Major merge fail caught on trucker dash cam

That trucker was cool. Good piece of driving. Would have loved to hear his conversation with the people in the car.

“ Hey folks, having fun? Ew, someone crap their pants? That was wild! Where ya heading? Got an appointment? Better change your pants.”

 

The company gonna pay the white car driver some money

 

Screw the car driver. The trucker did the right thing. These idiots don’t get wiped out once in a while, they’ll never learn!! No rip the camera out the windshield before anyone sees it & keep you mouth shut about it.

minus the camera it’s cut & dry. Car cut truck off. Merged into a space where there was no space. 100% on the car.

don’t forget preventable/non-preventible is a mega trucking company term. They are the only people these terms man anything to. Basically they don’t mean ####.

 

I was involved in an accident very similar. I-95/I-495 beltway around DC, where the "voluntary" scale no one stops at merges back onto I-495 south. Frontage road, right lane exit only lane, I am in left lane. 70 year old woman in a Prius discovers she is going to be forced to exit, changes lanes right in front of me. Cab over you see on the left there. Right into my path, I push her sideways, just like the video, down the highway at least 300 feet while I am trying to slow things down and get stopped without turning her over or something worse. I am staring down at her, she is staring up at me the whole time.
MD state troopers interview both of us. No injuries, her car is a mess. $6000 damage to mine. Cop gives her a ticket for improper lane change, her USAA insurance paid the claim in less than a week.

 

I was hauling a loaded container down Ashland av. to some God forgotten rail yard in Chicago one night. I hadn't had my Pete very long, and perhaps had the seat too low, anyway, sitting at a stop light, light turns green, I lets out the clutch, this awful grinding and shaking, I thought, oh great, now the clutch is going. I stopped, let the clutch out again,,,same thing, and I hear this faint beeping noise. I looks over the wind deflector, all I could see was the front half of a Ford Tempo. I get out, four occupants scurry out, eyes as wide as pancakes. Clearly, I was pushing the car through the intersection. I said, why didn't you go? Driver, gasping for breath, said the motor killed. Not much damage, but got a ticket, had to go to a small station not far from the ball field, I swear, this station was a model for Barney Miller. So it can happen. This never should have got to this point.

 

Yep. Cop looked at video on my phone after he had talked to the car driver and got his statement. Looked at me and said “thats how I figured it happened. You did the right thing to control everything involved”
He had USAA insurance too. I called my insurance to give them a heads up and they told me they don't care if I’m not filing a claim about it. His insurance called and said they take 100% responsibility. His car was caved in on driver side from nose to tail. I had no damage to claim. Lol! Big old real steel bumber.
Funny thing was no one wanted to see the video for themselves. They went off the fact the cop just said I had dash cam video of it in report.

 

Ohh yeah, nice and easy, nice and controlled stop.

Nice work.

 

It could easily be construed by a good legal team that the truck was accelerating in order to specifically deny the white car access in front of him. It may or may not be true, but that is likely the angle the lawyer will use.

 

If you break this video down frame by frame you can see he’s following less than two hash marks behind the truck in front of him which is ridiculously close. The semi truck in front of the small pick up truck in front of him would even be deemed following slightly too close. As the white car comes over notice that the hashmark gap between His truck and the small truck in front Narrows to less than one links. Only slightly more than the length of the car itself. He was definitely accelerating and continue to accelerate when he made contact with the car. As I stated in my earlier post on this thread a backing off the throttle and just a light tapping on his brakes would’ve prevented this accident

That said, the four wheeler is ultimately at fault. It was an illegal lane change. But I’ve had situations like this happen dozens of times since I’ve been out on the road and I haven’t smashed into anyone.

 

I agree the car is at fault, but the video does not remove partial fault from the trucker. He is probably looking at reckless driving for following too close if anything. But I think they will come at him for cutting the car off intentionally. The lawyers will duke it out for sure. But the trucker being a professional will be held to a higher standard than the four wheeler.