Generally speaking, when on the road, the larger the vehicle, the easier it is to spot it. By this logic, you're more likely to get hit by a smart fortwo city car than a semi truck, which - it has to be said - is very convenient.
Life, however, has its way of making sure things don't always happen as we expect them to - or as common sense suggests. And to add insult to injury, sometimes we are the main contributors toward reaching that very unlikely outcome.
Everybody's natural instinct tells them to avoid crashing into - or being crashed into by - any type of vehicle. When the impact is unavoidable, and there are several options, only then we can talk about making a choice and going for the lesser evil.
Even then, a large road train - the kind you can only find in Australia and, perhaps, Alaska - is probably the last on the list. That's because physics lessons have taught us that the greater the mass of an object, the more severe the impact would be.
Truck drivers, on the other hand, have a great responsibility. They have to make split decisions that can mean life or death for other road users. Sitting high in their cabins, they are mostly safe, but knowing when to brake and when it's better to keep going and not risk turning the semi sideways, sweeping the entire highway, is something that can only come with either experience or instinct.
In this case, the driver saw that the road was empty, so he braked as hard as he could. The video description says he was driving a B-double, which is essentially a truck with two semis (reversing that thing must be a nightmare). The fact it was able to shed off some of that speed over such a small distance is nothing short of miraculous.
Equally miraculous is how well the little Suzuki Swift coped with the impact. The dashcam footage makes it look worse than it actually is. If I were the driver, I would have expected to climb down of the cabin and find carnage.
Instead, it would appear that the oblivious driver in the Swift made it out alive and is on her way to a full recovery. The 76-year-old woman suffered a fractured skull, broken right shoulder, broken ribs and a broken pelvis. It's worth remembering that drivers sit on the right side of the car in Australia, which means she felt the full brunt of the impact. Also, the Swift does not seem to have been equipped with curtain airbags, a feature which would have certainly reduced the severity of the driver's trauma.
"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie) Full profile
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