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We Can Think of a Million Ways This Encounter with a Semi Could Have Ended a Lot Worse

Truck or Semi? Make your choice. We would say “place your bets,” but unless the camera were installed on something like a tank or a concrete barrier, the result would be a foregone conclusion.
Near fatal accident 1 photo
Photo: Screenshot from YouTube
But how did our camera-equipped driver end up in this situation, facing two very large vehicles both headed his way? Yes, it’s not one of those trick photos where the truck in front is actually loaded on a trailer and travelling in the same direction as the car behind it - no, it’s the real deal. Well, let’s see.

One of the first things we learn in driving school is to look left, then right, then left again before turning on to a main road when we have to yield (you can look right again, but then you risk entering a loop that will have you waste your entire life in that intersection). It doesn’t matter if we’re crossing just one lane by turning right or both of them by going left - it’s not us who has the right of way, but any vehicle that’s already on that road.

And when we say “any vehicle,” we do include those that are overtaking. That’s why you can’t make a right turn by only checking your left side. And that’s why you shouldn’t make a left turn if you suspect a vehicle coming from that direction might try and overtake the one in front.

But we can’t always be right about our suppositions, or we sometimes decide to take a risk - and that’s how we end up on our side of the road with two very large vehicles headed our way.

What do we do now? Freeze and start cursing, apparently. If the semi driver hadn’t veered to his left, our man would have been history; if the trailer had snatched free, the driver would have been history; if that ditch weren’t there to spin the semi around, the driver would have been dead. However, if the driver had the nerves to put the car in reverse and back away, he would have been very much alive no matter what the semi did. He had the necessary time.

But it’s easy to sit here and give him advice on what he should have done when there’s no Volvo truck coming at us from behind the screen. The semi driver might have been at fault for speeding, but other than that, he was clearly allowed to overtake, so the man in the filming car has nobody else to blame but himself.

Also, word of warning: if you speak Russian, the video contains a lot of offensive language. We have no idea what he’s saying, but we’re pretty sure it’s not nice.

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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"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)
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