This idiot, not paying attention on the Veterans Memorial Highway, totaled his car and maybe totalled the innocent driver’s car, too.

Salt Lake City commuter and Redditor /u/xLAXaholic shared headshaking dashcam footage from I-15 from earlier in April (Apr 18, 2025) to the /r/IdiotsInCars subreddit showing a distracted driver slamming into a slowed car at what looks like full highway speed.

The incident was caught by OP’s rear dashcam with a title to the thread hinting that this footage helped the innocent driver’s insurance lay 100 percent fault on the distracted driver despite the “open and shut case” circumstances.

Check out OP’s dashcam footage embedded below with the original Reddit thread linked here.

The incident happened on I-15 (AKA Veterans Memorial Highway) in Salt Lake City, UT, just before the 600 N Underpass (Exact location on Google Maps linked here.)

As OP’s dashcam footage shows, he’s slowing on I-15 as traffic in front of him has come to a crawl.

A driver behind him slowed down, too, but the one behind them didn’t get the memo.

Distracted, likely on their phone or zoned out, they rear-end the driver behind OP, likely totaling his car and perhaps the innocent driver’s car, too.

Miraculously, OP emerges from the hard-hitting collision unscathed, the innocent driver forced to turn out of the way.

“Don’t know how they didn’t hit you… go buy a lottery ticket,” the top comment from /u/AssumptionMundane114 reads.

“Goodness, I know. I actually surveyed my car when I got home, and there was a very faint black streak along that side of my rear bumper, but it wiped off with my finger. Don’t know if that was from this or not, though. I probably would’ve been hit if not for the poor Mazda, but I just had my previous car totaled in October of last year, I think I would’ve lost it if that happened again,” OP replied.

“No way they would know the innocent driver was rear-ended otherwise,” /u/ionertia sarcastically added.

In these cases where a driver rear-ends another driver, 9 times out of 10, the one who rear-ended the other is found at fault, given they should’ve been following the other driver from a farther distance or, in this case, paying attention.

Having dashcam footage also speeds up the insurance process, too, however slightly.

Distracted driving laws in Utah are harsh, and rightfully so, landing violators with fines upwards of $10,000+ in the cases of criminally negligent levels of distracted driving, not to mention points on your record and the possibility of jail time.

Driving requires 100 percent of your attention when you’re behind the steering wheel and the wheels are moving.