Ah, dashcam footage. Australia’s most bountiful source of pants-browning drama, served up to the internet for free by legions of faceless long-haul drivers.
While you needn’t look far for countless hours of prangs and bingles, it’s almost as if the near-misses are more horrifying: there’s something about seeing calamity being avoided by centimetres that can strike the fear of God into any and all drivers.
This unreal piece of accidental stuntwork, captured by truckie Richie Gillman on Friday, is no different. Go on, now. Deep breaths. Aaaaaand play:
Gillman said he “looked in the mirror and seen the car about half way down the side of me b-trailer and by that time the oncoming truck was less than 100 metres off.”
“I was going about 100km/h, it could have been disastrous.”
Most assuredly, yeah. The clip, captured on the Monaro Highway in southern NSW, quickly caught the attention of the internet due to how ball-shrivellingly close the driver of that white stationwagon came to total annihilation.
It also caught the attention of the police, who managed to track down the driver. This afternoon, they managed to charge the 84-year-old (!) with dangerous overtaking – which seems like an understatement, really – and set a court date for August.
Gillman reminded drivers on that particular stretch of road not to haphazardly fang it. Truth be told, the footage might have been a solid enough reminder on its own.
