The driver immediately blames the floor mats when his own video evidence showed that wasn’t the case.
Redditor /u/BodegaDad shared smartphone footage earlier last week from a driver who filmed himself driving on the Palisades Interstate Parkway somewhere in Alpine, NJ at speeds upwards of 115 MPH before losing control and crashing into a ditch.
Check out the video for yourself below.
No one (that I’m aware of) is sure of the exact whereabouts where this driver was speeding or ended up crashing, but this Redditor (linked here) seems pretty confident this indeed happened on the PIP in Alpine, NJ. Other Redditors back up his claim, so, I’m taking their word for it.
The driver appears to be in a newer model Jeep, maybe a Grand Cherokee or similar.
It sounds like there’s a passenger riding shotgun.
While initial comments speculated that this driver was fleeing police, keen eyes watching the video more than one time will notice no signature reds and blues of a police siren in his rearview mirror.
That leads me to believe he was simply speeding.
We see the driver suddenly break from triple digit speeds and, seeing how police were on the scene within seconds, the driver probably saw a NJ State Police Cruiser up ahead, slowed down, but couldn’t scrub speed fast enough.
Although modern brakes are an engineering marvel, there’s no getting around the physics of stopping a 6,000+ lb SUV from triple digit speeds.
You’re dealing with a lot of forces, here.
The driver loses control, drives into a ditch, and crashes.
“Shoulda told me to bug out,” we can hear the driver say to his passenger, placing the blame on them instead of being accountable for his actions.
The police officer shouts for him to, “Get on the ground!” while our driver immediately starts lying, blaming his floor mats for his speeding.
“Sir, the mat was under the…,” we can hear him stammer.
In New Jersey, assuming the PIP has a 55 MPH speed limit, speeding 39+ MPH over the speed limit carries a $260+ fine and five points on your record.
According to a blog post from Anthony N. Palumbo (a NJ attorney) speeding 30+ MPH over the speed limit or driving over 90 MPH adds a reckless driving charge on top of speeding which means another 5 points on your driving record.
In other words, on top of the fines, points, increase in insurance, not to mention dealing with a wrecked Jeep, this driver is royally f****d.
It goes without saying but speeding to look cool is extremely dangerous and this could’ve turned out a lot worse.
And, for everyone else, this is another timely reminder to stay vigilant on the road for a**holes like this guy.
Also, if you don’t have a dashcam yet, what are you waiting for?
