A car making a left onto Washington could not see oncoming traffic, but made the left turn anyway.
Winnebago County-area driver and Redditor /u/Devious_Bast*ard shared headshaking dashcam footage from earlier in June (June 8, 2026) showing the headshaking moment a driver on Charles made an unprotected left onto Washington without a clear view of oncoming traffic and came within inches of getting t-boned, hard, by a driver with the right-of-way.
Check out the dashcam footage below with the original Reddit thread linked here.
The incident happened in the 2000 block of Charles St at the intersection with 18th and Washington (Exact location on Google Maps linked here.)
As the dashcam shows, OP is on Charles St and comes to a stop at the aforementioned intersection to wait for a driver in a silver Dodge Grand Caravan making an unprotected left.
Out of view is a driver in a Chevrolet Cruze approaching from the other side, making the same maneuver except their view is obscured by the Grand Caravan.
Without a clear view, they brute-force their turn anyway and don’t see the driver in a Honda Accord with the right of way approaching from the right lane.
The Accord driver, paying attention, applies the emergency brakes in time and comes within inches of t-boning the Cruze.
A driver following the Accord, following at a safe distance, emergency brakes too, likely assisted by ABS, and avoids rear-ending the Accord.
All in all, everyone avoided what would’ve been one disastrous, multi-vehicle pileup.
“That was close! Time to grab a bag of Ole Salty potato chips, sit back and relax now…,” one of the top comments from /u/PK_Rippner reads.
“Looks like the silver car badly misjudged the timing,” /u/appa-ate-momo added.
“I swear a good percentage of these close calls and accidents are just bad intersection and traffic light design specific to the US,” /u/hm9408 pointed out.
In Illinois, a failure to yield on an unprotected left turn (even in a near-miss if cited) is typically a moving violation with fines usually around $75–$200+ base, often rising higher with court costs and fees. It generally carries about 15–20 driver’s license points, depending on how it’s charged. Insurance rates can go up since it’s treated as a preventable at-fault violation.
