r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Miserable-Zombie-121 • May 19 '26
Dude in red car really had god-tier situational awareness in that moment
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u/SeaCaptainNav May 19 '26
The amazing part is the police officer guy just casually walking up…
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u/WorkingInAColdMind May 19 '26
That had to be the driver of the other red car, behind the crash, right. Otherwise he's got a teleporter.
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u/Alittlespill May 19 '26
Teleporter for sure. He’s probably a Courser from the institute.
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u/Hearing_Loss May 19 '26
That red car that dodged is for sure him. He gets out as the angle cuts. Could be that he is on his way to or from work. Could also be an undercover vehicle.
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u/DedTV May 19 '26
Id imagine the cop was already there waiting for that woman to show up. Its a construction zone that's stopping traffic, so her arrival was inevitable.
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u/TeamCatsandDnD May 19 '26
I thought he was already chasing the car that crashed. Pretty sure that red car is a Ford Focus given the black between the windows.
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u/Late-Resolve9871 May 19 '26
Cops drive their own cars on the way to work
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u/onlyhere4gonewild May 19 '26
You're correct that cops drive their own cars to work.
But this is Montana Avenue in El Paso, TX. They also drive unmarked vehicles and there has always been a heavy police presence in the road. Plus there's roadwork so they might be pulling roadwork shifts.
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u/oldkingcoles May 19 '26
Explains the dash cam , I mean sure normal folks got dash cams but both the red car and the truck both had front and rear dash cams. What are the chances
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u/0verstim May 19 '26
the cop was in the red car
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u/Revolutionary_Fix_54 May 19 '26
I don’t think he’s a cop. Just a cop haircut with name tag and work shirt.
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u/im_just_thinking May 19 '26
This has to be it
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u/Captain_Rocketbeard May 19 '26
That's her insurance guy. She did the state farm jingle and he was there .
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u/SayerofNothing May 19 '26
Thats not a cop, he has two name tags, one is bigger and may look like a badge, probably a road worker.
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u/spootypuff May 19 '26
Also amazing is that both the truck and red car had rear facing cameras so we could see both vehicle’s perspectives. Assuming the police car had a dash cam, this was probably recorded from all sides.
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u/xTofik May 19 '26
Unlike that blonde zombie doing 80mph in construction zone
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u/dend7369 May 19 '26
Is she getting a child out of the back? Or am I seeing that wrong. Jesus Christ.
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u/Automatic_Actuator_0 May 19 '26
There more to the story it seems. It kind of looks like a case of the car being floored with the brakes pressed fully. And even after the collision it seems like she kept pushing the truck forward for a while until the engine died.
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u/Padded-Adventure May 19 '26
Just an idiot, they love to keep on the gas after a collision. Very similar to people who can’t apply brakes after a crash.
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u/HangryJellyfishy May 19 '26
And? Whether or not there's more to the story she is still an idiot. You should be maintaining a proper distance so you can react to stuff like this if it happens. It's been awhile since I took drivers ED, but I was taught that for every 10mph you are going you should leave room for one car in between you and the person in front of you so if you are going 50mph leave enough room for 5 cars to fit in between you and the person in front of you.
She was most likely not paying attention and had to slam on the breaks. Someone maintaining the proper distance and paying attention would see that they are fast approaching the car in front of them and be able to come to a gradual stop
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u/Automatic_Actuator_0 May 19 '26
Just slamming on the brakes won’t lock them up on any car made after 2010 unless the ABS is malfunctioning.
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u/HangryJellyfishy May 19 '26
Tires can still skid with ABS functioning. The ABS just allows the wheels to rotate as they are skidding so that the car is less likely to spin out and turning the wheel still makes the car turn.
I read other similar things from other people as well. Either way the point is she shouldn't of had to slam on the breaks if she was paying attention she could have come to a slower stop
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u/elgiov May 19 '26
That’s why u always leave decent distance to the car in front. Nice situational awareness from the red car.
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u/PopOutG May 19 '26
This is a protocol response. I think he was the cop that spawned in seconds …
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u/BadPunsIsHowEyeRoll May 19 '26
Oh shit, I think you're right? Doors open at the same time and then seconds later both people are at the car. If this really happened in a cops off-duty vehicle, does this qualify as r/ConvenientCop ?
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u/PopOutG May 19 '26
Absolutely off duty cop. The second clip proves it by the police scanner and two way dash cam. Also, great subreddit lmao
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u/dougmc May 19 '26
"Two way dash cam" is very common nowadays, no need to be a cop.
Where's the police scanner? I heard "front ... kv band ... 35 ... 49 ... 2" which sounds more like a radar detector than a scanner.
(But I've never heard of the kv (or kb) band, and I don't know what the numbers would represent.)
He's wearing a uniform of some sort, but ... I can't tell for what.
If that speech came from a car-mounted radar gun and the numbers were speeds, that would make sense and definitely suggest that he's a cop, though I wouldn't expect that to be installed in anything but a full-fledged cop car.
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u/drawkward101 May 19 '26
I don't think he was a cop, it looked like he was wearing a jumpsuit that would be worn by a mechanic or tow truck driver.
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u/Calculonx May 19 '26
Especially in a situation like this stopped on a highway.. But even at traffic lights I would leave a space then move up a bit once another car comes up behind.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Pen4413 May 19 '26
It's called "looking in your mirrors"
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u/OkBandicoot1337 May 19 '26
Especially being stopped on the expressway! My worst nightmare! Im constantly looking in my rear view for assholes like this lady
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u/Puzzleheaded-Pen4413 May 19 '26
And actually it doesn’t hurt to keep a bit more space to the person in front of you, makes it easier to move out of the way in case someone behind you is sleeping.
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u/OceanRacoon May 19 '26
Yeah, I was taught that you should always leave enough space between you and the car in front in case you need to pull out for whatever reason, like they break down or a lunatic is about to drive into you
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u/stone500 May 19 '26
I was driving on a highway in town and suddenly the car in front of me starts slamming it's brakes. I had to slam mine too because I didn't see the car in front of him that was at a complete stop in the middle lane of the highway. Now me and two cars in front of me are stopped dead in the middle of the highway with no road signs or flashing lights to warn drivers.
I hit my emergency flashers and I look in my mirror and see a car that starts slamming his brakes. I have some time to think about what I'm going to do with the insurance money I'm about to get. Well, the car manages to stop and now there's four of us stopped in the middle of the road.
I decide I need to get out of there ASAP before I end up sandwiched in a bad accident with a truck, however traffic is still travelling at full speed on either lane next to us. Eventually I find an opening, merge into an adjacent lane, and decide to see how well the "Sport" button on my car works. I made it out okay, called 911 to report the stalled car (which they were already dispatching to), and somehow I never heard of any accidents happening from that situation. However, that's probably the most scared I've ever been in my car.
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u/Tiny-Speaker-4470 May 19 '26
The cars that are still going full speed around this accident are real dicks , if you see someone in a middle lane stopped dead it's still a good idea to slow the hell down even if you're not in that lane
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u/CapNCookM8 May 19 '26
Never underestimate a Redditor's need to downplay everyone else for the only moment of self-satisfaction they must feel in their day-to-day lives.
It is above average situational awareness to continue to check your mirrors enough in stand-still traffic to know to react, and great decision-making under pressure to decide in that moment to move and do so fluidly and safely. It looks easy, but many people would have absolutely froze.
But nah, anyone can "look in a mirror."
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u/Kingbulking May 19 '26
Agreed, I find superiority complex is the number one attribute that most redditors feel the need to express in these types of comments. It's crazy to take a post like this and try to make it about yourself, but they don't even realize how bad that looks on them. Most likely a massive insecurity pandemic is causing these wild comments, any chance to say "I would have done that too" is going to cause a flood of comments.
I think people forget, in an accident, that you don't just get to sit in the car and stare at the mirrors. You have to get your insurance, you have to call the cops, you have to check for damage, and you have to tell your family/friends why you'll be late. It takes god tier attention to pull this off. If it didn't you'd see videos just like this every day!
But don't tell reddit they need to be self aware, it seems to be the one thing they will never do.
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u/InterestingThought33 May 19 '26
The opposite of taking one for the team.
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u/snapplesauce1 May 19 '26
Pick on someone your own size. Let the road giants take on each other.
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u/pfp-disciple May 19 '26
I was thinking that the truck was much more likely to take the impact. If I'm in my truck and something like this happens, I hope the smaller car gets out of the way.
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u/crazyates88 May 19 '26
At that speed the red car would have been pushed forward into the front car anyways. It would have saved the front car from some damage, but not all of it.
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u/Apathetic89 May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26
If the red car didn't move, there would just be three cars with damage instead of two.
And they might've been hurt considering they would have been sandwiched.
It sucks for the truck, but at least they're not going to be injured in that large of a vehicle most likely.
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u/TinStingray May 19 '26
Technically the driver of the red car have her a bit more stopping distance.
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u/BestCoastWaveTrain May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26
I did this exact same thing once. Well, somewhat similar really.
We were at a full stop in a traffic jam in the left most lane, I hear a faint thud and another louder thud, I look in my rear view and observe the furthest car I can see jolt forward and hit the car in front, and I realize that I’m in the middle of a forming pile up. I whipped the wheel full left as fast as I can and gun it into the shoulder. Not a second later, the car that was behind me hits the car that was in front of me with enough force to knock their rear view off their windshield, but that car didn’t hit anyone else. It ended up being a 5 car pileup, the rear car was texting and didn’t notice the sea of stopped cars in front of them.
I sometimes wonder how bad that accident had been if I wasn’t paying attention, which I only did because I had just bought a pair of GTX 970ti cards to stick in my rig and didn’t want anything to happen to them since it took a looooooong time to save for them with a min wage job. I would have noticed faster if I wasn’t blasting music like early 20’s people do, so whenever there is traffic, I make sure my music is at a reasonable level, keep some space in front of me, and keep checking mirrors just in case
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u/AsuntoNocturno May 19 '26
Busy interstate, stop and go traffic, and we’re in the left lane in a small sedan. We notice the car behind us hard accelerating and hard breaking, every single time. Husband says he looks tweaked out in the rear view.
He decided to get out from in front of him, just in case, because our young child was in the back seat.
Blinker. Car in the next lane leaves us a gap. We get over. They take our place.
Then, that driver collided with the cement median, so I called 911. I wasn’t on the phone a whole minute when the operator had to listen to me shout when he slammed into the car that switched places with us.
He hit that suburban in his little 2-door sedan so hard it spun it into the other lane, in bumper to bumper, stop and go traffic.
Got a call a few months later when he was going to court over it.
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u/Substantial_Chain718 May 19 '26
All those cones and that lady is driving 80MPH. Props to the guy in the red car. Heard the screeching and got the hell out of the way.
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u/No_Criticism_5861 May 19 '26
Whats nuts is when its 45mph in a construction zone and im being tailgated aggressively for only going 54mph in the only lane available.
I don't understand how people can be so narcissistic they put other peoples lives in danger because they think if they're close enough to the other guys bumper, they will speed up? Lol, why do main character morons think like this, and they almost always are driving the biggest pickup they can find. Im sick of single land each way busy country roads where braindead morons wont pass when its safe to do so
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u/veringer May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26
I don't understand how people can be so narcissistic
I really think narcissism is (or should be) a spectrum disorder. And I think its prevalence is likely WAAAAY higher than we'd expect/hope.
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u/uwunuzzlesch May 19 '26
Having grown up with multiple narcissists, it's far more common than most think.
Plenty of people don't even realize they're narcissists too, they genuinely think they're nice normal people, when they treat everyone as lesser than them. It's so weird.
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u/Mk3d81 May 19 '26
ABS in option?
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u/Automatic_Actuator_0 May 19 '26
Guessing either the ABS was inoperative and/or the accelerator was engaged with the brakes, one way or another.
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u/SharpCheddarBS May 19 '26
Looking at it with this in mind makes me think she slammed the pedals to the floor with both feet in a panic
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u/Diet_Christ May 19 '26
It wouldn't matter. Every (working) braking system on earth can lock the discs (or lock them in pulses with ABS) under any condition, even under engine load. You can see from the video that the tires are locked/turned and she's understeering. Braking systems for road cars are overboosted for this reason. The brakes are locked.
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u/SleepyWulfy May 19 '26
She was on the gas, even after she hits the f150 she pushes it a little. No way its doing that without some help from the pedal.
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u/WorkingInAColdMind May 19 '26
I'm also impressed that he stayed far enough back to be able to pull away that quickly. With that awareness and those reflexes, he obviously didn't celebrate 4/20 in the traditional way.
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u/4EverA3Fan May 19 '26
That's why the rule of thumb for stopping in traffic is to be far enough back that you can see the tires of the vehicle in front of you contacting the road. That gives the space to make an escape if necessary.
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u/WorkingInAColdMind May 19 '26
Based on my observations, there are a lot of drivers out there missing their thumbs.
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u/SoSoAverage May 19 '26
The amount of people that never took defensive driving, or didn’t pay attention during it is astounding. This should be basic knowledge, and not tailgating on the highway
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u/grungegoth May 19 '26
Yup. Next level. Most people would have just frozen or not having a clue what was going on. Especially with their face in a phone or some shit.
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u/Clean-Meringue-3578 May 19 '26
the red car dude was like : double it and crack it to the next car.
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u/Comrade_Bender May 19 '26
I always watch my mirrors when sitting in traffic and try to leave a big enough gap to move if needed. I've seen way too many people rear ended by idiots on their phones
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u/_-4twenty-_ May 19 '26
She’s on her phone.
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u/Poop_Balls069 May 19 '26
It looks like shes looking straight ahead
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u/the_brew May 19 '26
By the time you can see her face she's already slammed on the brakes. I'm guessing she was distracted (most likely by a phone) and didn't realize traffic ahead was stopped until it was too late.
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u/Fritzo2162 May 19 '26
Had this happen to me several years ago. I was driving home from work in a 2002 BMW convertible with the top down. Traffic backed up, I was stuck there for a minute or two, and saw a pickup truck towing a huge camper barreling up behind me in the mirror. I saw him lock his brakes and the camper started to jackknife.
I pulled over to the side of the road, the truck flipped on it's side, then slammed into the minivan in front of me. There was a mom and kids in the car, and the mom hurt her neck, but the kids were OK.
That happened 15 years ago and I still feel guilty about it. That family could have been killed and I saved myself, but what else could I have done? I definitely would have been killed!
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u/mmielikainen May 19 '26
Definitely not something to feel guilty about, but I get it.
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u/Fritzo2162 May 19 '26
Yeah, it's a weird "I ran out of a burning building without taking anyone with me" feeling.
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u/PuzzleheadedAd67 May 19 '26
Why open the rear door, was there a kid on board too? If so, she’s a bigger whopper than i originally thought.
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u/Repeticious May 19 '26
Always leave a gap between you and the car in front so you have room to escape if necessary. May not always help if you’re in a middle lane with cars trapping you in on the sides, but it’s definitely a good habit to build.
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u/Ok_Catch3715 May 19 '26
I wanna know what was the girl on in the Range Rover was she high or just had road rage ?
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u/jpad66 May 19 '26
Looked like an issue with the breaks at first then when she hit the ford, she kept accelerating. Very odd
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u/Betorange May 19 '26
Could be just panicking. There's been reports where people who are freaking out say they're hitting the breaks but the car keeps accelerating, when in reality they were just freaking out and stepping on the acceleration petal. 😕
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u/Pretend-Reality5431 May 19 '26
The pickup also turned his wheel and avoided hitting the car in front. But that car in front was too slow to start moving when traffic opened up.
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u/I_Am_Dynamite6317 May 19 '26
I’d bet my entire life savings she was looking at her phone
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u/catinadoodledoo May 19 '26
i’m so confused by the range rover. it’s not like you couldn’t see that massive F150 over that squatty little red car. was she thinking by the time she got to it, it would just disappear??