Try as you might to drive safely, sometimes you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time. There wasn't anything that the people in these ten non-lethal crashes, picked by Jalopnik readers, could do to save themselves.
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10.) Truck tires roll into fill up
Suggested By: Demon-Xanth
Why it was unavoidable: A man stops to fuel up his Skoda Fabia and a pair of stray truck tires rolls in from out of nowhere, striking him down like a bowling pin. We doubt he heard them coming.
9.) Drunk Caddy driver t-bones on freeway
Suggested By: Pixel
Why it was unavoidable: Cops pursue a drunk driver in an old Cadillac Coupe De Ville onto the highway. The driver loses control and spins out in the left lane, crashing into another car, then a semi. The police could have kept the driver off the interstate, and he could have stayed off the road in the first place, but once the drunk driver is spinning out, there's not much the other cars could do but get smashed. Somehow, everyone survived.
8.) Challenger SRT8 gets rear-ended
Suggested By: Dream Crusher, a name suggested by steliosr32
Why it was unavoidable: There have been innumerable incidents of cars getting hopelessly rear-ended at a stoplight. You never have enough time to get out of the way even if you see that pair of headlights barreling down in your rear-view mirror.
7.) Deer bounces from one car to another
Suggested By: heavymetal2k6
Why it was unavoidable: For those of you who hate to watch animals getting hurt (count me as one of them) don't watch this video. A deer is hit by one car and is sent flying into the windshield of the oncoming car in the next lane. There's nothing the second driver could do.
6.) Juan Pablo Montoya's Crash at Daytona
Suggested By: Picklehaube
Why it was unavoidable: At this year's Daytona 500, Juan Pablo Montoya lost control of his car and started to skid into the wall. This is business as usual for Nascar, only there happened to be a jet drier cleaning the track in just the wrong place at just the wrong time. JPM couldn't steer the car out of the way and jet fuel and flames spilled out onto the track.
5.) Loose 2X4 flies into windshield
Suggested By: okra3
Why it was unavoidable: Given that it was also pure chance that the wood didn't fly straight into the driver, they could consider themselves lucky.
4.) Caught in the middle of road rage
Suggested By: Jebus
Why it was unavoidable: We watch as one driver is about to turn a corner in a very cramped single-lane road only to find some kind of road rage/collection money drama unfold immediately ahead, complete with a screaming shirtless man and a wooden bat. The first car tries to back up, but can't really get out of the way, even as the second car comes crashing into them, angry man beating on the windshield and all.
3.) Sebastian Buemi's epic suspension failure
Suggested By: friendly hoon
Why it was unavoidable: In a sport like Formula One, where components are always getting stressed to their engineered-in limits, you're always going to have component failures. Swiss driver Sebastian Buemi's carbon-fiber front suspension failed while braking from almost 200 miles per hour at the end of the front straight at the 2010 Chinese Grand Prix.He could only sit back and wait for the crash.
2.) SUV flipped by manhole
Suggested By: Skid-Vicious
Why it was unavoidable: An SUV is driving along, passes over a manhole, and is flipped completely over, rolling into a stop. It looks like the SUV hit the manhole cover at just the right angle to flip it open and catch a wheel, but it's difficult to tell in the low-res video.
1.) Felipe Massa struck in head by spring
Suggested By: GR1M RACER : Wrong Most of the Time
Why it was unavoidable: Felipe Massa was following four seconds behind Rubens Barichello at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix when a spring came loose off Barichello's car and flew straight into Felipe Massa's helmet, striking him just above his left eye. He had no chance to dodge the almost-invisible, high-speed spring.
He lost consciousness, hit a wall, and was hospitalized. He almost died that day, and was out of competition for the rest of the season. Some say he's never been the same after the crash.