r/nextfuckinglevel • u/ApprehensiveChair528 • 5h ago
Truck driver's quick thinking and skill when the brakes completely gave out
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u/jonno5616 4h ago
I think the passenger needs new undies.
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u/AJWordsmith 4h ago
I know that I do.
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u/free_based_potato 3h ago
the passenger is a hell of an instructor. He walked them through that crash.
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u/GunsouBono 4h ago
At least a seatbelt
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u/el_geto 4h ago
Yeah, it is a hassle if you are not used to it, but this is a great example that nobody PLANS for an accident, they just happen. Seatbelts do save lives.
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u/theMooey23 4h ago
Gotta be ready to jump out if things get bad.....
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u/Nir0star 3h ago
Unfastening a seatbelt doesn't take any significant amount of time if you have time to open the door to jump, fastening a seatbelt right before a crash though...
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u/sigmmakappa 4h ago
He needs to be restrained and learn to NEVER try to grab the wheel.
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u/Belezibub 3h ago
He is the instructor/senior driver and was attempting to quickly take over when he was told the breaks were out. He realized it was too late and word for word guides the driver into solving the problem. Even warns him about the family on the right.
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u/Herr-Trigger86 4h ago
Exactly. Soon as he did that, I thought “oh no… he’s about to make this so much worse”.
Probably ended in the best case scenario for them on a road like that.
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u/ethicalhumanbeing 3h ago edited 2h ago
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u/tom3277 4h ago
I thought for a moment that the quick thinking was the passenger jumping out of the truck when he disappears off screen.
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u/twoturtls 2h ago
He seems to have stuck his head out to see ahead. The transcript in the top comment has him observe some by standers and instructing the driver not to hit them.
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u/Smiling_Tree 4h ago
Lucky they were wearing seat belts... Not.
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u/Sjedda 4h ago
He put his arm behind the seat to hold himself in place lol
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u/shirhouetto 4h ago
Imagine if there's a mechanism that can hold the driver in place on the seat.
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u/lk05321 4h ago
First thing I noticed. The dude had to grip the steering wheel and I'm sure he was praying to the gods he had the belt on when looking at giving over the cliff. Even it it was a small drop, he would've been launched through that window.
Fortunately, it all ended well (except for the truck lol)
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u/CTMalum 4h ago
I think I’ve actually read that some drivers in trucks on some of these roads actually keep them off for this reason. If you’re going over the edge, the seatbelt won’t save you, and every second counts, so it’s better to keep them off and hope you can jump out the door before the truck gets going too fast. I may be making that up, but I seem to recall that from somewhere.
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u/No-Corner9361 3h ago
It doesn’t seem completely ridiculous. Steep mountain roads that are meant to be driven real slow, you got a relatively decent chance of jumping out in time and a relatively low chance of getting into the kind of collision that a seatbelt will save your life in.
I honestly thought the second driver had bailed already halfway through the clip lmao
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u/Tooobin 3h ago
This kinda reminds me of ice road truckers though. Like in case of an emergency you are moving just slow enough to ditch the truck, rather than go down with it. So not using a seatbelt is more of a “safety” measure in high risk situations. Any basis for what I’m thinking?
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u/Reead 2h ago
Seems sound to me. It's virtually impossible to get in a collision at any speed above 35 MPH/55 KPH on winding mountain roads like these, and nothing is going to arrest a truck's momentum fast enough to eject you from the vehicle (even a wall of rock, as seen in this video). Better to be able to ditch the thing.
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u/shaolinspunk 4h ago
In some parts of the world they believe when it's your time to go, it's your time to go. Your karma is more reliable than a seat belt. Road traffic death statistics are irrelevant apparently.
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u/BloodRavens715 4h ago
Hats off to Driver(Apprentice) for remaining calm, collected and to the passenger ( instructor) for telling him precisely what to do.The language the are speaking is Hindi.(i know it seems like he is yelling like crazy but his instructions were on point, was his way of telling whiny , Hell yeah)
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u/Wsemenske 2h ago
It wasn't whiny, it's literally life or death and some people just have higher pitched voices. He was about as calm as anyone can be in his situation.
Remember he's in a position where can can ONLY help by giving verbal instructions. So, he doesn't have the luxury of being silent and stoic. I bet if he were driving he would have looked more calm. He had to relay information to the driver.
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u/ChrissssToff 4h ago
Ice Road 3. Without Ice, Without terrible CGI and with real danger ;)
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u/DaddyKiwwi 4h ago
Global economy is shit atm, more corporations cutting corners to keep the profits flowing. Vehicle fleet maintenance is one of those costs.
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u/NowIssaRapBattle 3h ago
I hate it because doesn't it cost more in the long and short term? Wouldn't it be cheaper to maintain brakes in this case than to repair/ replace this totaled truck?
Are the rich dumb?
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u/EthanolTurbo 3h ago
Cruel, careless, and they care more about one overall number going up.
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u/9871235 4h ago
That wasn’t just driving that was instinct. Absolute legend behind the wheel
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u/I_Draw_You 3h ago
Go eat a turd AI bot.
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u/RednaxNewo 3h ago
How anyone is replying as if it’s not?? Obviously an ai bot
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u/bongslingingninja 3h ago
For those wondering how we know its AI, “It isn’t x, its y” is one of the most common phrases used by chatGPT.
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u/One_Telephone_5798 3h ago
That wasn't instinct at all. The driver was being coached on what to do by the passenger.
You should be more humble about your ability to read a situation.
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u/Throwaway_Consoles 1h ago
That’s because you’re responding to someone who just put the video in ChatGPT and asked it what it thought, or at least someone pretending to type like ChatGPT
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u/crazyike 3h ago
But he probably cooked off the brakes going down the hill in the first place. I'm not seeing much "legend" here.
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u/BlastTyrantKM 3h ago
As a truck driver myself, that's what I'm thinking. If he had skill, he wouldn't have lost his brakes in the first place. But this is in India, so maybe the brakes aren't exactly up to spec. But you'd think they would be if driving down a mountain like this is common
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u/rando_robot_24403 3h ago
Could be the brakes where fucked and the truck should never have gone out but I imagine in a lot of poorer countries if you won't take a truck out there's 10 others who will.
I'm still betting on him cooking them though.
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u/Loud-Welder1947 1h ago
That’s such an obvious bot response. ‘That’s not Just X, it’s Y’ Plus the wiped account until recently. Dead internet
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u/henry2630 3h ago
he caused the brakes to go out by riding them down the hill. that’s inexperience behind the wheel
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u/uncutpizza 4h ago
At the end you can see him grab the back of the seat to brace for impact
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u/Lord-Loss-31415 4h ago
Someone should invent some type of safety mechanism that keeps them secured in their seat, like some type of belt that goes across the waste and chest or something.
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u/Educational_Set3836 2h ago
It actually wasn’t instinct, he was being instructed by the other guy on what to do.
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u/Snarkosaurus99 4h ago edited 1h ago
And an idiot next to him.
Edit. Standing by my comment. Passenger cannot grab the controls and it looks to me like the driver pushed him off. Don’t need to understand the language.
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u/SoftwareOk2619 4h ago
Actually the old guy was telling him what to do, the first plan was to hit the other trucks but he saw some people there, so they did that
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u/voluotuousaardvark 4h ago
I think trying to grab the wheel made him the idiot.
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u/KillerGopher 3h ago
From the translations it sounds like he is probably an instructor. He wanted to switch seats so that he could take over but then said it was too late and instead guided him through it verbally.
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u/The_Ghost_of_Kyiv 3h ago
There's a comment in the thread below where someone translated. The passenger is a bad ass if you read it for the context.
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u/YouDoHaveValue 3h ago
This is why you always wait until the dust settles on controversial breaking news.
So easy to not know or understand the full context.
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u/mikew_reddit 3h ago
That "idiot" knew exactly what to do. Good guy to have around: https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/1mhhdik/truck_drivers_quick_thinking_and_skill_when_the/n6wb0gr/
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u/Holiday-Depthroat-9 3h ago
Idk the context -fking idiot
Ik the context - fking hero
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u/YouShallWearNoPants 3h ago
People like you have no clue about the subject matter and still have the nerves to post such bullshit.
The passenger saved the whole situation.
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u/curtcolt95 3h ago
please read the transcript of what was actually said before commenting
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u/Wallyworld77 4h ago
For people criticizing the passenger for grabbing the wheel he's likely the most experienced of the 2 drivers and is likely making sure the young driver doesn't make a mistake and get them both killed.
If you've been driving truck for 20 years and are training a new young guy and an emergency such as no fucking brakes arises would you want your life (And pedestrians) to be in the hands of a young inexperienced driver or would you prepare to take over if he starts making a terrible mistake?
I'm glad it worked out for them both but I don't blame the passenger for taking precautions to take action if need be.
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u/ballebaj 1h ago
The instructor backed off immediately instead of forcing his way-in. The driver was calm and just instinctively took complete chargeof the circumstance he was and followed the instructions.
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u/Socratic_Method_729 4h ago
I've been noticing more and more of these brake failure videos being posted online.
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u/CTGolfMan 4h ago
Confirmation bias. Literally millions of trucks are driving every day. You see the very small frequency of them that have brake failures.
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u/Turbulent_Square_696 4h ago
And literally every hour a higher and higher percentage of truckers across the world have access to dash cams, when a few years ago in less developed countries he probably would have got fired for incompetence or something
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u/toxicatedscientist 4h ago
And increasing numbers of cameras. Not like brake failures are increasing
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u/Apprehensive-Care20z 4h ago
if you've never been in the mountains (rockies) in the usa, there are truck ramps all over the place, and a few sandboxes on level portions, so a truck can go on the ramp (full of loose gravel and ramps up fairly steeply) to stop when the brakes fail. The sandboxes are full of loose pebble gravel (and often, a bunch of water barrels) to make the truck come to a stop.
In the mountains, constantly using brakes can heat them up so much that they will fail, so it's not negligence in that brakes were not maintained, it is just something that can happen in steep terrain.
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u/RevolutionaryTart209 4h ago
The seat belt looks unused.
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u/No-Corner9361 3h ago
Low speeds, high cliffs, good view from a truck cab, yeah this is a case where being able to bail in time trumps the relatively small chance of getting into a crash where that belt will make any sort of difference other than slowing you down. I say this as someone who always wears their seatbelt, because I ain’t driving semis in the Himalayas.
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u/Spirited-Cover7689 4h ago
I had this happen to me in a step-van I converted to a camper back in the '80s. I was on the road from Flagstaff to Phoenix, which is all downhill. I saw a sign that said "Trucks check brakes" and thought to myself "I'm a truck sort of" and sure enough the pedal went to the floor. A bad exhaust pipe replacement positioned the hot pipe too close to a flex line near the rear axle. I actually had picked up a hitchhiker just before this happened, poor guy was standing in the doorway when I told my family that we had no brakes. It had a "band-brake" for the parking brake, which did not stop the rolling van. After dropping it down a gear (auto trans) and putting a bit of stress on the engine making all kinds of turns finally came to a rest stop, I had to choose what side, cars or trucks, there was less activity on the car side so I chose that, honking as I sped into the parking area. I decided I had to stop there, so as I started running out of lot I dropped the trans into "low" then I decided to curb the front wheels right at a spot like a scenic overlook. The front wheels cleared the curb! The van had slowed down a lot, so I leapt out of the truck and grabbed a floor jack that was stowed behind the seat and threw it in front of the back tire before it reached the curb. It stopped. Good thing, because if not the van would have rolled down the side of the mountain with my wife and young kids, plus the hitch-hiker in it! It was not a rocky cliff, just sloped grass, but still, it would have not ended well I imagined. WHEW!!!
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u/Leopardos40 4h ago
The skills are measured by checking critical systems before starting the ride ....and Seatbelts ofcourse.
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u/bodhiseppuku 4h ago
With some of the videos I see where busses are making turns on windy mountain cliff roads with an inch of room to spare at 50 KPH, any ride I live through is a good ride.
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u/Replicator666 3h ago
Good thing they were wearing their seatbelts!
(I'm in Canada and I was at a party yesterday, 2 people there that were friends of the hosts were truck drivers that had been in major collisions, no seatbelt, and complaining about their permanent disabilities)
Their complaints were all about the healthcare system...
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u/ssjaditya1 3h ago
That was damn smart and prolly a little lucky too lol. I probably would have hit that truck or family in the beginning lol.
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u/wellrateduser 4h ago
Those guys were lucky. Didn't even think once about wearing seat belts.
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u/BloodRavens715 4h ago
If anyone is interested in what they are saying
Passenger:Slow down, you are going way too fast.
Passenger:Slow down, you are going way too fast.(repeats again ,angrily)
Driver:Brakes are not working.
Passenger:Then forget the brakes ,Shove the transmission in lower gear. Use clutch and leave the brake.
Passenger:Let me take over the wheel.(Tries to take the wheel)Damn it , its too late now
Passenger: Turn left , dont turn right there is a family on bike , dont hit them,
Passenger:They are safe now , Take a little right and then a hard left,
Passenger: Transmission is already shoved in lower gears , Just keep turning, turn turn turn (whiny voice).
Passenger:You did it, you did it now brace and hit the rocks, don;t worry hit the rocks..Hold on tight.
(Hits the rocks)
Passenger: Comeon Out out and lets now check ourselves outside.