By Steven Symes 
A horrific crash involving a semi-truck tipping over and crushing a Chevy Silverado on a California freeway has people divided. While a tow truck driver who responded to the scene of the crash uploaded not only his footage of the aftermath but also a clip of another driver’s dashcam footage of the crash, the dashcam video has been suddenly making the rounds on social media and people are arguing over it.
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In the footage, we see a semi-truck with a shipping container on the back traveling next to a Chevy Silverado, which is in the left lane. The pickup suddenly swerves to avoid a bumper that’s in its lane, but the driver goes right and hits the side of the semi.
That collision is powerful enough to cause the commercial truck to swerve right suddenly, cutting across two other traffic lanes that fortunately weren’t occupied. As the semi ends up on the shoulder, the driver obviously tries keeping it on the pavement. But the sudden movement imbalances the trailer, which tips in the direction of the shoulder.
In the meantime, the Chevy spins around the front of the cab and ends up on the passenger side of the larger truck at the same time the whole rig, cab and trailer, tips onto that same side, crushing the Silverado.
Miraculously, the Chevy driver didn’t die, although he was trapped and firefighters had to bring in big equipment to lift the semi off the smaller truck.
What people are debating was who should be held accountable for the crash. It’s obvious since the Silverado owner didn’t maintain his lane. We know people feel if there’s an obstacle in their lane of travel they’re free to swerve into the next one, but if that lane is occupied by another vehicle, like this semi-truck, that causes accidents like this.
The Chevy driver would’ve been better off hitting the brakes while running over the bumper. It might have damaged his truck, possibly blown a tire, but the result wouldn’t have been so severe. We know some people will always blame big rigs in a crash, but we don’t think the commercial driver did anything wrong, at least in the initial collision.
While we understand something smaller like a bumper might be difficult to spot, you as a driver should be scanning your lane for debris like this. Had the Chevy driver spotted the bumper sooner, he could’ve safely made a lane change and avoided hitting it.
Finally, we don’t like driving next to semi-trucks or any commercial trucks for even a second longer than necessary for this very reason. They’re so much larger and heavier that a crash with one is often not survivable. We’re glad the Silverado driver did survive and hope he fully recovers.
Image via Pepe’s Towing Service/YouTube