This driver had one rule to navigate this two-way stop successfully: yield the right of way, which they didn’t do.
Downtown Modesto commuter /u/ariesdemon shared frustrating dashcam footage from earlier this week (May 21 2025) to the /r/IdiotsInCars subreddit showing a fellow Modestonian fail to navigate this two-way intersection. When it was OP’s turn to go through the intersection, the other idiot driver went to, causing a head-on collision, and it’s all on dashcam.
Check out the dashcam footage below with the original Reddit thread linked here.
The incident happened at the two-way intersection at Johnson St. and Downey Ave (exact location on Google Maps linked here.)
As the dashcam footage shows, OP and other traffic on I St are negotiating a two-way stop.
As is how two-stops work, drivers take turns either going straight to turning (in the event both arrive at the same time, the driver on the left yields to the driver on their right.)
When it was OP’s turn to go, the idiot driver in their red Honda HR-V also goes.
With no time to stop, both collide into each other, hard.
Oh, and according to OP’s title, he lost his job that day, too.
Talk about a rough day.
Thankfully, OP was already deemed not at fault by his insurance and, by the time you’re reading this, his car is already in the shop for repairs.
“I have already been deemed not at fault…,” OP clarified in a comment.
“That intersection looks terrible,” the top comment from /u/The_Frosty_Sloth reads.
A bird’s eye view of the intersection shows how, being designed sometime in the late 1880s, it’s made it a challenge for city planners, not to mention drivers, to design and navigate roads once only meant for horse-drawn carriages.
“The city planners should be fired on this intersection. It’s literally begging for exactly this to happen. This is a town that’s trying to skip out on a much-needed light. Or if they really want to cheap out, both sides should be right-turn only,” /u/IHeartBadCode piled on.
“This happening during the final, momentous note of Good Morning Baltimore is almost poetic,” /u/StephenNotSteve noted.
To Modesto City planners, this is yet another data point to reconsider how this road and signage are laid out.
And, for Modestonians and visitors, it’s a cautionary tale to pay attention, especially in downtown Modesto.
