Why, you might ask, would a highway patrol car in Mexico be driving down the freeway with both doors open? Well, whether it’s standard procedure or improvisation by the troopers, the point was to set up a rolling road block behind a runaway rig that’s the unwitting star of this Dash Cam of the Week.
The clip shows the terrifying run of the tractor-trailer, brakes ablaze, as the driver slaloms down a curvy, mountainous stretch of Mexican Federal Highway 150D, a toll highway running east from Mexico City through Puebla. The staff here at DCOW were unanimous in thinking we would’ve taken our chances by running off the road very early in the clip—well before hitting speeds of 100 MPH.
But the driver, after trying to scrub some speed early on, opted to try for the runaway truck lane further down the grade—and he made it. When we first saw the video, we thought the truck had hit a sand-barrel barrier at the end of the emergency lane, but that’s his cargo of paper rolls all around the cab. He’s way lucky they didn’t roll over him. (Not sure about the “fire extinguishers” the troopers are using to douse the brakes.)
Pro tip: Check your brakes, driver!
For those who speak Spanish, here’s a local TV news report of the accident.
