Don’t blame SUV for truck crash on Rt. 17

In what's being described as a road rage incident on Route 17 Tuesday morning, the driver of an SUV wanted to play traffic cop with the driver of a tractor trailer. According to police, the SUV driver "decided to take the matter into his own hands" after he believed the trucker had been driving recklessly. This made the news because of the trucker losing control and crashing into the median wall, spreading debris across the highway.

Both parties were wrong here, and both have been charged with various violations. But if you really look at this video taken by a 3rd party dashcam, you'll see that at the point the trucker crashes, no one was bothering him anymore. The actual crash had nothing directly to do with the SUV. Yes, the SUV driver appears to purposely catch up to the tractor trailer which at the beginning of the video is in the right lane. When he sees the trucker wants to move to the middle lane you see the SUV's brake lights coming on multiple times in an effort to block the truck from getting over. Yet he eventually does, then tries to get into the far left lane. Once again, the SUV driver seems to be playing cop by getting in front of him again to block him.

As bad as this all is, he finally gives up and leaves the truck alone long before the actual accident takes place. When the trucker loses control of his rig it appears he's coming into a curve and tries to slow down. But there's no one in front of him in that lane causing anything. This crash appears to just be terrible driving and bad decisions on the part of the trucker. Thankfully no one was hurt. The trucker was issued tickets for failure to signal, failure to maintain lanes and careless driving. The SUV driver was issued tickets for failure to signal, failure to maintain lanes and delaying traffic.

All true, but this trucker managed to crash all on his own.

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