Ah, the brake check. The foolish, unnecessary tool of the poor driver with a fragile ego. It’s never a good idea. It’s especially inadvisable when you’re trying to brake-check a loaded semi-truck at highway speeds. 

A MINI Cooper got a lesson in reality after trying to perform a brake check on a loaded semi-truck

A social media video shows a three-door MINI Cooper speeding to overtake a semi-truck on a busy, three-lane section of highway. Now, a driver would typically wait for a segment of highway with dashed lines indicating it’s safe to pass when clear. But not this hatchback driver. Instead, he speeds around the large truck by crossing over a solid, double-yellow dividing line– twice.

So, you’d think the MINI Cooper driver would be done, right? Passed the truck; mission accomplished. Not so much. Moments later, the little hatchback attempts a brake check on the semi-truck. His brake lights flash repeatedly as the MINI slows quickly. Needless to say, it wasn’t a very good idea. The truck slams into the back of the MINI Cooper, escalating the silly, avoidable interaction. 

A fully loaded semi-truck in the United States can weigh as much as 80,000 lbs. In ideal conditions, a fully-loaded semi could take nearly two football fields to stop at 65 mph. Granted, this video wasn’t taken on American roads. However, any weighed-down big rig can take much longer to stop than a 3,000-lb hatchback.

 In this case, the dash cam provides solid video evidence that the truck driver needs to make his case to the police and his insurance provider. Read my case for why a dash cam is an essential piece of your driving kit here.

However, the majority of drivers take on today’s roads without a dash cam. In those instances, what seems like a clear, open-and-shut brake check case can be muddied by “he said, she said.”

In the majority of cases wherein a vehicle rear-ends another, insurance providers find fault with the trailing driver. Tragically, that means without a dash cam or a witness, it’s difficult to prove that yours is a case of malicious brake checking. That in itself is a good case for equipping your vehicle with a dash cam.