If you look at the very beginning of the video, the PU driver is in the left lane tooling along while the right lane is empty. The two semis are up ahead quite a ways. So the PU had been hogging the left lane well before passing the semis.
The pickup truck behind another car that was going slow…The other car can clearly be seen when the camaro tries to cut in front of the pickup and the pickup swerves left.
“The highway is not about you. It is a place where we all drive together.”
Doesn’t that apply equally to the “left lane hogs”?
Just sayin’ that the way to deal with a hostile, aggressive, immature drunk driver, is not to antagonize said driver to make matters worse or to insure a confrontation. No good can come of that except maybe a sense of satisfaction that his buttons were pushed and he responded.
This happens all the time, and it ticks me off.
A truck is in the right, doing 50 in a 55, you’re passing him at (let’s be real) 60…and some idiot screams up at 85 and takes it as a personal affront that he has to slow down for all of 15 seconds.
In situations like that, it’s damn hard NOT to be a self-appointed enforcer of courteousy! Especially vexing to me is when (in the above example) I’m climbing a hill in my loaded pickup, and perhaps 60 or so is all I can do! People seem to no longer conprehend that there are physical limitations on a vehicle’s uphill speed.
The legislation for left lane only travel was an add on to the state constructional amendment that adopted a secession from the union mandate to come into effect in 2020.
So you must keep left only in construction zones (effective in 2020)?
Both the Camaro driver and pick-up driver share some fault, the pickup driver seemed like he might be trying to egg the Camaro driver on a bit, probably annoyed by the tailgating. But the Camaro driver’s sophomoric driving style was the principle cause. That’s the way I see it anyway.
Unfortunately I see stuff like this pretty often here in the San Jose area. Not quite as over the top, but unwise driving styles are abundant. Just today in a 25 mph speed limit neighborhood area around the time school got out, and there were three teenage kids in the middle of the road, the right hand side, parked on their bikes, talking to each other. The kids weren’t moving it appeared, even though we 3 cars were approaching. The car in head of me slowed to 15 mph, veered into the oncoming lane, and moved past them carefully, but the car behind me all of a sudden decides things are moving too slowly. He swerves to the right and speeds past both me and the car in front of me on the right, narrowly missing the kids.
"The pick up driver should not get a ticket for anything "
You may feel that way but he was violating a driving law even if it did involve a drunk or erratic driver. If a policeman witnessed the entire episode, I have no doubt that at least two people were eligible for a citation and one should have been Arrested for felony reckless if bodily harm occurred. The pick up driver could even be charge with a crime of reckless driving, a misdemeanor, by putting the semi truck driver at risk. He used him as an unwitting block to pin the drunk driver in. Imagine if the Camaro driver had done nothing wrong previously except tried to try pass later and the pick truck driver pinned him in and adjusted his speed to match the semi. It was the pick up driver who hit the semi truck driver first because he put himself in that position and did nothing to avoid the situation…he instigated the final outcome. He has a lot to answer for. If he had passed and pulled over, no accident at that time would have occurred.
@insightful
I was just being a wise guy. I thought you were just correcting the previous quote.
Ya know I thought I was above road rage, but I have one episode where I am guilty, and won’t do it again, but maybe 15 years ago leaving the drive in, this guy is on my ass, flashing lights and revving engine, and honking his horn, heck it was a 2 lane road with cars in front of me, wtf? so we get up to the stoplight both turn left onto a 4 lane road, so I need to turn left in 6, blocks so I am in the left lane. He could have passed me on the right but the honking revving and flashing lights continue. I flashed my brake lights, and he decides to go around me on the right. I had more power than him and as he was passing kept up with him, rolled down the window yelled you f"er flipped him the bird.Guilty as charged. Yes wife as passenger and kid in the back seat. Wife is good at the evil eye and was doing her best.
@insightful A typo on my part, My reference to OK passing a law should have read keep right unless passing.
Brain, fingers, keyboard; sometimes they’re not on the same page. It’s similar to the Tilt-A-Whirl at the county fair…
The legislation for left lane only travel was an add on to the state constructional amendment...
LOL, I might have gotten the joke if you had said constitutional amendment.
;-]
I just replayed the you tube recording to look for mile markers along the stretch of highway that is shown. I can’t really read the numbers on the first two due to the speed and camera angle, but the numbers are immaterial. What is interesting to me is the fact at all the vehicles are covering a mile in over a minute. In the first mile they are going 57 MPH (63 sec/mi). In the second they are going 59 (61 sec/mi). This assumes that the time strip at the bottom of the recording is true and correct. I believe it is.
Enter the Camaro driver who wants to go the posted speed limit of 65 MPH, perhaps faster. (Watch for the speed limit sign.) Also note that at the time the Camaro driver makes his initial move to get in front of the ladder truck, there is a shadow of another vehicle ahead of the truck which appears to be way too close to allow merging.
Don’t get me wrong. I still fault the Camaro driver for causing the accident. He was drunk, and passed on the left center shoulder. Both are big no-nos. However I can certainly understand his frustration.
Well, I don’t.
Pickup WAS passing slower traffic, right up until the Camaro began acting like an unmitigated hygiene product. Tailgating, (likely) flashing high beams, etc.
At that point, pickup decides to play “self-appointed courtsey officer” and decree that Camaro passes if and only if Camaro demostrates a modicum of courtesy. (I think we can infer a brake check or three, for instance.) Instead of doing so, Camaro does what he did, and is wholly responsible for the havoc he wrought.
When we focus on the legal aspects of brake checking, we lose grasp on the totally reprehensible nature of high-speed tailgating. You’re effectively brandishing what is fairly termed a deadly weapon, in the hopes of bullying somebody into behavior modification.
Now, suppose somebody got in the habit of flashing a heater around whenever they wanted something. Eventually, somebody will dislike this, and choose to escalate. Will that person be acting within the law? Likely not, but ultimately, we cite “poetic justice” and that Tough Guy reaped what he hath sown.
As did Camaro.
@insightful Guess I was trying to just diss the state that " had" such a driving regulation. ;-()
Having just watched the video but not read the comments, I think the Camaro driver and the pickup driver both deserve to have their licenses suspended or revoked. Both are culpable enough that I don’t care to dissect the details and assign percentages.
Having said that, the truck (semi) driver, who was the professional in the scenario, could have avoided the whole thing and diffused the situation by slowing down and giving the Camaro a chance to pass on the right. Every collision is worth avoiding, even if it’s someone else’s fault. Even though he his culpability is 0%, he should have recognized the hazard and abated the situation. This isn’t meant to be criticism of the professional driver, only teachable moment.
This makes me want to get a dashcam, not just so I can protect myself by collecting evidence, but to help keep myself in check when I feel anger.
Now that I’ve read most of the comments:
Am I the only one who thinks the pickup driver was brake-checking the Camaro every few seconds while they were next to the semi? I think the pickup driver was actively trying to agitate the Camaro driver, which puts his culpability above 0%.
It’s one thing to refuse to go out of your way to appease an aggressive driver, but it’s another thing to deliberately agitate him. Yes, the drunk Camaro driver deserves the bulk of the blame, but the pickup driver isn’t guiltless, and should at least get a ticket for his contribution to the factors that led to the collision.
When the Camaro tried to pass on the shoulder, the pickup driver sped up. Someone who is blameless doesn’t do that kind of thing.
Is “brake checking” an assault? While I wouldn’t take it on myself to punish a “bad” driver I am often amused when aggressive drivers find themselves in a state of flux by reason of fate or the intentions of other drivers. If @MG’s speed calculations are correct then the situation leading up to the crash was just another few minutes of normal traffic on a nice day. The Camaro driver’s impatience, fueled by alcohol, seems to me to be the crux of the problem. And the Camaro driver’s effort to rush forward in the right lane and cut in ahead of the pickup as the pickup was overtaking the semi leads me toward justifying the pickups sudden acceleration to prevent the move. When a driver is “an accident looking for a place to happen” I prefer that they are behind me.
///\ Agreed.
No, I don’t think brake-checking is an assault, but it was likely a contributing risk factor in the accident.
So Donald Duck, let me get this straight. You are drunk, speeding and driving recklessly. You tailgate me in an extremely dangerous manner. But I am at fault for touching my brakes? If the genius in the Camaro was not already guilty of DWI and “following too closely” then my “brake check” has no effect on him. It is his drunken, aggressive, dangerous and illegal behavior that is 100% wrong. The pickup driver SHOULD HAVE practiced proper defensive driving and moved over to avoid what ultimately happened but let’s not be foolish and think that he did anything illegal here. This is a great illustration of why we should ALL practice defensive driving every day. The pick-up driver may have thought he was teaching Mr Camaro a lesson but I am sure the drunken idiot learned nothing and a bunch of people almost died (although, thankfully, everyone walked away from this one).
Always remember the goal of defensive driving. Make it home alive.
Another assinine move that defies logic ;
teasing the center line as though they’d like to make a lane change ( by this behavior you know they’re going to )…the simplicity is this…change lanes BEHIND us…we all can clearly see in our mirrors there’s two blocks of no traffic behind this little group ( at this time of day most in this line are turning to go to the high school )
but THIS buthead teases the center line about mid-pack for about six blocks then , with 300 feet to go decides HE is going to wedge his way in between any two of us who’ll flinch…turn signal at the last second and over he TRIES to come !
most in this line are paying close attention to the line in front of them to co-ordinate a group turn off …so the one who get squashed by this dude is surprised and slams on the brakes…in a line of close 45/35 mph slowing traffic which , of course, creates a mass chain reaction braking frenzy !
A few months ago that didn’t work.
On the way to school I could see , up there at ‘that’ intersection, a bevy of blazing emergecy vehicle lights …so I changed lanes to take the back street.
FOUR vehicles slammed into each other in that infamous chain.
I’ve always been privy to that possibility and as I approach the ‘‘zone’’ I flash my brake lights two or three time before the big slow down to warn the little cars behind that can’t see well ahead of my beast 08 expedition.
But it never fails , some impatient fool thinks he can just bully his way into line instead of taking his place back there a half mile ago.
( the solution to this never ending trafic jam would be for the city to remove that stupid little 100 ft island they put there to keep people from turning into or out of McDonalds. Otherwise the turning lane along rt66 is ten miles long but every once in a while there’s a surprise island and this one forces 15 left turners to end up in the driving lane since the island only allows four to be out of the way while waiting…but NO…the city says not AND rt66 is a state owned highway…more red tape :(…
)