By Steven Symes 
Staged car accidents, something which has been common in other countries, are starting to catch on here in the United States. A viral TikTok video has helped shed light on this troubling trend, showing yet another way scammers are trying to take people for thousands of dollars after they’ve done nothing wrong.
A 1939 Ford Coupe was lost in a tragic farmers’ market fire.
A woman who was driving on the Belt Parkway in Queens, New York on October 16 was thankfully running her dash camera when a silver Honda Civic pulled in front of her and suddenly came to a complete stop for no explicable reason.
As you can seen in the dashcam footage we’ve included, the woman stopped in time. But the other driver pulled forward a few feet, then put the Honda in reverse and slammed into the front of her car.
That’s when three people pile out of the Civic and act like they’re injured. What’s even weirder is they had some sort of a cover over the back window, which they took down as they got out of the vehicle. But you can tell they were shuffling who was in the driver’s seat after the collision.
Even weirder, a fourth person quickly gets out of the Honda and slides into a Kia crossover which pulls in front of the Civic after the others get out. These staged accidents almost always involve an accomplice vehicle.
We know staged accidents have happened in the US before, but these sorts of things tend to come in waves. This trend seems to be the largest we’ve seen in some time, so everyone needs to stay alert.
Like this person, perhaps one of the best defenses you have against these sorts of scams is a dashcam. The technology has become so common you have many options to choose from and they’re relatively simple to install.
Image via ashpianatahsa4/TikTok
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@ashpianatasha4 Insurance fraud attempt in Queens, NY 10-16-2024 PART 1 I was driving in the left lane of the Belt Parkway going East bound towards the Southern State Parkway. The silver Honda (LBB 8917) was in the middle lane, and they cut me off and slammed on the brakes coming to a full stop hoping I would hit them. I did not hit their car and because of that they reversed into my car for collision and acted as if they were injured while coming out of their vehicle. I believe the intention was to say I hit their car for insurance fraud purposes. They had a tarp covering the rear windshield which fell off once they hit my car. You can see the driver is a male wearing a hat and you can see him switching to the passenger seat as well as the movement of the car before anyone gets out. The first three passengers exit the car pretending to be hurt, while the fourth passenger who was driving slips out through the passenger seat and gets into a second vehicle. That second vehicle was a red KIA SUV (KJH 3340) which was following me from behind and keeping distance so they wouldn't slam into me. The red KIA drove around and picked up the driver to get away. The remaining three people’s demeanor changed once one of them noticed the dashcam. They only came out of the car with their phones ready to record the damage to both cars. They were quick to ask for my insurance and quickly left after the exchange. I called the police at the time of the incident and reported it as an accident, and the police told me they no longer go to an accident if no one is injured and they are willing to exchange information. I did not realize at the time that the driver switched and left in another car or that it was a set-up as I was driving by myself, and everything happened so fast. #queensny #car #caraccident #exposed #newyork #brooklynny @nbcnews @abcnews @nypd @geico @allstate @pix11ny ♬ original sound – Ashpia Natasha