What’s Going On With This Unconscious Driver’s Insane Burnout?
The driver reportedly passed out behind the wheel…but something smells fishy to us.
A few days ago, a video was uploaded to YouTube purportedly showing a pickup truck laying down a massive accidental burnout after the driver passed out behind the wheel. At first glance, it simply seems like a case of epic accidental hoonage—but the more we watch it, the more we think there could be more to this than meets the eye.
The video starts in the middle of the action, with what appears to be a previous-generation Chevrolet Colorado pressed firmly against the rear bumper of a Ford C-Max ahead of it. The Chevy’s rear wheels are already in the midst of generating a cloud of white vapor big enough to be confused with a SpaceX launch. Eventually, some of the assembled crowd manages to make their way inside and help the driver—who, according to the video's poster, had briefly lapsed into a diabetic coma.
Okay. First of all, how is that C-Max holding back the Chevy so easily? The Ford’s brake lights don’t appear to be on, so we’re assuming the e-brake is engaged or the car is in park—neither of which we’d trust to hold back a raging pickup truck. Yet the C-Max doesn’t seem to so much as tremble under the force of the truck pressed against its backside.
Shouldn’t the truck’s traction control system keep exactly this sort of thing from happening? We doubt the driver just happened to turn off the T/C on the exact day he passed out while driving. (It’s unclear whether all early Colorados came equipped with traction control, but at the very least, anecdotal evidence suggests most models came with it.)
And even if the truck lacked traction control...that’s an absurd amount of smoke for those tires to be pumping out. There’s already a fair bit of white vapor around when the video starts, and the rubber keeps burning for more than a minute after that. How many tires out there can withstand that level of punishment without exploding or bursting into flame? And has anyone ever seen street tires smoke that much without a healthy application of oil, bleach, or water?
Now, Occam’s Razor suggests the simplest answer is the correct one: Everything in the video is exactly as it seems. The Chevy doesn’t have traction control, its engine is powerful enough to vaporize those tires, and the Ford is strong enough to hold back the Chevy.
But could it be a hoax? Maybe the drivers of the Chevy and Ford set this up in hopes of pranking someone. Maybe it was a scheme to make a viral video. Hell, maybe it was some kind of weird insurance scam.
Or maybe we’re just paranoid.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
