Video of some truly irresponsible driving and the damage that results. I’ve made a good number of dumb mistakes while driving over the years, but I’ve never understood how one manages to just cruise through a red light, especially at the speeds some of these guys are at.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qvXbIenivk
Note: A few of these accidents I have to assume were fatal, so if that kind of thing gets to you, don’t watch.
As long as the fatality is the red light runner, who cares? Sadly, that doesn’t appear to be the case in some of these…
That save by the bus driver at the :50 mark is amazing.
Could have done without the motorcycles and pedestrians, but the fire engine on fire engine action was interesting. I’ve never seen anything like that.
I like the one at 1:10 where you can see the red light camera going off.
One night here in Austin on my way back from a Shiny Toy Guns concert, I was stopped in the right-most lane at a 6-lane intersection (3 coming 3 going) with several other cars next to me, but none behind.
I heard tires squealing in a skid behind me, so without even looking into the rear view mirror, I stomped on the gas, shoved the stick into 1st, dumped the clutch, and launched.
A split-second later, a car full of screaming teenagers blew past my passenger side at about 40mph, with the NARROWEST of margins, showering us in a cloud of dust and tire smoke.
If I hadn’t have moved, those guys would have been dead for sure.
They blew through the red light past 6 lanes of nothingness. My passenger was stunned for a while, and then indicated that she would never say anything bad about my driving ever again.
I don’t know that I have ever visited Austin without seeing an MVA.
One night here in Austin on my way back from a Shiny Toy Guns concert, I was stopped in the right-most lane at a 6-lane intersection (3 coming 3 going) with several other cars next to me, but none behind.
I heard tires squealing in a skid behind me, so without even looking into the rear view mirror, I stomped on the gas, shoved the stick into 1st, dumped the clutch, and launched.
A split-second later, a car full of screaming teenagers blew past my passenger side at about 40mph, with the NARROWEST of margins, showering us in a cloud of dust and tire smoke.
If I hadn’t have moved, those guys would have been dead for sure.
They blew through the red light past 6 lanes of nothingness. My passenger was stunned for a while, and then indicated that she would never say anything bad about my driving ever again.
A lot of these look like they’re on the same road. You think they’d fix that.
On that final one with the bike/scooter, I can’t believe that guy was still alive after that. Holy shit.
I already drive a 3/4 ton truck and this video makes me want to purchase a tank.
Some of those are just people making bad decisions about having time to turn across oncoming traffic, rather then actual red light violations. I did have to laugh at the guy barreling past the stopped cop car, though.
The pedestrian and motorcycle stuff is pretty hard to watch though. I saw a kid dart across a road during rush hour, with a large bus stopping for him but then he appeared on the other side and was hit by the car in front of me. There was no way that driver could have seen them because of the size of the bus. People just do stupid things sometimes, or make mistakes while driving. Most of us are just lucky enough not to have killed or injured anyone when we make them.
That motorcycle one was just crazy. At first I was like ‘That couldn’t have been a real person’ with the way he just went ragdoll, but then he’s moving his arms at the end. Yiiikes.
Some really nasty crashes there. Wow.
<nit>A lot of them are the result of an unsafe left turn, though, not running a red light.</nit>
Easily the best one.
Ugh, after watching it again, at 2:30 there is what looks like a little kid being run down by some tool and a balloon flying away. Kind of a bummer.
The pedestrian at 2:55-3:00 took it in stride. 4:45-4:48 not funny but funny
The ones that astonish me are the ones that ram into stopped traffic at high speed. Did they not see the wall of cars with brake lights on in front of them? Or who run thru the middle lane while there is a line of cars on either side.
I’ll be cringing as I look through my rearview mirror at stoplights today.
There is no greater moment of tension for me on a motorcycle than when stopped at a red light or going through a green one. Thankfully my area doesn’t have many red light intersections that are more than 2-lane roads.
Also glad to see every creamed bike in that video was due to rider error… except for that last guy.
I just can’t believe some of these crashes happened at all. There is a serious lack of concentration going on and a complete ambivalence to the fact that you’re driving a 2 ton piece of metal, even for the people who weren’t technically at fault. It’s like they’re just driving and thinking “hey I have the right of way through this intersection so I’m not going to pay attention to the other cars!”
In a lot of circumstances, even if you have the right of way, you can do something to prevent the accident, be it driving slower or checking blind spots behind other cars.
I’ve run a couple of red lights before, almost always in San Francisco, and for me it’s been because (at the time, I think they’ve fixed this) the traffic signals were on the corners instead of hanging in the middle of the intersection.
Dumb, I know, but there you go. Never been in a crash because of one, though.
With the amount of cars in the US and the amount of hours the average person spends driving, it’s inevitable this type of stuff happens. Doesen’t excuse the behavior or lack of concentration, but people are people, and they make mistakes.