With nowhere to go, this innocent driver was hit, forced into a concrete barrier and just about tipped over due to another driver’s reckless decision.
Austin commuter and Redditor /u/SmarTater shared headshaking dashcam footage from the Mopac Expressway from earlier last year (Aug 8, 2024) to the /r/IdiotsInCars subreddit showing a driver in a VW Atlas cross illegally change lanes across lane separators into the Express Lane only to sideswipe a driver in a truck passing by, causing one gnarly collision.
Check out /u/SmartTater’s video embedded below with the original Reddit thread linked here.
[OC] What happens to cars that jump through the plastic bollards on the express lane in Austin, TX?
byu/SmarTater inIdiotsInCars
The collision happened on the N Mopac Expressway in Austin, TX near the exit with Stack Ave/Anderson Lane/ Spicewood Springs Rd. (Exact location on Google Maps linked here.)
As his dashcam video shows, he’s driving in the fast lane of the Mopac next to the Express Lane.
A driver in a grey VW Atlas can be seen with their signal on changing lanes in front of OP.
They continue signaling despite there being a double set of double lines with traffic attenuators separating them both.
Recklessly and without looking properly, the driver in the Atlas bombs into the Express Lane sideswiping a driver in a truck.
With nowhere to go, the driver in the truck ricochets off the concrete barrier and almost tips onto two wheels before slamming back down.
The Atlas spins out of control back into traffic before getting stopped by the barrier on the other side.
Thankfully, there was a pocket of space behind the Atlas so, when they spun out of control, they didn’t rope in other drivers, OP included.
As of this blog post, OP doesn’t mention the condition of any of the drivers but, as it happened months ago, presumably OP would’ve included that bit of information in the title if it was for the worse.
“Got damn, that is beyond the normal stupidity usually posted here. And I’m amazed that the truck managed to recover and stay in the lane,” /u/zytukin commented.
“That almost looked like a targeted attempt at someone’s life holy s***!,” /u/Halfgonmen added.
“Braindead f***ing move. These people need to get fined and have their license revoked. Imagine if it wasn’t a pickup truck but a smaller, older sedan. Would’ve been toast,” /u/ricelove replied.
There’s a good reason those traffic attenuators are there as, if the double set of double white lines wasn’t enough of a hint, changing lanes into separated traffic with higher speed differential can, as shown, have devastating results.
