Courtesy: Autoblog.com
One of the greatest things I now have in my production equipment list are two GoPro cameras. I was given one by my brother as a gift last year and then I invested in a second one. I love using them from fun in the pool with my kids and friends, to capturing storms as they roll through our neighborhood, to time-lapse pictures of all kinds of events or occasions. I have also mounted it to my windshield to give me a chance to show off parts of my drives or to reveal some of the dumber things I have seen while driving.
As I rekindle this part of my blog (with help from some friends as well), I plan to use GoPro video I have captured to help tell part of the story when possible. Sometimes its obvious. Other times it might take some work to show you what we are talking about (due to the settings on the camera), but I hope it shows a lot of what we complain on this blog because it clearly is “Driving Me Insane.”
Let’s start with this example. We are driving home from spending some time in Ocean City, Maryland. We are actually in Delaware and cruising along a two-lane road where the speed limit is 50 MPH. You can’t see it from the video, but there is another vehicle behind us by about 100 yards or so. We are both going about 55 or so MPH (that’s what I set the cruise control at). As we approach an intersection, I noticed a yellow Ford Mustang convertible approach from the right and kept my eye on him because he was not slowing down enough to stop from my point of view – I was worried he would just keep going. Which he did. Blowing the stop sign and turning towards us, meaning staying in the intersection longer. I applied the brakes, started to move to the right to avoid a potential accident, and applied the horn to thank the driver for such a terrific decision (the bang you hear shortly afterward is me hitting the steering while since swearing in front of the kids wasn’t an option; my wife then makes a comment to keep the kids from being too concerned.
The wide angle of the camera doesn’t do it justice, but you can see how close we come to broadsiding the vehicle.
You can see by watching the video, the driver isn’t even looking in the direction of our vehicle as he’s trying to pull this stunt off and his passenger seems to be oblivious. Trust me. My vehicle would have won this case, but no one would have walked away.
Lesson: STOP your car at a stop sign or red light and there is NOTHING so important that jumping in front of oncoming traffic is worth the hassle. This really could have ended badly.
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