At least one of these drivers paying attention saved them both from one bad head-on collision.
California morning commuter and Redditor /u/ofCourseZu-AR posted up shocking dashcam footage from earlier this week (April 22, 2024) from Highway 101 in Goleta, CA to the /r/IdiotsInCars subreddit of a driver in a Honda CR-V headed the wrong way.
The dashcam footage shows the heart pumping the moment they swerve to narrowly avoid a head-on collision.
Check out the video below.
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The incident happened in Goleta, a city just outside of Santa Barbara and in Santa Barbara County, on Highway 101 (exact location on Google Maps linked here.)
As the screenshot of the thereabouts of the incident above shows, this section of the 101 has traffic going both ways, separated by a center median.
As OP’s dashcam footage shows, he’s driving northbound down the 101 when he could make out the lights of a car in the distance.
He shouldn’t be able to see headlights coming towards him as traffic, as mentioned, only goes one way in this direction, but, regardless if he realizes this at that moment, he keeps driving.
When it’s clear that he’s headed for a head-on collision, he swerves just in time to let the wrong way driver by.
Those familiar with cars can make out it’s a mid-2010’s Honda CR-V in Glacier Blue Metallic.
“I was more tired than usual, so I reacted kinda late,” OP clarified.
“I was passing another just before this. When I got into the right lane I was about 2-3 car lengths in front of them.”
“I called the police, but they were busy. Hopefully because every other driver was also calling.”
“There’s constantly a lot of construction, so seeing white lights isn’t uncommon, seeing them approach you is.
“They were driving slowly, maybe 40 mph, so I’m guessing they were on something.”
There wasn’t anything in the news about this wrong way driver, but another commented and OP replied that a local radio station reported another wrong way driver about 5 miles from where he took this video off of Los Carneros near UCSB.
“Ahh I thought this looked familiar, heard John P on the news discussing the wrong way driver near Los Carneros,” /u/DavefromCA added.
“Los Carneros is a street near UCSB. One of the exits in the US 101,” OP replied.
In the maps screenshot above, you can see at least one area where that wrong way driver could’ve entered.
Hopefully nothing came about from this wrong way driver.
This is yet another cautionary tale that, despite, from the looks of it, being an easy, traffic free morning commute, you still need to be on your toes driving defensively at all times.
