Here is my first post on my blog where I both complain about people's driving, but at the same time try and justify their actions. It's not that I don't get upset when i see some genuinely bad driving. However I have to admit that after having spent many years and over 1 million kilometers on the road, it is simply not possible for a person to drive at 100% of their capacity 100% or the time. So as long as nobody dies, lets try and learn from other peoples mistakes.
There are many distractions on the roads which people have to deal with. However some distractions can be worse than others. Rain is a pretty bad distraction for most people as it can make it harder to see on a fast moving highway with over spray and if your wing mirrors are wet it can be hard to see out of them as well. Also paying attention to what other drivers are doing or attempting to do on the road can also be a considerable distraction.
In the particular case in the video above, the driver of the white sedan reacts to the dump trucks signal lights by braking. As they brake they decide to lane change to allow the truck over, they proceed to signal. Almost immediately after signalling they proceed to make their lane change, which forces an SUV to take an evasive action. The driver of the white sedan notices that they have pulled into the lane with the SUV, however they do not immediately pull back into their original lane. They allow room for the SUV to pass them and then apply brakes to pull in behind the SUV.
This whole situation seems to stem from the original mistake by the sedan driver. While attempting to accommodate the dump truck, they did not sufficiently check the lane next to them for approaching vehicles. I'm of the opinion that when the dump truck put on their signal it gave a slight swerve into the sedans lane. This caused a panic situation for the driver in which they thought the truck didn't adequately see them. Probably the more correct situation would have been to simply brake and make sure the truck was well ahead of them. However the sedan driver decided they would move into the left lane. The reason I think the driver was slightly panicked is due to the inadequate shoulder/mirror checking the driver performed. It's my opinion the driver did a quick single check to check for anyone in the lane. Which at that snapshot in time there was no one. However he should have noticed that there was an SUV in the lane behind him, which should have prompted a second shoulder check to gauge the speed at which the SUV was gaining on him.
The second part is when the car notices that the SUV is in his lane and does not immediately dive back into the lane he came from. In my opinion this was actually pretty smart of him. Once he saw the SUV next to him, he probably became target fixated. His brain did not let him move his eyes from the SUV for fear of hitting it, however in the back of his mind he knew that the dump truck has seen him move over. Without looking at where the dump truck was, the driver decided to stay in his lane. The fear of returning to his lane would be that the truck is already making its lane change and the driver of the sedan would crash into the side of it.
I wouldn't say that the driver of the sedan is a bad driver. I would say that he had a moment of bad driving. After the incident he merged back into the middle lane in heavy traffic just fine. It's funny how the mind can work when its pressed.
But in summary, Shoulder + Mirror checks should always be done at least twice to gauge the speed of traffic in the next lane. Especially when changing into the slow lane, because of the fact that many people use the slow lane to pass.
Safe Driving!
