Tailgating. Video of motorhome crashing into 18 wheeler.

[SailorDon]

Some motorhome driver posted a video on YouTube of him crashing into the back of an 18 wheeler that had panic stopped on the highway ahead of him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuRtNajq-Yo&t=11s

IMHO this guy should not be allowed to drive a motorhome.
All he was concerned about was the survival of his solar panels.

What if he hit a Ford Escape and killed a few people with his
dangerous driving skills? Would he still be extolling the virtues of his robust solar cells?

Occasionally there are some dangerous drivers in motorhomes.

As a secondary comment, I find it amazing that these motorhomes costing a few $100,000 have no structural strength. This crash looks like sheets of plywood nailed together and strapped down to a motorhome frame. Not very safe from a motor vehicle safety aspect.

[gcamper]

Video doesn’t play.

[Podivin]

I don't see anything in there that shows him tailgating other vehicles, maybe I missed it, but there might be a little bit of 'click bait' in your title here.
No doubt he made a mistake, and all in all he and others got off lucky - assuming no one was injured.

[Mich F]

It looks like at least 2 tractor trailers made an "emergency stop" in front of him. I would imagine they were parked there because of a breakdown or whatever.

[gatorb8]

driver of rv should have stopped in time if traveling safe distance behind truck or gone on road to right. Veering into traffic on left was mistake. imho

[RKins]

It's unfortunate but I would say the driver was not looking "down the road" and missed that the semis were stopped. He could have stopped if paying attention. Easy to say from my chair but you have to watch way down the road.

[winniman]

I would say that they are an inexperienced driver. They were clearly not tailgating, but were not paying attention to the road ahead. They move to the center lane as an evasive measure, but do not go far enough. You can see they make the lane change, then goes straight until it hits the truck. This indicates to me, someone who is unaware of where there right side is. Had they gone a foot farther left, they wouldn't have even hit the truck. You are supposed to be able to stop at all times. They clearly were not. Its easy to criticize, but something like that could happen to anyone. That's why I prefer to drive at maximum 60 mph. It makes handling emergency situations a lot easier than going 75 mph. Maybe they were looking at the pieces of tape on their dash to help keep them in their own lane, instead of looking ahead at the road. I have seen this trick mentioned on here many times, and would not recommend it.

[Dav L]

His evasive maneuver probably saved his life. His lack of concentration on the stopped trucks cost him his RV.

[Sbrownstein]

I agree with some of the other posters...inexperienced driver. He could have taken the exit...he could have moved over into the adjacent lane completely since the white car was clear ahead. Could have avoided this even at the end.

[John Jones]

I also say driver error. He needs to look way down the road, not at the car in front of him

[Bobbafett]

Very easy to criticize here....inexperienced driver.
You can be a confident experienced driver for years. And still react poorly. Lot of stress and adrenaline happening there.

How many of you practice emergency situations.........hard braking. Or fast lane changes.
Everyone reacts to high stress situations differently. You cannot be a Monday morning quarterback stating what he should have done.
I have seen people make correct and incorrect choices in stressful situations.
He isn't an experienced at crashing Rvs. just driving them.

[C5c5]

I watched the video twice and was not able to tell if the truck right in front of him had enough time to put on the hazards.

Can anyone else see if they were on yet?

It is hard to tell what I would have done exactly if I had been in his shoes at the time.

I can say what I would do now, as an armchair video watcher.

1. I am very glad he and his cat survived and no one else was hurt. I can only imagine kitty getting hurt had it been peacefully napping in the copilot chair at that moment.

2. How fast was he going? To me that fact is essential. It did not look like a typical tailgating scenario from the limited footage of the video, but depending on his speed, that would make all the difference.

It seems reasonable the faster you drive, the longer you MUST space yourself from all vehicles you approach. Coming up too fast limits the time you have to react and change lanes or apply the brakes to give adequate space to stop.

If it was me, depending on my speed, from a distance away, when I would have seen the rear of the semi start to get closer, I would have automatically taken my foot off the accelerator or cruise to maintain the appropriate long distance between vehicles needed. That way when it came to the realization the semis were stopped, I would havd avoided the dreaded point-of-no-return panic reaction.

In the worse case scenario, Id like to think I would have chosen to veer right onto the exit, but Im not sure what I would have chosen in that emergency choice situation.

Again, Im very glad he and kitty survived and we all can pick this apart and try to draw important safety lessons from it.

[Arch Hoagland]

Wonder if he was looking at his GPS instead of the road?

[aether_one]

From the limited video shown it didn't look like he was tailgating, but if the coach "was also outfitted with a professional camera system" why weren't we shown the front facing driver's perspective of the accident instead of the almost 1 minute of different camera angles before the accident? Maybe because an attentive driver would have seen this situation developing in time to avoid the problem?

This is 15 seconds before impact:



This is 2 seconds before impact:



He had 13 extra seconds to evaluate the situation. That's a lifetime at interstate speeds.