in december there were more than 1 000
crashes on minnesota freeways and
highways and the last couple of weeks of
the month were especially slippery
we're going to go through several dozen
of these real world events as fast as we
can and see if there's anything these
cameras might want to tell us the next
time we venture out and about we've got
exclusive video of the stearns county
school bus rollover at the end but first
take a look as one squad car is
finishing up responding to a prior crash
and happens to be in a very convenient
location when an suv begins to fishtail
we think a criminal element may have
been involved in this incident and the
driver later tried to flee the scene but
given the skills demonstrated here they
did not get far
this one was a winter chase which are
surprisingly common due to the number of
cars stolen while warming up a little
hard to see but on the curve they
glanced off the wall
lost control hit a car end up resting
against this wall here and then the
state troopers were quick to take them
into custody we're going to do five
crashes and 25 seconds and in each of
these the driver made a mistake and then
crashed and took other cars with them
unfortunately while we're watching these
it's important to note that by us
standards minnesota is really a pretty
safe state for drivers we just have a
lot of videos because of mndot's
expansive camera network dedicated to
tracking incidents and urgently
dispatching first responders this last
video though the driver that was
following behind used hard but
controlled straight line braking to
narrowly avoid a secondary collision
it's always good to assess damage and
take photos for insurance after a crash
but be careful doing it at night on a
freeway then one car greatly over
correcting results in a sharp angle
deviation from the lane
and as a reminder so many of these
videos seem to underscore some of the
forces involved going just a little
slower will exponentially reduce the
energy involved in an impact
sliding into a semi is never fun and
they took out a third vehicle after
losing control but the video also
demonstrates the care and compassion of
minnesota bystanders and if you watch it
again it's amazing to see just how
quickly the side impact airbags deploy
take note of the red car top right who
already slid partially off the side of
the road and that could be a sign that
something is amiss in this instance it
might mean traction of the surface has
changed and gotten a little more
slippery one of the cars has enough
velocity to momentarily go airborne it
also slides into the ditch then top left
corner a car already in the median
appears to engage in limited braking
before contacting the guard rail driving
a pickup or having four wheel drive does
not provide better braking action
instead not one but two pickups will
lose control similar to the front-wheel
drive sedan that's already off the side
of the road drivers ignoring the
mistakes of other drivers are prone to
repeat them and cold temperatures may
limit the effectiveness of a plow so
even with a d.o.t truck clearing the
freeway
it can still leave slick spots in its
wake as this car demonstrates and while
freeways tend to have more forgiving
spaces for sliding keep in mind that
concrete impacts are less forgiving
ultimately when sliding into an
inflexible object the lower speed is the
better and it means exponentially less
force thankfully this individual looks
like they're in pretty decent shape
nighttime driving poses more risks as
temperatures plunge and salt becomes
less and less effective and spotting
slick spots becomes increasingly
difficult
the snow in the ditch can marginally
slow a vehicle and might provide a
little extra cushion but in slow motion
the lights of this vehicle show it went
for a pretty wild ride carrying a
trailer increases risk and carrying a
double trailer even more so it looks
like this semi may have been pretty late
to realize there's a curve in the road
but what do you think did the guardrail
do a pretty good job absorbing some of
the impact and help prevent hard contact
against the bridge structure good
engineering doesn't just save lives it
helps save costs by preventing
catastrophic structure damage nice cars
and winter don't always mix if you're
keeping your car under a sheet in the
garage probably best to leave it wrapped
for christmas or it might get grinched
like this one this car slid from one
light pole to the next so i think that's
somewhere in the range of 300 to 500
feet of tearing up turf and that driver
hoping for the best what is especially
interesting is how sudden the loss of
traction can occur and it can affect one
car more than the next lower speeds
definitely help with avoiding this and
good tires are probably underrated no
one advertises great tire tread on their
dating profiles but you should this next
card definitely did a lot of back and
forth and then even more back and forth
but maybe we should give them some
credit for having more gentle
corrections compared to other drivers in
this video in the end they still had
damage but it looks like these were
glancing impacts and they were
successful at bringing down their speeds
a bit before any contact unfortunately
it looks like every surface of their car
was hit this pickup looks like they were
doing their own thing and pretty
unsettling to be going down a major road
like this going backwards this car took
the exit almost looks like they were
aiming for the tree while performing a
full 180 but thankfully avoided the hood
hitting the trunk and over correction
can make an incident more risky as the
vehicle in this video begins to recover
the wheels in this case now facing hard
right force the car to make an abrupt
beeline across all lanes of traffic
before knocking down a roadside sign and
knocking into a car in the merge lane
good news by the time the crash occurred
speeds were pretty low and no injuries
of significance a slight over correction
to the left it's hard to see but there's
actually a pretty steep hill there and
now
you're
i don't know what to say
this car is already coming into this
situation with too much speed they do
some late evasive action and braking but
end up rear-ending the car in front of
them forcing them into the wall then we
actually have back-to-back clips of
pickups going backwards and running into
things
and
then we've got one of a cargo van
pulling the same stunt while we try not
to be too hard on drivers this red car
was traveling well above the speed of
traffic weaving in and out and going
through a curve they quickly experienced
the natural consequences of their
actions
one driver on the ramp slid across
traffic and the oncoming driver did a
nice job working to avoid them
unfortunately still some glancing
contact on the hoods but credit to both
drivers from moving off the lanes of
traffic
a car losing control notable since the
median cable barrier stopped them from
careening into an oncoming box truck and
transit bus
major roadways with intersections or
arterial roadways have a high number of
conflict points resulting in increased
numbers of crashes like these
lowry tunnel is likely one of the most
dangerous highway tunnels in the united
states and this is one of the many
crashes we've caught on camera
this crash was a bit of a mystery but on
closer review it was a deer that caused
this incident we think this driver
really did a pretty good job by calmly
pulling on the shoulder in slick
conditions the school bus is next but
first we started this channel because
driver crashes were on a dramatic
increase post covet in the united states
there are many causes but riskier driver
behavior including speeding inebriation
and distraction are some of the more
common problems and some crashes may
involve all three in this instance the
car hit a guardrail which was wrapped
around an attenuation device which
absorbed a lot of the impact and allowed
that driver to walk away then in stearns
county before the big snowstorms stearns
county deputies responded to a school
bus rollover thankfully no students were
on the bus only the driver was involved
he was transported for
non-serious injuries the incident may
have been related to dense early morning
fog a special thank you to the first
responders who had a very busy december
mn safety is made up of volunteers and
not associated with any department of
transportation we're committed to using
real world interesting videos to help
reduce crash rates if you find this
stuff interesting please check out our
lowry tunnel videos other snowstorm
recaps or state trooper dash cam videos
now check out this little cargo van that
could