A traffic officer in Yekaterinburg, Russia managed to escape at the last moment as an out-of-control box truck came sliding towards him. Even though the incident took place about a month ago, the footage made it online only recently.
The reason the truck driver lost control in the first place appears to be a car that pulled out ahead of them, causing a typical cold weather brake-and-slide scenario. Thankfully, no injuries were reported, according to Russian media outlet E1.
We’ve also learned that the person driving the truck was 29 years old and had been doing this for a living for the past 8 years, so it definitely wasn’t a lack of experience that led to the crash.
Despite playing the footage multiple times, it still amazes us how close of a call this was; if the officer had reacted fractions of a second later, he could have been killed by the careening truck.
As far as close calls go, this one has to be way up there with an incident that occurred last year in Australia, when a motorcycle rider was hit from behind and almost pushed into the path of an incoming box truck. Then there’s this incident from Vietnam, which took place a few months ago – had that woman not run away when she did… to be honest, we’d rather not even think about it.