The Smith System of Safe Driving

Posted this on my Facebook, but it's worth repeating here:

There's a vid going around Facebook showing a head-on crash between an SUV and a semi on a wintery four lane (undivided) highway posted by a pair of agencies promoting safe, undistracted driving. While the video drives (pun not intended) the point home, the video's description -- a Highway Patrol dash cam -- is incorrect.
The crash occurred near Омутищи, Петушинский, Россия (Omutishi, Petushicky, Russia) Feb. 2012. This was caught on camera because of Russian drivers using dash cams to document collisions so they have proof of their claims when dealing with the insurance and the (often corrupt) police. Even by Russian collision 'standards', this one is bad -- you have been warned.
Please -- there is something to be taken away and learned from this, no matter what the road conditions are, but especially when they are hazardous: Do NOT drive distracted. Do NOT text while driving. Do NOT read, apply make-up, etc, that will take your eyes away from where they need to be: On the road and your surroundings.
DO engage in safe driving, by both leaving ample following space in front of you (5-6 seconds is ideal, and the car that recorded the video has this) and by using the Smith System of safe driving --
1. Aim high in steering; that is, looking down the road instead at the nose of your car.
2. Keep your eyes moving; do not fixate on what's happening in front of you. Keep your eyes (and head!) moving to see what's happening at your sides and at your rear.
3. Get the big picture; incorporate conditions around you with steps one and two.
4. Make sure you are seen; turn on your headlights, no matter the time of day (not the high beams). Do not count on other drivers seeing you; make yourself obvious.
5. Leave yourself an out; where do you go when you suddenly need to get out of the way to avoid the collision? Plan ahead -- the 5-6 second lead you gave that car in front buys you that critical half-second of time to make that decision and get there so you don't get caught in that collision.

From what I could tell from the video, the driver that recorded this more or less prevented this from being worse than it was by having had the five second following space behind the SUV that was destroyed (the semi driver survived; all four in the SUV died). Warning: It's gruesome.
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For those unable to view the video it shows a driver losing control, slamming into a semi headed in the same direction and then ricocheting in front of a semi heading in the opposite direction.

It is unclear why the driver lost control.

I don't consider myself a great driver, but we had our first snowfall here last week and I'm amazed by the idiots on the road.

There was an inch of snow/slush on the highways and you had every moron out.

First, there was the assholes doing 120 km/h without snow tires on (you could tell by the rims).

Then, there was the nervous nellies doing 20 km/h who hit their brakes every 100 m (a good way to spin out).



You want to talk about gun control, how about better highway enforcement? Most fatal car accidents could easily be avoided if people knew what they were doing.

And Malarky is right. Leave some space between cars, fer crissakes!

One slight problem with leaving five to six spaces - in dense traffic with aggressive drivers people will always keep cutting in front of you to fill in the spaces.

I wish the cocksuckers here in Augusta would turn their headlights on.
It will be dark as SHIT and you can flash your headlights and honk your horn but to no avail.

Oh, and black people? If you're crossing an unlit road with no crosswalks on foot wearing dark clothing.....at least smile or something, and if you have gold/diamond grillz on your teeth even .

America probably needs to make it much more difficult to get a driver's license. Something like the way the Germans do it would be nice. And renewing your license should entail taking a new exam, both written and practical. I'm frequently astonished at how poorly most people drive.

The idiots on the road PROVE that Darwinism acyually works. That film appears to have been taken taken in my state not Russia, but hey, with the current government policies that are coming, who can really tell?

If you look closely, you can see that while passing the truck, he got into the snow on his left, which would of course cause him problems at that speed (when the left side of the car wants to slow down suddenly). That drove him back to the right, into the truck he was passing, which in turn bounced him across the median into the path of the oncoming semi in the other direction. The result is pieces of SUV (not to mention passengers) flying in all directions, all because he got too far to the left while passing the truck.

Yep. Yet it remains unclear why the driver "got into the snow on his left."

Can't say it was due to texting, reading, or applying make-up.

Though I do agree with this bit -

Good point about Germans. Yeah, you really have to "eat a line of shit" to get a license. And when they drive, they are fucking focused! They don't eat or drink sodas while they drive, or reach around smacking their kids, etc.

Then again there are trains almost EVERYWHERE in Germany and besides, most towns are laid out so stores are within walking distance, or biking on actual safe bike trails. Thus driving isn't as much a neccesity like in most of America.

HA! Just remembered - last week some clown in front of me put on his LEFT turn signal (just seeing a turn signal used was a miracle) and then immediately CRANKED THE WHEEL TO THE RIGHT at a high rate of speed to turn onto a side road right in front of me.

Last night, for a stretch of about ten or twelve miles along a country rode, I had some dick riding my ass* the whole time. He was so close, I couldn't see his headlights most of the way. What made it even worse was there was another dick riding his ass the whole way too. That was a nervous drive.


* ...so to speak.

The SUV driver also oversteered when he saw he saw he was getting off course - another bad thing on top of driving that fast on those road conditions, but it's all too common an occurrence that leads to accidents like this.

I've often thought about rigging the brake lights on my car so I could turn them on without touching the brakes.

Those brake lights slam on and the people behind you slam on their brakes but you keep going like you were.

Driver drifted into the slush, the slush caused the SUV to pull to the left. The driver freaked, pulled to the right too hard, started to spin out, hit the panel van. Bounced off, spun again, game over.

When people ride me like that, I randomly hit my brakes. Not to the point if pressure, but just to the point the light is activated. I have found this makes people back off.

1. Aim high in steering; that is, looking down the road instead at the nose of your car.

This one alone would reduce most accidents. When I drive on a highway I'm looking in front of me but also hundreds of feet ahead of me. If I see things starting to turn all red (brake lights) I know to slow down. I can see what the traffic is doing. You can't do that if you're only looking right in front of your car.

On a regular street I'm looking not just at the incoming light but the ones past it as well as the sides. Many times I've avoided an accident by some jackass turning right (onto the road I'm traveling) because I saw what was coming by looking.

And damn that SUV just fell to pieces. What the hell was it made out of? Paper?

Top-rated Youtube comment:

"i found this video very difficult to masturbate to"

Don't feel like watching the video. The bullets are right on. Maybe I'll expand on that at some point, but bottom line is, the guy likely forgot the most important rule you learn in the Motorcycle Safety Federation course: The vehicle will go where you are looking. (So if you don't want to go into the guardrail, look down the road, don't stare at the guardrail.)

I don't ride motorcycles, but I've been told that the most important rule in riding them is for the riders to assume that they're invisible to every other vehicle on the road.

Your rear is about the only place you can't control while driving. Your concern therefore shouldn't be there -- if some asshole rear ends you, he's at fault. You rear end someone because you didn't leave enough space, you're at fault. This is why the 5-6 following space is so important; if some dick cuts you off, you now have time and space to react accordingly.

I follow the same practice, it's a bit like looking in to the future, even if just by a few seconds. See the hazard before it happens. This technique is especially useful when bike riding.

Yeah, I've always kind of thought the video was fake because of the way the SUV completely disintegrates, but then I remind myself that the net speed of impact is probably about 150, and likely very real indeed. Fortunately for me, there just isn't any place around here where I could drive at such speeds on an undivided road.

It doesn't matter to me who's falt it is. If someond is riding my ass, I drive differently. I start breaking and blinking a hell of a lot sooner than I would otherwise.

About 15 years ago I saw the results of a similar accident. An Explorer cut off a semi truck, the driver turned left in front of the semi to pull into a side road. The speed limit there is 50mph, the only thing left of the SUV was the front end from fender are forward. The hood was gone, one fender was gone, the grill was still there, part of the front suspension. The rest was torn to shreds. The liftgate was sort of recognizable. The frame was torn apart, the body was totally mangled. Probably the largest piece that was intact was the engine. The rest of the SUV was spread out over 4-500 feet. The semi's front was mangled, the front axle was torn off at an angle. The cab was twisted to the side, the trailer was on its side bent and twisted. The cargo was all the place.

The passengers in the SUV, they were torn to pieces. You could pieces of them on the road, but nothing that was really recognizable as a person. There were 2-3 shoes that I could see, some pieces that had some blood around them. But other than that nothing. And the accident shut down the road for hours. I was one of the first cars to pull up to it, and was there for a while so I did have a pretty good look at it.

The accident happened minutes before I got to it, the first officer on the scene was behind me when he hit his lights and took off around me. 1-2 miles down the road is where it happened.

YES A MILLION TIMES YES

Which goes along with point four of the Smith System: Make yourself visible. However, I'd suggest you should be blinking and braking sooner as a rule -- do NOT give other drivers any chance to misinterpret your intentions, and it'll save wear on your brakes.

A five-start safety rating in a head-on collision completely collapses the engine compartment at 45 mph.
After that, it's down to luck whether or not you survive a wreck.

And that is a head-on. The truck smashed right into the side of the SUV. A car is structurally less solid in that configuration than in a head-on.

A car would hardly have to be "made of paper" to be smashed to pieces in such a collision. The frame probably held together somewhat, but all the pieces that are bolted on would easily be torn loose.

I've seen cars and SUVs get cut in half by t-bone collisions with other vehicles that were the same size. Against the mass of a big rig? Yeah, any passenger-sized vehicle is going to get shredded.

and those that do see you are simply taking aim...

A message to the Russian SUV driver - a lot of those scratches will buff right out!

That video is the single greatest car crash ever recorded. The SUV literally exploded into nothing.