comes next. Long story short he discovered it WAS possible to ride an RD-400 over a mattress at 65 mph!

but apparently not ride over a foam pad:

Foam pad 1, motocycle 0

https://www.facebook.com/linda.leverty/videos/10205116074820635/ lol @ comments. blame the motorcyclist: no protective gear. and looks like he was speeding. "This would have never happened if he was going the speed limit."

forums.anandtech.com

 

[JEDI]

This is in right hand drive country, so the driver took the brunt of this collision. He was very lucky to survive. Watch how much the car's impact moves the trailer!

From youtube post:
Description: Back / Neck broken in 7 different places, Front seat snapped all bolts and landed on top of baby seat in rear, luckily no child in car that day. Driver is recovering well and back on the road now. Chambers Flat rd, Chambers Flat.

the truck hit the passenger side and the driver's seat snapped?!
he should also be suing the car manufacture.

how did he sustain such injuries? was he thrown from his car seat on impact?
and how much did he get?

 

[dank69]

the truck hit the passenger side and the driver's seat snapped?!
he should also be suing the car manufacture.

how did he sustain such injuries? was he thrown from his car seat on impact?
and how much did he get?

Truck hit driver side. They drive on the wrong side of the road over there.

 

[SKORPI0]

Truck was driving in the middle of both lanes and made a sharp curve too late on the road. Driver should have slowed down at that point.
No way for the victim to avoid and react fast enough.

 

[zinfamous]

the truck hit the passenger side and the driver's seat snapped?!
he should also be suing the car manufacture.

how did he sustain such injuries? was he thrown from his car seat on impact?
and how much did he get?

Are you aware of this thing called Physics?

 

[pmv]

As far as I can see, at the point it was clear the trailer was swinging out in front of them, there were fence posts along the side of the road, so the choice was to be hit by the trailer or swerve off the road into those posts.

Also the complaint that the driver should have had quicker reactions and avoided the tralier seems like vicitm-blaming to me.

I always have the impression that people say that sort of thing because they don't want to feel anxious or vulnerable in any way, so will always try as hard as they can to find something the victim did wrong, so they can assure themselves they would never do that wrong thing, therefore they are safe and not at the mercy of other people's incompetence or malevolence.

Interesting though to see a driver be treated by the driver of a larger vehicle the way drivers generally treat cyclists and pedestrians. The only rule anyone follows on the roads is "might is right". It's the biggest single argument against anarchism. If you ever think people will treat others decently without outside rules imposed by an outside force, just look at how they behave on the roads.

 

[Captante]

Interesting though to see a driver be treated by the driver of a larger vehicle the way drivers generally treat cyclists and pedestrians. The only rule anyone follows on the roads is "might is right". It's the biggest single argument against anarchism. If you ever think people will treat others decently without outside rules imposed by an outside force, just look at how they behave on the roads.

Unfortunately who is "right" matters exponentially LESS here then who is STILL ALIVE. (and intact!) This was a "survival" situation but it was NOT treated as such.

YES the "victim" here is at least PARTIALLY responsible for them being gravely injured and YES there were different moves they could have made to avoid being hurt. And NO, NONE of this makes the victim a bad person in any way ... the trucker OTOH is a criminal.


The fact that many folks look at that video and can't see how easily the ENTIRE incident could have been avoided for the car-driver by calmly STEERING OUT OF HARMS WAY only confirms my lack of faith in most peoples judgement behind the wheel.

*(hint: If you think this accident was properly avoided by making an "impossible" emergency-swerve left at the last possible second to avoid that trailer you've COMPLETELY missed the point... by then it was mostly over and would have been difficult to avoid SOME impact without possibly rolling in the ditch.)

 

[skyking]

So says the Monday morning quarterback again. You claim to have been a professional driver well good. I actually do the professional driving, and I could see how that trailer could sneak up on a guy. You keep replaying the tape over and over again and saying would have should have could have. The truck was coming at him from around the corner so he couldn't see that trailer until he could really see that trailer lol.

 

[skyking]

The criminal thing was the driver of the truck only paid a $350 fine and didn't lose his license and doesn't have a reckless on it either. I don't know why the commercial division even bothers when they can't do better than that.

 

[Captante]

The criminal thing was the driver of the truck only paid a $350 fine and didn't lose his license and doesn't have a reckless on it either. I don't know why the commercial division even bothers when they can't do better than that.

That's insane... he should have had his commercial license revoked.

And I'm not sure how my pointing out that mistakes were made by both drivers in the video you posted would even be in question.... in fact it seems obvious.

Also STOPPING in the travel-lane 2 feet from a huge out-of-control truck flying past (with open space to my left!) isn't my idea of "good driving".... it's more like Darwin-award material.

 

[skyking]

I thought so too. Sure it's a bad corner but it's posted at 60 km an hour. He had to be doing a hundred kilometers an hour if he was doing a nickel.
I learned a long time ago that those posted speed limits were for me, the truck driver behind the wheel. We can all get away with a whole lot more with our cars but trucks are another thing.
That goes double and triple for something like the boom truck I used to run on air suspension. All that crane weight is up high like 12 ft off the ground high, and you go into a corner too fast and your suspension just collapses down on the outside and you feel like you've just seen a deity or something like that. You never forget that feeling it's a pretty bad one!

The big excavator on the trailer has a center of mass about 5 ft off the ground in comparison. It's also connected with just a pintle hitch and you don't really notice it yarding around in corners it tracks really nice. I think it's one of those things that once you get too fast you don't get any warning and it just flops over.
All the more reason to take it easy.

 

[Captante]

I thought so too. Sure it's a bad corner but it's posted at 60 km an hour. He had to be doing a hundred kilometers an hour if he was doing a nickel.
I learned a long time ago that those posted speed limits were for me, the truck driver behind the wheel. We can all get away with a whole lot more with our cars but trucks are another thing.
That goes double and triple for something like the boom truck I used to run on air suspension. All that crane weight is up high like 12 ft off the ground high, and you go into a corner too fast and your suspension just collapses down on the outside and you feel like you've just seen a deity or something like that. You never forget that feeling it's a pretty bad one!

The big excavator on the trailer has a center of mass about 5 ft off the ground in comparison. It's also connected with just a pintle hitch and you don't really notice it yarding around in corners it tracks really nice. I think it's one of those things that once you get to too fast you don't get any warning and it just flops over.
All the more reason to take it easy.

That's one thing everyone who drives really needs to have drummed into their heads... heavy trucks CANNOT stop quickly (!!!) and even worse they won't slow down much more for a bunch of stopped cars then they will for air!

 

[Captante]

As far as I can see, at the point it was clear the trailer was swinging out in front of them, there were fence posts along the side of the road, so the choice was to be hit by the trailer or swerve off the road into those posts.

Those are plastic posts with reflectors on them... you could bend them with your hands.... the shoulder to the 4-wheeler drivers left is wide-open aside from a shallow ditch.

And even if they were solid metal that would rip the guts out of the guys car and instantly "total" it I'd STILL take that over (literally!) a BROKEN NECK PLUS a smashed car wouldn't you?

The ISSUE here is that FIVE FULL SECONDS elapse during which time the SPEEDING AND ONCOMING truck is clearly visible to the 4-wheeler driver (who again has open space left of them for that FULL 5 seconds) yet they do nothing beyond hitting the brakes.

 

[JTsyo]

One reason I watch YT dash-cam accident-compilation videos sometimes (and suggest that anyone who drives do the same!) is that you will see situations you'll HOPEFULLY never run into when actually driving and think about what you would do differently.

Just me sure to mute the crappy music on most of them!

You would enjoy Idiot In Cars. Sort by top and the time frame you want.

 

[Captante]

You would enjoy Idiot In Cars. Sort by top and the time frame you want.

Actually I do enjoy those! (especially when they angrily exclaim: "Suka !!!!")




Per Cambridge dictionary: (polish-English)

suka
noun

bitch [noun] the female of the dog, wolf or fox.