401 accident today

Dashcam video shows bad driver causing huge crash on Toronto's Highway 401

Today in horrifying tales of people who shouldn't be using Toronto highways, we have a compact car driver who decided — either out of pettiness or sheer stupidity — to brake check a transport truck while going at least 100 km/h on the 401.

Ontario Provincial Police shared a dashcam clip from the truck on Wednesday evening, writing on Twitter: "Don't cut in front of vehicles! This is what can happen when you take away a truck driver's following distance."

The video is hard to watch. In it, we see a small blue sedan merge into the middle of five lanes on the 401 near Brock Road in Durham Region, right in front of the tractor-trailer in question.

Then, despite the fact that both lanes on either side of the car and truck are empty, the car slams on its brakes. Hard.

The driver of the truck veers left to avoid smashing into the smaller vehicle, instead crashing forcefully into the highway median. Debris can be seen flying through the air as the cab appears to get twisted around.

The camera eventually comes to face the cargo behind the truck, and that wasn't even the extent of the damage caused.

The OPP's Highway Safety Division says that six vehicles were involved in the mass collision, two of them transport trucks and four of them other vehicles, one of which burst into flames at the scene.

Miraculously, no injuries were reported, though officials did have to shut down the major highway for at least four hours following the crash, which took place on Tuesday, July 27, at 9:48 a.m.

Hwy. 401 approaching Brock Road was at least partially closed until 1 p.m. that afternoon for clean up and investigation.

Police say that the driver of the blue car has been identified and that charges are pending against them. An investigation is ongoing, but people on Twitter seem to think they've got the situation figured out.

"Absolute stupidity. That was attempted murder, what that car's driver did. He is 100% responsible for what happened," wrote one person of the footage, which has now been viewed more than 30,000 times.

"The car driver was in road rage mode obviously. There was no need to brake and this was a deliberate act," said another. "Drivers know trucks may have heavy loads and should calculate accordingly. Tough penalty should be in the works for this dude."

Others still posit that the car's driver was planning some sort of insurance fraud scheme, or that they just really suck at driving and didn't realize what they were doing.

Whatever the case, many seem glad that the truck driver was able to record what happened, and impressed that he or she took such swift action to avoid hitting the blue car — a collision that could have proven fatal for occupants of both vehicles.

Lead photo by

OPP_HSD


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