Yet another reason why taking your time and using your mirrors in heavily trafficked areas is a must.
Redditor /u/JohnBatch shared dashcam footage (presumably from his Tesla) earlier this week to the /r/IdiotsInCars subreddit showing a hastily parked truck at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) haphazardly leaving and just about ripping the doors off a Toyota Camry literally parked inches away from him.
Check out the unfortunate accident that could’ve totally been avoided below.
A quick search on Google Maps and it looks like this all went down at the lower level of Terminal 2.
Although street view doesn’t show the lower level of said terminal, here’s what pickup lanes up top looks like, an identical setup as down below.
As you can see and pointed out by other commenters, the first two lanes are designated active pick-up and drop-off lanes only (i.e. no parking, like the truck is doing, whatsoever.)
RDU makes it quite clear on their website.
“Both terminal curbs are designated for active loading and unloading online (only?) Unattended vehicles are not permitted along terminal curbs.”
While someone else, using the lane the way it was meant to be used in a Toyota Camry inches away from the truck, is actively helping a passenger get their luggage into her car, the driver in the improperly parked trucks shows up and decides to leave.
We then see the other driver’s soon-to-be passenger open one of the rear doors, seemingly away from the path of the truck.
The truck starts to pull out immediately turning left to merge out of his lane.
We see the rear of his truck bed catch the trailing edge of the rear door, causing damage to the rear fender of his truck as the door can only open so far.
It’s an absolute clusterf***.
The passenger, for some reason, decides to keep loading her luggage like nothing happened.
And the hired traffic guard on duty instructs the dash cam owner to swing out of the pickup lanes ASAP like this sort of thing happens every day (because it probably does.)
“I like how the passenger continues to struggle with the luggage while the door is being ripped off, ” /u/360Waves617 comments.
This could’ve all been avoided, as so many pointed out in the comments, if he simply checked his mirrors and pulled out straight like a normal person.
“When you know people are next to your truck, but looking at the mirrors is too hard,” /u/pie189 wittily comments.
“And this is one more reason why I always wait for people to get in their car or vacate the space between my car and theirs before I begin to move,” /u/Outrageous-Nothing42 adds.
Take what happened to this Toyota Tundra driver as a cautionary tale, be ultra-aware of your surroundings in busy places like an airport terminal drop-off lane.
And, when maneuvering out tight places, use your mirrors!
