“Hey you f—–g idiot! F—–g stop!”
Imagine you’re driving down the highway and accidentally pull in front of a semi, the semi crashing into you without slowing. Instead of the semi-truck stopping once he realizes there’s a car wedged in front of his bumper he keeps on going, pushing you for over half a mile.
That was the scary reality of one UK Motorist.
Redditor SemperLemon shared a video shot by his brother showing the shocking moments of an oblivious lorry (semi-truck) driver pushing a V.W. Polo hatch with the front end of his truck for over half a mile at highway speeds on the M-1 (an UK Interstate Highway.)
Only after his brother motioned, cursed, and shouted at him to stop did the lorry driver pull to the side of the motorway to inspect what all the fuss was about.
Check out the video for yourself below.
The Sun reached out to the owner of Gregs Courier and got a quote from the semi driver’s manager.
“Everyone is okay. It just happened this morning, this car changed lane and hit my lorry. I don’t know what to do.”
“My driver didn’t even notice.
“He said ‘I had an incident,’ but he didn’t explain that he was pushing this car for about 20 metres – maybe even more.”
Since UK Motorways and city streets are a lot more narrow compared to roads like in the United States, cabover trucks (semis with cabins sitting on top of their engines) are a more popular option.
Compared to semis with engines up front, cabovers mean a higher sitting position over the steer tires which allows a driver to use every inch of space they’re navigating.
A disadvantage, like this video shows, is there’s a large frontal blind spot up front lorry drivers just can’t see.
A semi-driver on that Reddit thread shared his POV from a normal American semi so you can imagine the blind spot on one of those UK cabovers.
Despite the large blind spot, there is video evidence from other lorry drivers where the same situation happened and honestly you need to get your eyes checked if you don’t notice something that obvious jutting out in front of your bumper.
According to this comment with a half dozen other examples from the UK, this happens often.
Here’s another one on a normal city street.
For a small percentage of similar incidents, taking into account the geometry of cabover trucks, I can give some drivers the benefit of the doubt that sometimes they run into compact cars and continue driving without their knowledge.
But, despite their superior roads, tougher licensing, and arguably better motorsport drivers, the UK is not immune to road rage. I bet a good number of these “semi pushing car” incidents involve a heavy amount of road rage with the lorry drivers pleading ignorance after the fact.
My opinion is no way that driver didn’t notice a two ton lump of Volkswagen Polo slowing him down.
What do you think? Do you think this is a case of UK road rage gone too far?
Let me know your .02 in the comments.
