You probably should, as the issue of him intentionally closing the gap is addressed numerous times by the fact that this isn't a pickup truck, it's a semi, which is incapable of speeding up that quickly to intentionally block the person trying to merge, and if you pay closer attention to the cars ahead of the truck, it looks more like the gap was closed from the front, not behind (traffic looks to be slowing down as it nears the top of a hill)

"The blond" also doesn't signal that they're merging until just before they're literally moving into the lane which means that a Semi would basically not have the time to slow down to avoid the collision anyway.

*Note, proper lane changing technique is: Check your mirror, put on your blinker, check your blind spot, merge. NOT - put on signal, merge.

My point is, if the cars are cutting around the truck, it's "slower traffic" and "slower traffic must keep right" is the law. I understand that following that law would make it near impossible for trucks to ever leave the slow lane. That doesn't change the fact that it IS the law, even if most people ignore it.
Where I am, if you have the space when you START the lane change, and get hit from behind, unless you are moving slower than the flow of traffic or slam on your brakes, the one behind is ALWAYS at fault, because they have the best opportunity to see and avoid the collision. If they decide to cause a collision because they think they have the right of way, it's their fault, even if they DID have the right of way. I think that's what happened here, he insisted on 'right of way' and caused an accident. Truck's fault.
I don't disagree the car made a poor decision, one people make a thousand times a day without accident though.

What it seems to me is that, 3/4 of the way into the lane change the car sees the semi truck has pushed it's way up into the slot it was moving into, and panics. Until then she might have thought it was changing lanes to the third lane that doesn't exist, if she saw it coming up at all. The right thing for her to do right then would be hit the brakes and move back and right, but faced with what seemed a semi truck on both door handles, planes trains and automobiles style, I might panic too. By the time she saw the problem, there was an unavoidable truck on both sides, no where to go except where she had been going and hope the trucker acts like a human being and brakes to lets her in...he doesn't.

At the 10 second mark, note that the truck, car, and semi truck are all going the same speed, not closing. At the 13 second mark, the trucker says 'what the hell? You are not going to pass me' and starts to accelerate. (EDIT: listening closely, that might have been part of the story he was telling the guy on the phone). At the 15 second mark, you can see the car start it's lane change with enough room (granted not much, but a car length ahead and behind) and the truck still not closing the gap, but you hear the throttle open up to full. At 19 seconds you can see the entire 1/2 side of the car in the lane in front of the truck, with the truck's throttle pushed to wide open and the truck now closing the gap fast. At 20 seconds the truck passes the car and drives on the shoulder, and there is now less than 1 car length between it and the first car. At 23 seconds the truck moves back to the right (slightly, watch the hood ornament) and at 24 the car panics and turns into the semi truck to try to avoid the sandwich.

To me, that means the truck knew she was coming, saw her change lanes, and just floored it around and then into her. When he realized she hadn't backed off, it was too late. He never backed off.

Being on the phone may end up being the determining legal factor, no matter what professional accident investigators say about the bad driving of both parties.

Bad judgement on him though. Rather honk the horn than avoid a collision. Goes to attitude. You avoid the accident THEN blare the horn.

I dunno, maybe he thought it was the force-field button...

Completely shit sightlines on the approach. Wall covered the entire area to the right. You NEVER assume other drivers have any idea how to drive or what they're doing.

Drive like everyone else is texting, and you'll get in fewer accidents.

That's why I don't recommend it to anyone who isn't paranoid about traffic. Even in my car, I check for red-light runners before going through any intersection (from a stop, anyway). I once heard a story about some lady getting ticketed in such a collision, when she was the one with the green light. Maybe the story is untrue, but everyone is responsible for safe traversal of an intersection. Just because you "had the right of way" doesn't mean you couldn't have prevented a collision with a little extra care.

Oh, I agree that what the woman on the bicycle did was profoundly stupid and she should have waited for the signal or at least recognized the dangerous situation she was in re: oncoming traffic. She put everyone else in a dangerous and easily avoidable situation. At the same time though, were I driving the oncoming car, I would be slowing down and covering my brakes at the crosswalks, anticipating that a pedestrian might dash out from between the cars (happens a lot, though they usually stop short right after freaking me the hell out). In many places, hitting a pedestrian on a crosswalk is your fault regardless of the signals.

I'll certainly also grant you that a collision in the situation was probably unavoidable given how fast bike lady was going, but I also can't approve of the oncoming driver. Of course, speed is hard to gauge in the video, but they seemed to be just driving along at a constant high-ish speed assuming having the right of way means you don't have to watch out for idiots doing foolish thing.

Also, I see it as a reasonable (though stretched in this instance) rule of thumb that in a dense urban environment, if you have to swerve to avoid a pedestrian rather than just braking, you weren't driving carefully enough.

It always surprises me how people tend to stand so close to things going wrong. They seem to have no idea how much more wrong things can go. If you can get a good look at an imminent train collision or falling crane, you are standing much, much too close.

You almost never hear of an NHL player being upset (in a litigation sort of way) about injuries they got that resulted from fighting (drop the gloves and throw punches).

In general, the one major incident I am aware of that resulted in legal action being taken against a player was when Todd Bertuzzi checked Steve Moore down the the ice from behind and then drove his head/neck into the ice with his stick in some heavy followup hits. This is mentioned in the wikipedia article @eric3579 posted, and hinted at in the article @RedSky posted from the Economist.

In that incident, Steve Moore (a lower-level player on the Colorado Avalanche) had hit Marcus Naslund (a star level player of the Vancouver Canucks) in a previous game. That hit was a fairly normal hockey hit -- Naslund had the puck, Moore intentionally hit him to try to separate him from the puck, but arguably led with his elbow to Naslund's head. It was a dangerous play, that should have be penalized (it wasn't) -- although I don't think Moore intended to cause injury. It is a fast game, sometimes you can't react quick enough to avoid a dangerous collision like that. Still, I think that kind of play should be penalized to make it clear to players that they need to avoid dangerous plays if possible. Steve Moore didn't have a history of dirty or dangerous play, but still.

Anyway, all of that dovetails in pretty nicely with my previous post, specifically about what leads to a "spontaneous fight". Moore, a 3-4th line guy (lower ranks of skill/ability on the team) hit star player Naslund. In almost ANY hockey game where that kind of thing happens, you can expect that somebody from the star's team is going to go over to the offending player and push them around, probably with the intent to fight them. Usually it happens right at the time of the incident, but here it was delayed to a following game between the two teams.

In the next game between Colorado and Vancouver, Moore got challenged by a Vancouver player early in the first period and fought him. But I guess that the lag time and injury to Naslund (he ended up missing 3 games) had brewed up more bad blood than that so many Vancouver players hadn't gotten it fully out of their systems. Later in the game, Todd Bertuzzi skated up behind Moore when he didn't have the puck, grabbed him and tailed him for several seconds trying to get him into a second fight, and when he didn't respond just hauled back and punched him in the back of the head.

Moore fell to the ice, where Bertuzzi piled on him and drove his head into the ice. A big scrum/dogpile ensued, with Moore on the bottom. As a result of that, Moore fractured 3 vertebrae in his neck, stretched or tore some neck ligaments, got his face pretty cut up, etc. Pretty severe injuries.

So, in comparison:
Moore (lesser skill) hit Naslund (high skill) resulting in a minor(ish) injury, that could have ended up being much worse. But, it was a legitimate hockey play that just happened to occur at a time when Naslund was vulnerable -- arguably no intent to harm/injure.
Bertuzzi hit Moore in a following game, after he had already "answered" for his hit on Naslund by fighting a Vancouver player. Bertuzzi punched him from behind and followed up with further violence, driving his head into the ice and piling on him, initiating a dogpile. Not even close to a legitimate hockey play, well away from the puck, and with pretty clear intent to harm (maybe not to injure, but to harm).


Moore sued Bertuzzi, his team (the Canucks), and the NHL. Bertuzzi claimed that his coach had put a "bounty" on Moore, and that he hadn't intended to injure him -- just to get back at him for his hit on Naslund. Bertuzzi was suspended for a fairly long span of time, and his team was fined $250,000. The lawsuit was kind of on pause for a long time to gauge the long-term effects on Moore, but was eventually settled out of court (confidential terms).

All of this stuff is or course related to violence in hockey, but only loosely tied to fighting in hockey. Some would argue (with some merit in my opinion) that if the refs had called a penalty on Moore's hit on Naslund, and allowed a Vancouver player to challenge him to a fight at that time instead of the following game, it probably wouldn't have escalated to the level it did.

So, at least in my opinion, the league (NHL) needs to be careful, consistent, and fairly harsh in handing out penalties/suspensions to players who commit dangerous plays that can or do result in injuries -- especially repeat offenders. BUT, I think that allowing fighting can actually help mitigate that kind of stuff also -- as long as the league keeps it from getting out of hand and the enforcer type players continue to follow their "code".

Hrmmm, hockey can be a brutal full contact sport with explosive mid-ice collisions and teeth rattling board checking. Any of those hits could be career ending, life altering, and even deadly. What is the concern about a few punches to the face?

I just naturally assumed that if you'd do this you'd be smart enough to block off the road at the end-point. How in the hell did he expect to ever survive a head on collision, some of those turns were indeed blind, or so fast that they might as well have been (and it wouldn't have mattered, since the speed he was going wouldn't have allowed him to stop in half of those moments--half the time he'd end up flying into a large drop-off/ravine).

Cool video, but people like this do need to get cited, badly. Learn how to take a little more responsibility into their life. I'm sure they have no idea yet how screwed they can make their life, but no need to involve others (the bus doesn't really count ).

Like @serosmeg said and then @robbersdog49, I'm just fulfilling the role of posting the full-end of the "dumbass" comment...

Not only did the german ship seem dangerously close to the bank to begin with, they seem to have overcorrected a massive amount when they had plenty of time to reverse thrust.
At the same time, it didn't seem like the Singapore ship even tried to evade an obvious vector of collision. Crazy.

Your video, Ship Collision On The Rhine - Sideways, Upside Down..., has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

*dead removed by user ... guess he got discovered. From King 5 News in Seattle July 24, 2014:

Seattle's iconic Space Needle is still standing after police received reports of a drone crash at the popular tourist attraction Tuesday night.

The Seattle Police Department Blotter says witnesses reported seeing a small drone buzz around the top of the Space Needle and possibly crash into an observation deck window. Witnesses said the drone - described as a white quad-propeller unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with a camera - then glided to a nearby hotel, where it landed inside a fifth floor room.

Police said no damage was found at the Space Needle.

Investigators tracked the drone to a guest staying at the hotel. The man told police he flew his drone past the Needle, but claims it didn't hit anything. He showed video from the drone's flight, which showed people waving from the observation deck but no collision into the Needle.

The man told police he was an Amazon employee visiting from out of state and had bought the drone at a hobby shop. After police educated the man about Seattle's recent drone-related controversies, the guest agreed to not fly his drone again during his visit to Seattle.

I know that long lenses can compress a scene (so it makes the two planes look closer than they are) but even taking this into account that's way too close. The plane crossing the runway would still be on the runway when the plane landing touched down. They were probably less than ten seconds from a collision.

I would not be in a raft floating nearby. Did you see that guy furiously pulling the raft away to avoid a collision?

Is bikers just like, falling over a big problem or something? What problem is this invention solving exactly? I mean, I guess if it has airbags and a seat belt then it might protect you from moderate collisions and fender benders.

So yah. It doesn't look as nippy as a proper bike, it restricts the bikers vision and it makes you look like a dork. I also couldn't help but notice that they don't show it going around a corner. Or turning at all actually.

Maybe they should just do away with the gyro, add a third wheel an....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5
Oh, nvm then.