What Just Happened? Wow That Was Close

[jh]

Dashcam video from the Anchorage Police department shows an incredible close call when a car loses control and nearly hits a tow truck driver.

[deckeda]

Yet another SUV driver who probably thought AWD was the be-all, end-all regarding traction.

[PeterW]

Oh, it’ll get you going but it will not do a thing for stopping.

[Will Collier]

I used to work for an Alaska-based company. The amount of safe-driving training they required for all employees (even those of us in the Lower 48) was astonishing.

[DinerDave]

PeterW wrote:
Oh, it’ll get you going but it will not do a thing for stopping.

:agree:

All four wheels working together are great for getting you going, but it's the same 4 wheels braking no matter how many wheel drive it is.

Dave

[graylocks]

i think the ending message should have read It’s winter. Slow the F&@K DOWN!

[Michael]

So, the cop was there. I wonder if the driver got cited. I certainly hope so.

[Thrift Store Scott]

graylocks wrote:
I think the ending message should have read It’s winter. Slow the F&@K DOWN!

Agreed. All-Wheel-Drive, ABS, and Traction Control seem to have given a lot of people a false sense of invulnerability when it rains as well. Birmingham gets about 17 inches more rain annually than Seattle, but instead of being spread out in a continuous fine mist for nine months of the year ours tends to come in the form of occasional biblical-quality downpours amid weeks-long stretches of sunny days. No matter how much I try, I can't seem to get people to understand that All-Wheel-Drive, ABS, and Traction Control are useless when they're hydroplaning sideways down a hill on the freeway at 80 mph in a driving rain storm.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Thrift Store Scott wrote:
No matter how much I try, I can't seem to get people to understand that All-Wheel-Drive, ABS, and Traction Control are useless when they're hydroplaning sideways down a hill on the freeway at 80 mph in a driving rain storm.

:agree: Throw in glare ice once a year and you get spectacular crashes. I hope automated driver aids like Autopilot can reign in some of the mass pile ups.

[RAMd®d]

I wonder if the driver got cited.

Probably not.

You see him walk up to the tow truck driver while looking back at the A/H driving off.

He was there to help prevent a rear end collision to the stranded vehicle.

If he left and somebody rear-ended the truck, it's lawsuit time.

If another unit was in the area, maybe they could have stopped the SUV and cited it as can be done in CA.

Maybe Dick learned a lesson, especially if he had family in the car. He probably got away clean, except for his tidies, if there is a God. He was very lucky. It's hard to tell from the video but it didn't look like he counter steered to correct the skid.

But the driver is OK.

Even if the video at the site wasn't stopped to show how close the SUV was, you knew instantly it was the suspect vehicle as it came whipping around the corner compared to the truck ahead of it.