It Takes Three Cars to Stop This Driver Recklessly Overtaking

Yes, we know there are straight road sections with great visibility where it makes no sense to have solid lines instead of dashed ones. Overtaking there would be quick, safe and easy, but also illegal. Of course, you can do it on the basis that the chances of meeting a police car at that very moment are slim, but as long as it’s safe, then it’s between you and the law.

But in most cases, the road markings are there for a reason. Maybe that reason isn’t immediately apparent, but rest assured that whoever decided to put a solid line or a dashed one took more time to think about that decision than you did, and also had a lot more information to base it upon. First of all, he wasn’t traveling in a car at 60 mph or more.

Then again, there are those drivers who think they know best. And if they’re lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it) enough to get away with it the first few times, their confidence will inflate even further.

That’s how you end up with people overtaking long vehicles without actually seeing more than twenty meters ahead since it’s dark and it rains (it looks more like sleet, actually). There’s a clear marking on the asphalt, but to them, that’s probably there just to make it clearer which way the road is going.

Well, we won’t know whether it was this guy’s first, third or one hundredth time doing something like this, but it was clearly the time his luck failed him. And it didn’t do it once, not twice, but three times in no more than three seconds. The aftermath? Four vehicles damaged (not counting the one causing the accident) and some people who might be pretty seriously injured.

The four images can get a bit distracting, but focus on the bottom-right one.