- At least ten vehicles were caught in a pile-up on a New York highway.
- A fast-moving car appears to have sparked the severe chain reaction.
- Some drivers swerved clear, but many following behind could not avoid it.
Unpredictability is part of everyday driving, even on familiar stretches of road. When driving on the highway, or anywhere else really, it’s wise to expect the unexpected. Crashes can unfold in seconds, and that’s exactly what happened on a highway in Rochester, New York, late last month.
Footage of the accident uploaded to Reddit shows a female driver who appears to have been sideswiped by a Jeep. The two pull over, and in the dashcam view, they can be seen speaking and exchanging details. As this unfolds, carnage breaks out on the road next to them.
Read: They Got Out After A Crash, Then Cars Kept Slamming Through The Fog
We can see that traffic suddenly backs up in the center lane of the highway. The driver of a red hatchback is unable to brake in time and slams into the rear of a black Honda CR-V, setting off a chain reaction.
The Hyundai Tucson’s driver, following the red car, quickly slams on the brakes and avoids a crash, while the driver of a white Subaru Forester quickly brakes and swerves to the right to avoid rear-ending the Tucson. A couple of other vehicles also manage to avoid disaster, but split seconds later, a red SUV hits a car in front of it, and before long, at least ten vehicles have been involved in a dramatic pile-up.
What Started With A Single Car…
Video Reddit
Most of the impacts don’t appear to have been strong enough to cause injury, but they definitely caused a lot of damage. However, the final impact, which occurs off-camera but can be heard, appears particularly brutal, spewing damaged parts across the road.
As is so often the case, these crashes could have been easily avoided if the drivers involved had left enough space behind the car in front. Tailgating is a massive issue, particularly on highways, where braking distances are much longer than on residential streets due to the higher speeds involved. Let this pile-up be a lesson to those impatient drivers looking to shave a minute off their commute: it’s not worth it.
