We thought we had it bad here in New York earlier this week, when a truck rolled over and spilled tons of Budweiser on one of our city’s busiest highways. Then we found this video of a septic truck pouring poop out on a busy Moscow city street. America may be able to beat Russia in boxing, hockey, and Cold Wars—but if there’s one thing Russia will almost always beat us in, it’s spectacular driving disasters.
A dash cam video uploaded to YouTube on Monday shows several vehicles sitting at a traffic light in Moscow. Nothing seems out of the ordinary…until the orange tanker truck parked ahead of the camera car explodes, spewing brown sewage all over the side of a Hyundai Tucson and and painting the side of an unfortunate public bus that was sitting next to the truck when the tank, shall we say, relieved itself.
One commenter on Reddit who claims to have previously been a septic waste truck operator provided a possible explanation for what caused this incident to occur:
“I used to drive one of these trucks, so I can explain. When you’re driving around with a truck full of feces, there is an inherent build-up of methane gas. Each one of these trucks is equipped with a release valve that will vent the gas in small amounts as the truck is going about its day. This truck most likely did not have a proper valve installed, or the valve was clogged and malfunctioned.The only other thing I can see happening is that the waste corroded the steel bolts used to secure the back end of the truck, causing them to fail. Waste matter corrodes the hell out of steel, so the bolts need to be replaced every ~5 years or with proper maintenance.”
We’ll, uh, take his or her word for it.
At the time of this writing, the video has more than 489,000 views on YouTube, leading us to believe that while most of us would rather avoid streets covered in liquid poop, we’re all quite happy to watch someone else have to deal with it. Sorry, Russia, but we at The Drive think we’ll stick with our beer-covered Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.