A viral near-miss crash video posted to Reddit is taking off online after appearing to show a driver narrowly avoid a crash just one day after fixing their brakes for the first time.
The post, shared to r/IdiotsInCars had drawn roughly 5,800 upvotes at the time of writing.
The short video shows traffic slowing in neighboring lanes before an SUV suddenly cuts sharply across, leaving the dashcam driver with almost no room to react. Instead of rear-ending the car, the driver manages to stop in time, turning what could have been a serious collision into a near miss that quickly became the subject of comments.
“I was going 50 to their 35, but while they were braking I was just off the gas,” the driver said. “I thought a jumper would come from the next door lane so I was studying them, not expecting a near perpendicular merge.”
Commenters were keen to point out the visible rear-end damage and the missing back window on the SUV, with several commenters joking that the damage looked like evidence this was not the first time the driver had made that kind of maneuver. Others went further, speculating about an attempted insurance scam.
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“There is a reason the rear end of the car is damaged,” one commenter wrote. Another added: “It’s almost like they’ve pulled that move before.”
A third joked: “Probably on someone that didn’t just fix their brakes.”
Tuesday: Fix Brakes For First Time Ever Wednesday: Field Test Them [OC]
by u/stewarts_dad in IdiotsInCars
Driver Says the Brakes Had Just Been Fixed
What made the viral near-miss crash video even better, though, was the timing. The video was recorded just a day after the driver repaired his own brakes. And what a way to test them.
One of the most upvoted replies praised the job: “The pride in ‘I FIXED THOSE F***ING BRAKES’ is palpable. Well done!” while others said the save was instead from the driver’s incredible reaction time.
In a reply, the original poster said they were already watching the adjacent lane because they suspected someone might try to jump across, but were still caught off guard by what they described as a near-perpendicular merge.
“Luckily there was as much space behind me (if not more) as there was ahead of me. Plenty of time for a gentle controlled stop to my chaotic one.”
Even without a crash, the clip struck a nerve because it captured a situation many drivers fear: doing everything right and still almost getting taken out by somebody else’s poor decision. In this case, the driver was lucky, but many aren’t.
