Highways can be incredibly dangerous and that’s true even when everyone is on their best behavior. When someone isn’t playing nice or they’re not paying attention, things can go south quickly. In this case, a bad driver behind the wheel of a lifted Ram pickup caused completely avoidable highway carnage.
This video comes to us directly from the Iowa Department of Transportation. It shared the clip this month as a reminder to be incredibly careful around stopped vehicles. The NHTSA even has a campaign called “slow down, move over” aimed at improving safety for emergency workers stopped on the side of the road.
Whether the Jeep in this clip is moving over for that or not is uncertain. What’s clear though is that it’s doing so with a small trailer in tow and with its blinkers working as it moves from lane two to lane one. It’s making that move as it approaches an emergency vehicle on the right shoulder.
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At the same time, a dark-colored Ram pickup truck with a lift kit and what look like wheels that extend out beyond the fenders appears to speed up. That would be fine but the Ram is already in lane one and seems to be doing what it can to keep the Jeep from completing the lane change. Perhaps the Ram driver was trying to scare or overtake the Jeep.
Regardless of intent, the Ram driver clips the rear left tire of the trailer with their own front passenger tire. It’s certainly possible that they’re just ignorant about how wide their track actually is. In any case, that simple contact immediately causes a potentially deadly chain of events.
The pickup appears to get tangled up with the trailer, pushing it into lane two before the Jeep spins to the left and the Ram hits the emergency vehicle before driving far off of the road. According to the Iowa DOT, the emergency worker went to the hospital after the crash but was otherwise okay. There’s no word on the condition of the Ram or Jeep occupants.
Had the pickup truck driver who appears to have had a very clear view of the situation simply allowed the lane change to happen this accident never does. Perhaps they had their head buried in a phone or they were experiencing an incredibly violent sneeze. Maybe they would’ve seen things better if that truck were sitting at stock height. Here’s to hoping that everyone and everything but the Ram driver’s driving record came out of this unscathed.