Mountain switchbacks are fun roads, but you don’t ever want to think about what it would be like if you have too much fun. Plunging over the side, to what would seem like your inevitable death, would be an unimaginable nightmare. Thanks to someone who survived it, you don’t have to try and imagine any longer.
“One year ago, today, I almost died,” the video description begins. “Here is the video of the incident.”
It’s absolutely horrific to watch, especially as you hear the driver sc reaming “oh no, oh no,”essentially pleading with fate to rewind just a few seconds and take back what seems like a fatal mistake.
What happened was a classic case of driver distraction, the description says. While blasting through a tunnel to listen to the exhaust of the Subaru Forester, the driver couldn’t see what was on the other side, just one person standing there, waving and gesturing. While trying to figure out what was happening, he didn’t realize that just beyond the tunnel wasn’t a long straightaway, but a tight curve.
The Subaru was moving way too fast:
I began sliding to the left, the car oversteering, rotating counter-clockwise, over the center marker. I counter-steered, turning the steering wheel all the way to the right, but kept sliding to the left into the turnout. It was at this moment I knew, I had fucked up.
I slammed into a berm and expected to come to a complete stop, but the terrifying journey wasn’t over. I went over the edge. It happened so fast all I can remember is everything crashing and spinning. I thought I was rolling over down the side of the mountain. I was confident I was going to land upside down and get crushed. I was on the world’s worst roller coaster that could only end with death, or so I thought. I came to a stop, still yelling, not fully comprehending what just happened, or how far down the mountain I was and that I actually just crashed my car. Luckily for me, I landed on a rock wall that was part of a drainage pipe that went through the mountain. It was the only horizontally level piece on an extremely steep sloped hill. Had I spun off a few feet before or after, I’d be dead.
The description goes on, and he sounds humble, not like one of those types always bragging about how great of a driver they are, when they’re actually more Bruno Senna than Ayrton Senna. The driver notes that he’s disappointed in himself, not for crashing, but for driving like that on a road he didn’t know well, and putting himself into such a horrible situation.
He’s a lucky son of a bitch, though.
Contact the author at ballaban@jalopnik.com.
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