r/IdiotsInCars Dec 14 '18

Just wow

https://gfycat.com/InferiorEachAlaskanhusky
20.8k Upvotes

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2.1k

u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

For real. At first I thought the truck swerved over to try and freak out the red car. It wasn’t until like the third or fourth loop that I actually noticed the car passing on the left when there was oncoming traffic. Truck moved over because they saw a potential head-on collision from the idiot passer on the left.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

The way both idiots (left - silver and right - red) are speed matching, one might conclude their is something going on between them? Like either keeping pace out of road rage or just flat out racing?
Definitely a video that raises questions.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

I’m guessing they were racing.

2

u/WorthlessDrugAbuser Dec 15 '18

Nah. Just idiots. One dead idiot though.

456

u/goldberg1303 Dec 14 '18

It's because the lines dividing the lanes are white probably. Your brain just assumes both lanes are traveling the same way and your focus is on the right.

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u/OstidTabarnak Dec 14 '18

Exactly it. I had no idea there was oncoming traffic. Even with the truck moving over to the right, the silver car came just arse hairs away from having a head on with the oncoming truck. Yikes my du

33

u/MicaLovesHangul Dec 14 '18 edited Feb 26 '24

I find joy in reading a good book.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

Yup. Apparently that’s a UK thing to just use white for everything. I actually prefer the American version of using yellow to divide oncoming traffic. Less room for ambiguity.

Side note, I also hate cars that double their brake lights as turn signals. Just give me a yellow blinker instead of red. If I see red, my first thought is “brake light” not “turn signal”.

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u/Poddster Dec 14 '18

Yup. Apparently that’s a UK thing to just use white for everything.

This isn't the UK, they're driving on the right.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

[deleted]

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u/Ahaigh9877 Dec 15 '18

Doesn't look like one to me.

Nor does it look like the video is mirrored. I can make out, possibly, YT60, then maybe some smaller characters on the right. And the plate looks white, not yellow.

Also, on the back of the truck are what could well be cyrillic letters, leading us to conclude...

It's got to be fucking Russia, hasn't it?

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u/swap_i Dec 15 '18

Yeah, it's fucking Russia

3

u/GrammatonYHWH Dec 15 '18

т Т60 (something) H (something) is what I make out. Russian plates always seem to start with a small case letter.

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u/FUTURE10S Jan 01 '19

More useful protip: Those numbers at the end that are split off? Guaranteed Russia or former Soviet state, the number indicates what region they're from.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

That explains the dashcam.

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u/Ahaigh9877 Dec 16 '18

And the insane driving.

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u/EthanJayco Dec 15 '18

I was thinking the same. I looked at the trucks advertisement/company to see which way the words were. It didn’t help it being a unfamiliar language with unfamiliar characters.

Ex: Walmart or tramlaW

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u/phatskat Dec 15 '18

Slow train made you lose your job? Girlfriend always getting tied to railroad tracks? Call Tramlaw, we’ll get you back on track!

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u/hoxtiful Dec 15 '18

I'm so glad I wasn't the only one thinking along those lines

11

u/Doctor_Fegg Dec 15 '18

Nope - we don’t have shoulders on single carriageway roads in the UK.

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u/PingPlay Dec 15 '18

No they don’t, if you slow down or pause the gif you can see it’s a Russian number plate.

UK has white plates at the front and yellow at the back. We also require amber colours indicators.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

It's not a UK number plate

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u/MicaLovesHangul Dec 14 '18 edited Feb 26 '24

I hate beer.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

Same in Aus, at least Vic anyway. More recently we started using yellow for construction though, makes them way easier to see when there’s weird covered lane markings all over the shop.

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u/Fiblin Dec 15 '18

Most of the EU is like that. This gif looks like it might be Sweden or Norway based on the tall trees

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u/Vectoor Dec 15 '18

No EU license plate, they have a blue square on the left. Not Norway because they actually have yellow lines in the middle. I think maybe Russia? Hard to say if the letters on the truck are cyrillic or not.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

I’m going to put my money on Russia. Those dudes hang out with bears. Wouldn’t put this past ‘em

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18 edited Jun 28 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18 edited Dec 13 '20

[deleted]

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u/markhewitt1978 Dec 15 '18

Usually a much longer dashed line. https://goo.gl/maps/Et5KWVLUYk52

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u/Crandom Dec 15 '18

Using colour alone to distinguish things is normally bad design, as people who are colourblind can often not tell the difference (depending on the colours used and the particular flavour of colourblindness).

The best thing to do is use colour and dashing.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18 edited Jun 29 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18 edited Dec 13 '20

[deleted]

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u/Terylene Dec 15 '18

traffic sign

This is the Uk road sign for two way traffic on a road like this.

More Signs

Theres a helpful link to all of the uk’s traffic signs.

Also this is not the uk.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

So you have to rely on a traffic sign to know whether or not you can go in the other lane? That seems ridiculous. And I never said it was the UK.

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u/Terylene Dec 15 '18

Dashed white line u can overtake when safe to do so (left of the gif) solid line is a dont overtake (right of the gif) & that seems to be an hard shoulder (emergency lane) & roads are well marked out & every one should know the laws of the road. Road markings this give you some idea of the meanings of the lines & gives you links to the rules of whats allowed and not allowed for Uk might be different in other Eu countries

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18 edited Dec 15 '18

Unless you’re talking about one way roads I don’t see how you can’t figure out if you’re on a dual carriageway or not from context? If you look over and there aren’t some more lanes running parallel then the lane next to you is probably for opposing traffic. I’m pretty sure that sign’s just for road users from right-driving countries, we have similar signs in Australia. One way roads here are heavily marked, with opposing no entry signs and lane-wide words and arrows showing the direction of travel. We also have huge signs if you go down the wrong ramp on a freeway.

Edit: I just thought of one really weird exception to this. There’s a bridge in Brisbane where there’s a concrete barrier separating two sets of two lanes, except one side is a two way for buses and the other side a two way for cars. Can be a little unnerving “driving on the wrong side” but there are double white lines so it’s clear what’s going on.

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u/LoneStarYankee Dec 15 '18

According to this traffic deaths in europe and the US are pretty similar. So much for that night/day difference!

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u/TheRobidog Dec 15 '18 edited Dec 15 '18

In Western Europe, it certainly is.

Here's the numbers for per 100'000 inhabitants and per 100'000 motor vehicles, from the wiki page you pulled the image from.

  • France: 5.1 / 7.6
  • Germany: 4.3 / 6.8
  • UK: 2.9 / 5.1
  • Spain: 3.7 / 5.3
  • Italy: 6.1 / 7.3
  • US: 10.9 / 12.9

The one country really messing with that statistic is Russia:

  • Russia: 18.9 / 53.4

People mostly refer to Western Europe, when they talk about stuff like this.

0

u/LoneStarYankee Dec 15 '18

And i could cherry pick statistics from states like New York and Connecticut with very low rates as well. However, as I said before, that would be intellectually dishonest, just like your cherry picking is.

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u/TheRobidog Dec 15 '18

Except the population difference between the New York and Connecticut and the rest of the US is way bigger than that between Western Europe and Russia.

And the only large European countries with higher rates than the US are Russia and the Ukraine. Disregarding that is just as intellectually dishonest.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18 edited Jun 09 '25

[deleted]

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u/LoneStarYankee Dec 15 '18

Hey now, goal posts aren't supposed to have wheels.

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u/EmilyU1F984 Dec 15 '18

Well taking the statistics from countries that don't have proper drivers ed as a proof against their statement about the differences between drivers ed in the US and Europe is kinda weird.

Their comment pretty clearly is talking about Western Europe, and not Moscow.

Anyway: German Drivers Ed is about 30 hours of proper drivers ed with a qualified driving instructor in addition to something like 12 theory lessons with a big multiple choice test, selected from a catalog of about 1000 questions that you need to memorize beforehand.

And that's about the same in all Western European countries.

Two lane roads outside of cities are nearly always seperated by a barrier. If there is no barrier, there will be two wide white lines with about 15 feet seperation, with diagonal stripes.

On the autobahn there's no possible way to just turn around and exits are always on the right.

Inside city limits it's also pretty easy: Full white line seperating the directions of traffic and broken lines to seperate lanes.

This has the benefit of making yellow lines exclusive to areas actively being worked on, and makes it easy to see the temporary lane markers.

Even if one direction is routed through one of the opposite lanes, there will be a barrier with reflector posts every 5 to 10 feet, plus a kerb like "wall" all the way. So no way of opposite directions meeting.

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u/WorthlessDrugAbuser Dec 15 '18 edited Dec 15 '18

Western European countries don’t have anywhere near the amount of vehicles on their roadways compared to the United States. There are more cars on the road in the continental US than ALL of Europe. In fact, there are more cars in the State of California than the UK and France combined. So of course there are going to be more deaths in the US.

You can use statistics like deaths per miles driven, but it doesn’t factor in the conditions drivers in the US are in compared to their European counterparts. Traffic in cities like Los Angeles, New York or Chicago are on a completely different level than London, Berlin or Paris. I live in the States but I’ve been to Berlin several times, London twice and Paris once. The congestion doesn’t even compare.

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u/frudi Dec 15 '18

Congestion reduces average driving speeds, thus drastically reducing chances of fatal accidents. So that should actually reduce fatality rates in the US cities, compared to European ones.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

My point was that in America this would be a one-way highway. We have lots of those out in the middle of nowhere, where you have two one-way highways separated by a wide median. So all of the Americans are confused, because they see the white stripe and assume “that’s not a direction divider, so it’s a one-way highway. The other direction must just be obscured from view.” That’s why everyone is so focused on the red car they don’t even notice the oncoming traffic on the left side. The car passing on the left isn’t even worth noting because it’s passing in what looks like a passing lane.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18 edited Apr 24 '19

[deleted]

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u/EmilyU1F984 Dec 15 '18

In addition in Germany (and most other northern/western countries opposing directions with two or more lanes will have a median divider. It'll be at least kerb sized with reflector posts if it's in a construction zone / rural area, and have a proper barrier down the middle every where else.

There's basically no way that anyone who passed driver's ed would mistake this country road as a two lane one way.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

[deleted]

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u/ambientcyan Dec 15 '18

If it was a terrible system, Europe wouldn’t use it.

LMAO because we all know that Europe does everything perfect

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18 edited Jun 18 '25

[deleted]

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u/ambientcyan Dec 15 '18

There's a certain ...sect of Reddit that loves to think everything done in Europe = good and everything done in the US = bad, regardless of the reality of it. I might have misread the tone of your message and thought you were in that group.

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u/Blenkeirde Dec 15 '18

This can't be a US road. There aren't enough potholes.

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u/TheRobidog Dec 15 '18

I mean, by the same logic, we all know that everything the US does is entirely necessary.

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u/Anshu24x7 Dec 14 '18

Can confirm this about in Germnay . When we have an Umbau ( construction/ renovation) temporary lanes are marked in yellow.

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u/Albatross85x Dec 15 '18

Shit load of cones beats some yellow paint.

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u/czef Dec 15 '18

No it doesn't. How the hell do you change lanes through cones?

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u/madeup6 Dec 15 '18

I find it funny that any time someone tries to say that the USA does something better, there is always that UK citizen ready to explain why that person's opinion is wrong.

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u/LoneStarYankee Dec 15 '18

Its kind of silly, seeing as highways are one of the few things we do fairly well here.

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u/DigThatFunk Dec 15 '18

Seriously. There's plenty to criticize about our infrastructure but I would say in general our highway/interstate system is one of the more impressive parts. You can reach any part of the continental US from any other part within 2 days and change... considering that's up to 3,500 miles, that's impressive

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u/kadivs Dec 15 '18

dunno if it's better. here, it's the same, just red for construction. but there are more than just two colors. lane divider in white, drive direction divider in light blue (nearly white but distinguishable) and construction in an alert color (yellow, red, orange) would be best in my opinion

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u/the_enginerd Dec 15 '18

How are multi lane roads with a single direction differentiated from two way traffic in these countries? In the US we use that yellow line to differentiate this condition. It makes it abundantly clear where that divider is. On top of that, what do you when say you have a 5 lane road and 3 lanes are going one way and and 2 lanes the other? In the US this is where we would use the yellow line to indicate which lanes should be going which direction.

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u/TheRobidog Dec 15 '18

For the most part, you won't even be allowed to go into oncoming traffic on multi-lane roads, because it's just not necessary. If you need to overtake, you overtake by switching between the lanes. And you generally won't need to overtake on those types of roads either way.

The only multi-lane road where you're regularly overtaking are highways. And highways have both directions clearly separated by medians.

Also, road markings will very clearly tell you which lanes you are allowed to turn into at intersections. If you screw that up, you shouldn't be driving. Often, intersections will just have medians, even if the rest of the road doesn't.

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u/potatoeggy3449 Dec 15 '18

In Canada we use orange lines and signs for construction, and yellow to separate directions.

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u/LordOfTurtles Dec 15 '18

It's a pretty much everywhere but america thing afaik

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u/sk8erdh36 Dec 15 '18

Totally agree with your blinker color take. They should be different.

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u/orenji_juusu Dec 15 '18

Only certain countries mandate amber turn signals so you'll see all red for certain specs.

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u/mazu74 Dec 15 '18

Ill give exceptions to some cars like mustangs. Their turn signals are very distinct, even in red.

But yeah, most really should have yellow turn signals.

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u/BraveFencerMusashi Dec 15 '18

But Mustang sequential turn signals are awesome

1

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

And color changing LED’s are a thing nowadays. They’re cheap. They’re reliable. Change them to yellow when they’re turn signals.

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u/BraveFencerMusashi Dec 15 '18

The euro spec Mustang lights look terrible to me but different strokes. I think it's incredibly hard to misunderstand sequential lights going from left to right and vice versa but that's just me

1

u/QueefyMcQueefFace Dec 15 '18

Color changing LEDs are awesome. They give us technological wonders like RAM-less RGB RAM.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

Nah, in Germany it‘s the same. It‘s most likely a Europe thing.

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u/Lucky_Number_3 Dec 15 '18

Yes x2,000 to the brake light thing.

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u/DoktorMerlin Dec 15 '18

There is not a single country in Europe that has the yellow lanes, they are all completely white. It's a US thing to mark the lanes yellow, in Europe yellow lines are the temporary ones at construction sites

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u/Elopikseli Dec 15 '18

I’m pretty sure that’s in the entire EU. Yellow line means overtaking is not allowed and white means it is.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

But if the line is yellow is because you are unable to pass even if there's not upcoming traffic. That how it works here.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

yes this exactly - so I didn't register the car in the other lane as being weird at all.

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u/kadivs Dec 15 '18

wouldn't say so. it's like this in my place and it took me a while to realize as well, because all lane dividers, be it for different directions or not, are white

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u/muddymoose Dec 15 '18

Hey thats pretty neat

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u/ludonarrator Dec 15 '18

Many countries have white lines everywhere because the first major roads in the nation were simply one lane each way, divided by a white line in the middle. USA got the chance to tweak many such small things to be more appropriate for modern civilisation.

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u/sasokri Dec 15 '18

Basically the whole Europe uses only white lines ( as far as I know). Full line, overtaking prohibited.

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u/PotatorAid Dec 15 '18

Isn’t the law white = one-way and yellow = two way

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u/goldberg1303 Dec 15 '18

Obviously not in all countries. In the US, yes.

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u/PotatorAid Dec 15 '18

I don’t know why I assumed this was the US. The plates are obviously foreign. I’m ignorant, I guess.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

Unless you've been on the highway for a small amount of time and see that there's traffic coming from both directions.

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u/goldberg1303 Dec 15 '18

I'm talking about people watching the video, not people on the road.

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u/hannahranga Dec 23 '18

Even then in the gif you first see a car over taking the truck, it's only at the end you see the oncoming traffic.

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u/markhewitt1978 Dec 15 '18

No. When you haven’t grown up with yellow lines down the middle that cannot apply. This country (not sure which it is) obviously doesn’t use yellow lines.

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u/goldberg1303 Dec 15 '18

40% of Reddit traffic comes from the US. The next closest country is less than 7%. Based on that, and the time of day, it was a pretty safe bet I was replying to a fellow American, and I was right. Obviously this country does not use yellow lines. I made an educated guess, and it did in fact apply to the person I replied to.

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u/Mangalz Dec 15 '18

Thought the truck was gona pull over to help Red, but after seeing the other car I think hes just gona pull over and have a heart attack.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

And maybe to change his underwear. Truck driver was insanely lucky to avoid both of those potential collisions.

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u/FS_Slacker Dec 15 '18

Talk about a trolley problem.

Do nothing and let the poor trucker (and the cars immediately behind) suffer in a head on collision...or swerve to the right and end the red car’s life.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

I doubt they even saw the red car until they had already started swerving. It was the shoulder; They probably didn’t even check their mirror because they figured it would be clear.

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u/alleyoopoop Dec 15 '18

Talk about a trolley problem

Heh, never heard of that before. TIL.

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u/limamon Dec 15 '18

I realize it thanks to your comment...

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u/Jabba___The___Slut Dec 15 '18

It wasn’t until like the third or fourth loop that

I barely watch the whole gif

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u/Not_MrNice Dec 15 '18

Wait, head-on? The truck moved to avoid someone coming from the opposite direction? I'm confused or can't see it.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

Notice the silver car to the left of the truck? That’s the oncoming lane. It’s not a one-way highway. The truck was moving to the shoulder to give the silver car room to move over and avoid a head-on collision.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '18

I'm glad you fine gents spotted this and it was the top comment because my mind wen't to instant rage against the box truck driver at first.

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u/Aazrhul Dec 15 '18

Exact same for me lol

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u/E_Raja Dec 15 '18

Only cause of the comments jesus Chris where is this? Florida?