A driver on US-15 failed to yield to traffic before merging, which almost caused their own rear-end collision with a driver hauling trailer loaded to 6,000 lbs.
Georgian and Redditor /u/TravisJRabs shared headshaking dashcam footage from earlier in September (Sept 19, 2024) from US-15 to the /r/idiotsincars subreddit showing a driver recklessly merging onto Lee Highway in front of this dashcam owner hauling a 6,000-pound trailer.
Check out his dashcam footage below.
[oc] Guy pulls out in front of me. I’m driving a Chevy Colorado w/ a loaded trailer (6,000 lbs).
byu/TravisJrabs inIdiotsInCars
The incident happened in the 16000 block of US-15 just before the intersection with James Madison Hwy/Arrow Leaf Turn (Exact location on Google Maps linked here.)
According to OP, he was driving with his wife in a mid-size Chevrolet Colorado hauling a fully loaded trailer up to its maximum 6,000 lb rated capacity.
As such, they need more than the average vehicle in stopping distance to safety slow.
As he approaches a driveway off of US-15, a driver in a Silver Toyota Corolla suddenly turns right to merge.
Despite having a completely open lane, the Corolla encroaches upon OP’s lane, causing OP to emergency brake.
OP slams on his brakes and comes within a few feet of rear-ending the Corolla which, if a rear-end collision had occurred, would’ve been devasting for that Corolla driver to experience.
The impact would’ve likely seriously injured that driver, not to mention totaling his car.
OP removed the sound from this dashcam footage as the wife can be heard screaming an expletive at the driver in the Corolla.
“Before this, I was a Class A driver w/ over 1M miles. I drove for a local Moving company (Moyer & Son’s) for 10 years. No accidents, no tickets. I always look down the road and predict and have “what if” scenarios going through my head. I’m Semi-retired,” OP explained.
“What makes this so brutally idiotic is they had a free lane to use but still felt the need to swing their compact into the second lane. I still would have waited. Looks like traffic was light enough, so there’s no need to squeeze in anywhere,” /u/NoTamforLove commented.
“Did a better job braking than 90% of the posts here in regular cars,” /u/Sheepy776 commended OP.
“In their defense, it would have inconvenienced them if they had to wait,” /u/vegetating02 sarcastically added.
Exiting driveways means yielding to traffic and not encroaching into other lanes.
I’d like to think this driver learned a valuable lesson, but that’s rarely the case, unfortunately.
