A New York highway maintenance truck’s dash cam captured a serious impact and an unbelievably close call for a DOT worker this week. A rental cargo truck zooming down the highway seemed to drift out of its lane and slam a stopped work vehicle into oblivion, blowing the hard hat right off a worker and missing him by what looked like just a few feet.
This video was originally shared on NYS DOT Facebook page and has been re-shared by many news outlets. Here’s the clip from CBS New York:
The state’s Department of Transportation captioned the video with minimal details, but confirmed that nobody was seriously hurt. The exact text had the following details: “… this recent work zone crash on I-81 near Whitney Point is a frightening reminder of the dangers they face. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries, but it could have been MUCH worse.”
Whitney Point is kind of in the lower-middle of a New York state map, between of Syracuse and Binghamton, quite a ways west of NYC. I-81 is a big north-south thoroughfare that comes up from Knoxville, Tennessee and goes on up towards Canada.
It doesn’t look like the police have put out any kind of statement on exactly what went wrong in the cab of the Penske truck. However, it doesn’t take much to rent a rig like that, so it could have been almost anyone behind the wheel. It does look like some negligent driving from the dash cam’s perspective, but the Penske driver could have been stung by a bee or had a heart attack or who knows what. Or, maybe they were texting and driving. The fact that they were cruising in the right lane near a road crew at all is not a good sign, though. If you’re passing road crews, you should always switch lanes to give them breathing room and minimize the odds of this exact situation playing out.
Stay safe out there, people. Pay attention, stop texting and driving, slow down and move over when you see anybody parked on the shoulder.
Has your dashcam ever grabbed a near-death experience like this? Drop the author a line at andrew.collins@thedrive.com