No matter how enticing the fresh powder outside your window looks during a winter storm like the one that’s walloping the Northeast this weekend, it’s important to always remember two things: you are not competing in the Rally Sweden, nor do you have the skills to. In the off chance Marcus Grönholm is reading this, he can disregard, but the rest of you should take this clip of a thoughtless Subaru WRX driver attempting the most ill-advised of passes as a cautionary tale. Incredibly, nobody was injured per the New York State Department of Transportation.
In the footage from January 16, we can see the black sport sedan trying to get ahead of a tractor trailer on a narrow, wooded road that hasn’t been plowed yet. Unfortunately for everyone involved, there is a plow in oncoming traffic on the other side of the blind curve, that the driver-side doors of the WRX strike as the driver fails to complete their pass.
The crash happened in New York’s Adirondacks, between Blue Mountain Lake and the town of Inlet, according to Erik Ghirarduzzi on Twitter/X, who was present at the time. “It is a miracle nobody was more seriously injured,” Ghiraduzzi wrote, adding that the “fishtail at the end prob [sic] saved the drivers life.” Indeed, had the Subaru driver struck a passenger car and not a snowplow, they might’ve gravely hurt somebody. Additional images show the rear third of the WRX completely ripped from the rest of the sedan, loaded onto a flatbed truck.
Let this be the most obvious of all reminders to stay safe out there, and drive with some common sense. If you want to hoon in the white stuff, go find an empty parking lot many yards away from any obstructions.
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