Watch: An oblivious truck pushes a car down a freeway while other stunned drivers try to stop it

Originally published at: Watch: An oblivious truck pushes a car down a freeway while other stunned drivers try to stop it | Boing Boing

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Holy shit! I hope no one was in the car.

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Truck driver: “My gas mileage is shit today…”

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Driver safety be dammed!

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Authorities warn parents about dangerous new TikTok challenge sweeping the nation…

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Not that I needed this flashback, but…

That happened to me about 5 years ago. A truck turned into the lane and right into our car (my friend was driving), and pushed us for almost a mile before stopping. We were just holding on to the panic bars waiting for the tires to catch and flip us over. When the truck driver finally noticed and stopped, we broke loose and careened across 3 lanes of traffic.
Not only did nothing happen to the driver, we weren’t even allowed to know his name. Yay, lawyers!

Yes, I still do have nightmares about it.

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Apparently so - this exact thing was also just reported between a semi and a Tesla Model 3.

Truck’s visibility is often non-existent for significant sized volumes of space - hence big rig drivers have to rely on much more “extrapolated” situational awareness than small vehicle drivers are used to, (ideally anyways).

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police statement…
is there a driver in the automobile
was there a driver in the automobile
could there have been a driver in the automobile

sum of some of the parts

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the trump presidency

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it’s almost like they should invent some sort of device that you could attach to a vehicle to see otherwise hidden areas

im not sure what they should call it. personally, im torn between “mirror” or “camera”. they both have a certain charm. :thinking:

( snark not directed at you. im stunned this isn’t a solved problem )

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I’ve long advocated for requiring truck tractors to be built with the operator cab down at the same level as is typical with compact sedans. Give him/her a good look at how other trucks look from the perspective of the typical light vehicle driver.

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This is one of the likely outcomes when car drivers do a quick lane change close in front of large trucks.

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I’m not sure how they couldn’t be in the car, unless they had fallen out after being hit by the truck, which would be worse. So I’m hoping they were (still) in the car… the driver’s side didn’t seem to be badly damaged, so they presumably were fine, albeit traumatized.

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The correct action from the camera operators would not to be screaming “no” and filming, but to move into the lane with blinkers on and slow down.

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Perhaps that’s what happened to the first car?

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I hear ya, and am sure that in many if not most cases these are used to relatively good advantage, but I think total coverage is rare, (which I think is what you’re pointing out). A full on perimeter scanning machine-vision and recognition system does seem like it would go a long ways to reducing this sort of thing.

Can speak from some experience driving large trucks (only straight trucks in the 40-foot range not semis which are way bigger, (have only ridden shotgun in those - a modern big rig feels like being in low flying aircraft)) - typical blindspots in those are huge, school buses probably have some of the best panoramic visibility and mirror systems with extra mirrors and those hemispherical domes, but with an effective radius the size of a typical tractor trailer - there’s an enormous amount of information to constantly scan and keep current on. These cases sound like operator error, but I can imagine it going down, like with the Model 3 case - where if the car didn’t dwell in the left lane long enough to register to the truck driver and darted up quickly while passing it could easily traverse from : (safe, -but…)-“blind-spot” to (DANGER)-“blind-spot” in between driver-scans, then - boom. I think that it’s common for folks to regard trucks as merely larger and less quick cars on the road, but the physics and optics have qualitative differences. Am pretty sure that truckers very much do depend in large part on other drivers well-placed sense of self-preservation to help them maintain a safe perimeter. (Personally, I extend my daily commute by a couple miles specifically to avoid a heavy truck corridor). I honestly wonder whether a fully automated trucking system would deal better or worse with scenarios like these.

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I was thinking maybe it was parked in front of the truck or it pulled through the wrong part of a parking area. Though how you start pushing a car sideways and don’t realize it is beyond me.

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Truck driver was too busy with facebook… or whatever their new name is.

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Or dangerously exhausted by the incentive structure of truck/lorry driving.

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I think he’s too busy enjoying his freedom from outdated, cumbersome diktats from Brussels.

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