There was little the other drivers could do to avoid hitting the speeding, wrong-way driver.
What looks like an intentional, freak accident played out less than half an hour after presumed Denver resident and Redditor /u/Random_hero1234 got his new dashcam installed.
/u/Random_hero1234 shared dashcam footage to the /r/IdiotsInCars subreddit showing the shocking moment a driver in a Jeep drove the wrong way down this downtown Denver street and into cars stopped at an intersection.
Here’s the shocking moment caught on dashcam below.
[oc] got my dash cam installed and caught this on the way home(20 mins later)
byu/Random_hero1234 inIdiotsInCars
The multi-car accident happened at the intersection of Lincoln St. and Colfax Ave. (Exact location on Google Maps linked here.)
As OP’s dashcam footage shows, he’s driving in the rightmost lane of Lincoln St. right across from Colorado’s State Capitol.
Lincoln St.is a one-way street.
All of a sudden you see a black SUV (Range Rover?) hurtling down Lincoln St., going the wrong way at speeds upwards of 50 MPH, slam head on into the front of a Ford F-150, causing a chain reaction collision with a Toyota 4Runner and another car.
It looks bad.
OP is light on details and doesn’t mention if the victims in the other cars suffered any injuries or worse.
As to the motive of the wrong way driver, OP mentions that,
“Someone said they turned the wrong way out of a parking lot up the road.”
Here’s a screenshot of the nearest parking lot on Lincoln St. where that driver could’ve come from. (location on Google Maps linked here.)
“When they put the guy in the ambulance, I heard some people say he was drunk. Others say he was trying to kill himself. I’m not sure what the case was or how they came to those conclusions.”
“Seriously f*** that wrong way driver. Driving that fast and no attempt to slow down. Looked almost purposeful. Hope everyone else was ok, and hope they were…. not,” /u/TipBase commented.
“Has to be under the influence or a medical emergency. But who knows nowadays,” /u/WakeboarderCWB speculated.
Rule #1 with wrong way drivers is to move as quickly and safely out of the way as possible.
Perhaps the driver in the Ford froze up, or it all happened too fast for them to react.
Regardless, the best case scenario for him is if he tried his best to steer out of the way.
But driving is not perfect like that, and preparing for what you can do and actually doing it when the time comes are two separate things.
What every driver can do is to make sure their car is in tip-top shape so, if an accident does happen, their car is best prepared to handle a collision incident.
Also, a dashcam at this point in time is a must if you’re behind the wheel rather than just a want.
