A BMW Driver was following too close to traffic in front of them. Causes multi-car collision involving a $140,000 Mercedes.

Presumed Virginian and Redditor /u/Technical-Ad-3702 shared surprising dashcam footage to the /r/IdiotsInCars subreddit from earlier last month (Sept 28,2024) from the Capitol Beltway Outer Loop showing a driver in a BMW following too close, swerving to avoid a crash, but ultimately causing a multi-vehicle collision, one of the cars well over six figures.

Check out /u/Technical-Ad-3702’s dashcam footage below.

[oc] today in Virginia
byu/Technical-Ad-3702 inIdiotsInCars

The incident happened on the Capital Beltway Outer Loop just before Exit 54B onto Braddock Rd (Exact location on Google Maps linked here.)

As his dashcam video shows, OP is driving in Lane #4 next to Lane #3 (the left-most lane that isn’t next to the two express lanes running parallel to them.)

Passing in Lane #3 is a driver in a $140,000 Mercedes AMG GT, a Honda Accord, and our antagonist in his BMW.

All three of them are following each other way too close.

The AMG GT and Honda Accord suddenly slow for slow-moving traffic up ahead.

The BMW, following too close and possibly distracted, sees everyone else slowing too late and tries to swerve out of the way.

The BMW driver avoids rear-ending the Accord but swerves out of control into a driver in a Honda Pilot in Lane #5 before swinging around and hitting the driver in the Mercedes AMG GT broadside.

The Accord driver escapes unscathed.

Traffic slows to a crawl as the affected drivers collect themselves before moving out of the way.

“I’m so glad that car (the BMW( didn’t overreact. That could have been really bad otherwise,” /u/Charmign_Quarks sarcastically commented.

“Looks like they were not paying attention then over-reacted when they realized how close they were to the car in front of them, and immediately lost control,” /u/fdguarino observed.

“Notice all the cars camping in the left lane lol. They love sitting in the left out there. Like they do that s*** out of spite,” /u/Excellent_Farm_6071 added.

Driving defensively means setting yourself up for safety and mitigating risks.

That means paying attention, no distractions.

And, in this case, it also means maintaining a safe following distance, the rule of thumb being a three seconds gap between you and the car in front of you.

You could be paying attention, and react with ninja-like reflexes, but, if you don’t have enough room, even the quieskt reaction still might end in a collision.