The prospect of driving down the highway and seeing a car traveling towards you, going the wrong way is certainly scary. Plenty of people have died in just such a situation, so when drivers in a suburb of Minneapolis saw just this situation they were understandably confused and concerned. However, this went on for over 10 minutes with no police response, thanks to other higher-priority calls keeping all law enforcement in the area tied up. That’s when regular citizens stepped up to end the threat.
Learn why running from the cops in a Jeep Wrangler is a bad idea here.
At the beginning of the video, which was taken from the MNDOT highway cameras, we can see the driver of the white Kia has driven onto the grassy median of the highway, then swerved back onto the road before continuing on, although at a slower speed.
That Kia keeps driving slowly, then speeding up, crossing over lane lines, getting close to orange barrels and barriers in the construction zone, and doing other odd things. Most people probably assumed they were witnessing either a drunk driver or some sort of bizarre road rage.
When the Kia driver takes out some orange barrels, those suspicions probably heightened and understandably so. People have already been calling 911 but with no police present, it’s no obvious what can be done.
But things take a scary turn when the Kia veers into oncoming traffic, forcing other drivers to pull to the right to get out of the way. This continues for miles, at one point the Kia hitting another car, but thankfully only damaging the front corner of both vehicles, likely not resulting in serious injuries.
Even after that crash, the Kia continues on, slowly approaching oncoming traffic and confusing many. Finally, a man clad in purple pulls his car over to the median on the other side of the highway and he hops the divider to try flagging down the wrong-way driver.
As the video points out, that helps get more drivers’ attention as they approach the problem. Then one person puts on their blinkers and that alerts a Jeep that’s approaching. The driver of that Jeep seems to have some useful skills, gently pinning the Kia to the median fence, bringing the ordeal to an end.
The video narrator says a medical episode, possibly a heart attack, was blamed for the entire incident. That just goes to show you never know when a crazy situation on the road might be caused by something that isn’t intentional malice or reckless behavior, even a wrong-way driver.
Hats off to these regular citizens who risked their personal safety to bring the situation to a peaceful conclusion!
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