At what point does the trucker hit the brakes? It seems to me that he does not lose speed until after the car has gone to the right lane.
My observations: The 442 doesn't have a right side mirror - he knows the truck is there and he get's ahead of it but visibility on that side is minimal. The 442 is ahead of the truck before the left lane divider line ends There is room between the truck and the car ahead of it for the red car to merge. The red car keeps pace with the car ahead of it - it's the truck closes the gap. The truck just needed to ease off the go pedal a little to maintain the gaps - no need to brake. For the red car to drop back behind the truck he'd have to have lost the total length of the truck which could be 70 - 80 ft I hate last second lane passers as much as the next person but in this instance the trucker swapped less than a car length of lost ground, if that, for a whole sh*t load of grief for more than just the red car driver. Bob
The skinny pedal on the right is there for instances just like this. Pay attention, and use it. It's called "merging". Chances are that the driver didn't have a last minute notification. He or she wasn't watching.
Off the subject a little but jay3000 just reminded me of something I’ve always believed. More accidents are caused by improper use of the fat pedal than the “skinny” one! Mark
There is such a thing as being "dead right" and pulling in front of a vehicle that could be 80k# isn't the brightest move. Next will be the vids of the morons who think "brake checking" an eighteen wheeler is even remotely a good idea. Needless to say I drive for a living as several others on here do and if you think even for a second that a vehicle that big with that much weight is easy to maneuver you are sadly mistaken. I find it a miracle there aren't more people killed being run over with the way they drive in their car or pickup.
I have to reply... What about the drivers of said 18 whlrs who tailgate at 60 plus mph? I realize that there are a lot of slow drivers out there but having maybe one car length between the car and the truck just seems crazy.
That isn't a professional driver and I wouldn't be surprised if they where employed by swift(sure wish id finished training). For all the people who have pulled in front of me only to brake sharply to make the left turn or do exactly what is shown on the vid I can see why someone might not use the proper following distance. Then the argument was the truck should have slowed down. That just results in the truck moving slower and taking that much more time to get back up to speed with the flow of traffic. In short if the guy is tailgating I'd move out of the way. As posted that vehicle could weigh up to 80k# and if those people in front of you have to stop I wouldn't even worry about you, I'd be worrying if that truck behind could stop. My children know one of my catch phases when learning to drive is, "if those people in front of you stop, can you?" We also learn "foot to brake pedal, eyes to mirrors." Being rear ended is no fun. Defensive driving is a lost art.
Some are partially correct. Yes, this happens all the time. Like every day. Fox, you're partially correct. Most truckers know that when a car gets turned in front like that, the second they hit the brakes physics takes over and the car is spit out the other side. I would guess that he was being responsible and let that last car clear the right before tapping the brakes. If you all watch closely while it looks like the truck is speeding up to prevent the olds from getting in, and the olds jumps then decelerates.. what is occurring is the truck driver is paying attention to traffic and slowing, while the car is trying to pass, brake, not rear end, merge, and no where to go. The truck driver is paying attention to his lane and traffic ahead. He is not a mind reader and not responsible for other Lanes and people doing Stoopid snit. Failure to yield to avoid a foreseeable accident. Yeah, that doesn't exist in this situation. There is no reaction time, and you would have lost that in court. The truck driver didn't cause the accident.
Bw1339 Not to second guess your chp friends, but they have different laws. No truck is to be in left lane in Ca.... Anyway the rest of the country is normal. Commercial enforcement, not patrol or investigative functions, just weight, paper, and mechanics inspections. The totality of the video, meaning the road sounds, truck behaviors, the audiobook, the road stripes, the vehicles around it's actions, and the distance measure until the truck stopped paint a real picture of the speed. Each stripe is 20ft, and 20ft between. We can calculate stopping time with the video, but assume 80k lbs. We can also take an average drag coefficient of dry asphalt and calculate the trucks speed. Remember that sine and cosine math equations in high school? Ya, this is where it comes into real life use. But, what do I know.
Absolutely. So many things were wrong with that scenario but the sad part is it could have so incredibly easily been avoided if either of them would just used the brain they were born with. For the life of me I can't imagine what in the world the Olds guy was thinking. Pretty sure of what the trucker was thinking, he had a lot less to lose. Egos out on the highway can and no doubt will continue to cause of lot of heartache and loss. What is going on in this world today?
I know if I was the owner of a Trucking Co that owned a truck in this situation, I would fire the driver as he could have unquestionably avoided the accident no matter who was to blame in reality
I gotta agree. Just on a little off topic I have a friend who is a bus driver and part of his yearly in service training a couple years ago was a defensive driving expert ( I have no idea of the experts credentials as this information was just passed on to me) What they told them at the class was that if you used your cell phone and photographed or video an accident that could be seized by police as evidence of what had happened. So Im assuming if that is true If your driving reckless involved in a wreck and have a dash cam the same could be true.
The Olds driver had plenty of time to get in front of that truck, looks like 7-8 seconds from the start of that clip.Why he didn't do it is the 64K question and the trucker must of figured "whatever dude, you had your chance," and then sped up some. So I put the most blame on the Olds driver for being timid or an idiot. The trucker could have and really SHOULD have backed off a little and let the guy in but, he must of ate a bowl of Pricklies that morning.
Undoubtedly the driver of the cutlass is at fault. He was losing his lane with no where to go. He drove into the truck in some attempt to intimidate the trucker to nail his brakes while the olds should have been on the binders and went behind. A classic "I'm coming over so you better make room for me" he probably won't do that again.
"WARNING. HEAVY WORD TRAFFIC AHEAD" I have been riding motorcycles and driving cars, trucks and trailers. (but not rigs), for over 45 years all over America and several countries around the world. I have only received two speeding tickets one for 7 over, one for 11 over, both in Alabama and both on 4 lane highways, and have had one crash that was my fault, (approaching an intersection during evening rush hour traffic on Houston surface road and on the throttle thru a yellow and all my attention focused on the intersection and not beyond, traffic was stopped on the other side, and physics and time distance got me for my foolishness. Other than wrenching my left shoulder and front forks replaced, I was most fortunate. That was about 4 years into my driving, and I have left it in the front of my mind. Two other times I have been rear ended in stopped traffic, first time, I was stopped at dusk and the guy came up at a very high speed, I noticed, and accelerated and almost got into the center median but he clipped the back of my SUV with his left corner bumper and then slammed into the SUV in front of me and shoved it into the car in front of that guy, hard enough to deploy the other three vehicles airbags, and actually dropped the engine in the Isuzu pickup the guy was driving. The second was a young girl, about 17, in a little compact behind me at a light. I was in the left lane (not turn lane) and when the left turn lane arrow turned green, she started forward and bumped into me, I checked and saw no damage to my truck, and a small scrape on the nose of her bumper and she decided it was OK and that was that. The last crash was when a guy made a last minute left turn in front of me, and I had nowhere to go. Left lane, traffic to my right, and if I swerved to the left, it would have been into oncoming traffic. Was doing 25MPH (speed limit and statement of witnesses following me). Bottom line, is having driven many miles, I do my best to observe, and avoid, and to never think that I "know" what another is going to do. Putting such a factor into the problem will almost always result in a wrong answer. We cannot know the mind of the other person, and must always believe and be prepered that he or she will do the most dangerous thing, purposeful or not, in every encounter, and then hope that they do not and drive accordingly. And lastly, I go through "what if's" all the time I am driving. "What if... ... I have a blowout... ...a vehicle comes across the median on the interstate ... ... the person behind me is distracted when I am stopped... ... that load comes off that truck... ... my brakes fail... ... my accelerator sticks... ... a vehicle flips in front of me... ... a crash happens in this intersection... All have helped me, some of the above have happened (a couple more that once), including a child breaking his father's handhold and running in front of me. In the incidents that occured, (other than the one I caused and the three I could not avoid) I have either been able to avoid them, or react to assist very quickly (and also thank military aircrew/ground crew training) for helping me keep my options and driving habits keen. Many of you race or attend racing, drive as a profession, have driven a lot, and so forth, and understand and likley do a lot of this. And yes, I have done many foolish things, been distracted, and have had more "close calls" than I would have prefered, so I am not the best driver by any means. Only to "preach" that we can and should be at our best, do avoid injury to us or others, and to prevent damage to our or other's property. Breaking the chain. There were several times those two could have done something to prevent that crash in the video. All the laws, all the reasons, and justification that it was one or the other's "fault" have nothing to do with the preventing of that. But it happened because people made foolish choices.
Sterling Moss once said "If you see an accident situation looming ahead, nine times out of ten hit the gas pedal; the tenth time pray."
