Dashcam reveals trucker who lost load on N1 near Bloemfontein was driving distracted
Distracted driving is very dangerous to the driver and other road users hence if you decide to do it you should know that you are inconsiderate, you don’t care about yourself or anyone else.
Anything that a driver does while driving which takes their concentration off the main business of driving is distracted driving.
Eating, drinking and using a cellphone are just a few examples of distracted driving.
In this 1 minute 55 seconds dashcam video of a truck that lost its load on the N1 between Bloemfontein and Tom’s Place, the driver was caught busy using his left hand to operate a cellphone without lifting it from the dashboard.
He does this for the first 57 seconds of the video while he keeps on peeping at the road ahead of him.
As if what he is doing is not reckless enough, he goes on to lift the cellphone consequently hitting the last nail into his own coffin.
The truck leaves the road going into the left hand side water drainage ditch causing the driver to lose control.
This happens while the truck is doing 75km/h making it difficult for the driver to regain control.
He wrestles with it and eventually regains control and manages to stop but the dashcam shows that the truck slightly tilted as if it was going to fall sideways too.
But, during the wrestling, the back trailer had already flipped and lost its load.
From videos of the scene, the truck can be seen with the front axle firmly on the ground but the diff axle wheels on the right are off the ground.
The truck is held back from falling by the front trailer which is already touching the ground sideways.
Read also: Dashcam captures truck crash caused by passenger distraction
After the incident, looters pounced on the spilled load and cleaned it out.
Videos of the looting were widely shared on social media.
Looters helped themselves to cargo dropped by a distracted driver earlier on N1 between Bloemfontein and Tom's Place https://t.co/vHnHFuzTSF pic.twitter.com/SAbA0En5zx
— SA Trucker (@rsa_trucker) February 14, 2023
SA Trucker encourages truck drivers to be aware of distractions that can cause them to lose their lives.
Visual distractions cause drivers to take their eyes off the road, manual distractions cause drivers to take their hands off the wheel while cognitive distractions cause drivers to take their mind off driving. In the video at hand, the truck driver was both visually and manually distracted which is a pretty healthy recipe for disaster.
