If you’re looking for something to scare away any irresponsible overtaking tendencies you might have, then simply check out this video.
We’ve seen plenty of overtaking fails, both online and in the real world. We’ve seen a few quite recently too, though this specific one does a great job of pointing out how unpredictable things can get at high speeds and just how dangerous it is for you and other motorists if you’re not a very careful person.
In short, as the dashcam car is driving along, it comes across a small convoy of cars, made up of a Hyundai Tucson, a Citroen C4 and non-facelifted Passat B5 Variant. That would have all been swell if the driver of the Passat didn’t feel like it was as good a time as any to overtake the two cars in front of him.
That was the absolute worst time to attempt such a maneuver and the fact that he only had one running headlight is absolutely no excuse (for anything, for that matter). As far as we can tell, there is good all-round visibility on that particular patch of road, considering both the straight line the cars were on and the lighting and atmospheric conditions.
It’s a good thing the driver of the dashcam car reacted in time, hit the brakes and pulled to the right, because that Passat was headed straight for him, while also leaving a lot of tire debris behind. While this is just a calculated guess, cars that old generally tend to have faulty electronics and encountering one without a working ABS isn’t all that rare.
That may have been one of the reasons why the Passat couldn’t get back behind the Citroen. Another reason was probably reaction time, coupled with the fact that the car was still accelerating past the C4 when the driver finally started applying the brakes.
This close call happened somewhere in Poland and if you happen to speak the language, we’re sure you can probably understand that whatever the driver uttered right after that scare, was completely justified.
By the way, the unpredictability factor we mentioned before is tied to the fact that something like this can always happen to you, so make sure you keep your eyes out for careless drivers.