Hi there, this is Harry. Welcome back to advanced English lessons with Harry, where I try to help
you get a better understanding of the English language. Improve your conversational skills.
Improve your business English, whatever it takes, we're here to help you. So back to our
lesson. So the lesson today is about accidents and incidents in the traffic driving a car. So
different accidents and incidents that can take place. So these are advanced expressions that you
need to know. So if you're a stranger in a foreign land, and something happens, you'd like to know
what these words mean and how you describe the particular situation. So accidents and incidents
advanced vocabulary relating to those accidents and incidents and traffic and in cars. As always,
we have 10 particular expressions to give you and phrases so I'll go through them in the list and
then I'll go back and give you some examples. And then you can practice them on your own. So number
one to collide. Well, collide is when usually two cars crash into something, okay? Or into
each other, or a bus and a car or the tram and the car or the truck and the car, or even the bicycle
and the car so they collide. Means they crash into something so you might see the report or hear the
report on the news. There was a big holdup in the city centre today because a truck collided
with the tram. So the driver of the truck thought he could get to the red light ahead of the tram,
but unfortunately not and they collided. So when they collided, they crashed into each other. And
they held up traffic for many, many hours. He collided into the post besides the roadworks
because he didn't see the sign to slow down so the motorist wasn't injured. But his car was damaged
because he collided with the post, the lamppost or the signal post or the traffic lights. He collided
with it. And so he had an accident. Okay, so we often hear things like colliding head-on colliding
with oncoming traffic. For example, if the dog ran across the road, and he tried to avoid the
dog would collide it to an oncoming bus or an oncoming truck, there will be a lot of damage
and perhaps some injured people, hopefully not. To skid. Well, the car will skid when it's on a
wet surface or the bus will skate or the bicycle will skate. So when you try to apply the brakes
or pull the brakes or put your foot on the brakes, nothing happens and the car skids. So we're often
given warnings in the wintertime in particular, be careful there is ice or black ice, and you
might skate or you might have a skid. So the car skidded on the black eyes and hit the wall. Okay,
the man came around the corner a little too fast, and his car skidded in a pool of water,
and he lost control. So when we skid, the water or the surface of the road doesn't grip with
the rubber on our tires. And we lose control very, very quickly. Okay, so if you're driving too fast,
and you hit a patch of black ice, you can go into a skid, or if you're driving around the corner,
and there's a pool of water, then you the car can skid, the bus can skid, the truck can skid. Okay.
To swerve. Well, when we swerve we do that trying to avoid a particular accident. Okay,
he swerved to avoid the dog on the road. So my little example before is that the dog runs out
on the road or the cat runs across the road, and you see it a little bit too late. You swerve. You,
you drive either to the left very quickly, or to the right very quickly, to try and avoid that
particular person, that child, the dog or the cat. To swerve. Or somebody pulled out from a side road
and you saw them a little bit late, you swerved to avoid having an accident. So you went over on
the other side of the road very, very quickly. So your hand action was very quick. And the car
you don't lose control of the car, but you have to move very quickly left or right. So the difference
between skidding and swerving is usually when you skid, you lose control of the car and then
you have to try and gain control. But when you swerve you have to drive very quickly left or
right to avoid having a particular accident. To hit the car head-on. Well, when you hit the car
head-on it means you crash right into the front of the other car so you have no option but to hit
the car head-on because if you had swerved, you would have had another bigger accident,
you might have hit the people. So you had no choice but to hit the car head-on. Or if one car
coming towards you is driving on the wrong side of the road, which can happen sometimes if they
are strangers to that particular country, they may have forgotten which side of the road they should
drive on. And they hit the car head-on really, really bad that happened to me. Many, many, many,
many years ago when it was wet evening and a car skidded came across onto my side of the road and
hit me head-on. So I had no way of avoiding him. And luckily, while I'm here today, yeah,
so luckily I am but it was a really nasty accident at the time. So when somebody hits somebody else
head-on, they don't hit them on the side, they hit them front to front, so like this head-on. Okay.
I just like to ask you if you do like this particular lesson, and please like the video,
and as always, if you can subscribe to the channel. It really really helps.
To jackknife. Well, jackknife is this expression we use to describe particularly trucks. And when
trucks are driving along the road, as you know, they often can drive really, really quickly. But
if they have a problem on ice, then the brakes lock, and what happens is the weight of the truck
from behind brings it forward and the truck ends up in a V shape. So instead of a line like this,
it ends up in a V-shaped like this. So we call it to jackknife. So the back of the car,
the truck comes forward and blocks the other side of the road. So you have the whole road the left
side and the right side completely blocked because the truck or the van or the articulated lorry has
jackknifed. So we can read the report this is all terrible delay in the city today. Truck hits some
black ice, the brakes locked or jammed and the truck jackknifed on the road blocking both lanes
the lane in and out of the city. So to jackknife is when that weight from the back of the truck.
When you press the brakes moves forward, and the car the truck goes into like a V shape,
and then you get this jackknife effect. To overshoot. Often when we use overshoot,
we talk about aeroplanes so they can overshoot the runway, so they land on the runway,
but they don't apply the brakes quick enough. Or perhaps there is ice or water on the runway,
and the brakes don't work properly. So the plane overshoots. So comes off the runway, and if it's
lucky, it landed on some grass. If it's not so lucky, it might land in a pool of water or a
lake or something worse. Okay, so to overshoot, but you can also when you're driving your car,
you might overshoot the corner, meaning you take the corner a little bit too fast. And when you get
to the corner, you're not able to control the car as well. And perhaps you run out of road
to overshoot. So overshoot the corner overshoot the band causing some accident. Simply to crash
into something. Well, it's an example and an explanation we hear all the time. I crashed into
something last night and damaged my car. I crashed into the tree. I crashed into the gatepost I
did it myself many years ago had crashed into my gateposts outside my my house,
when somebody had parked a little bit closer than I thought, I tried to turn the corner a little
bit too sharply. I crashed into the gate post and did a lot of damage to the rear door of my car. So
when we crash into something, we hit it either on the side, or head-on, he crashed into a tree, he
crashed into a lamppost, he crashed into another car. So everything is all about hitting something
else crashing into something and hopefully not into somebody. Damage can always be repaired,
crash into something. So the next expression is to write off and if any of you have had this
particular problem, then you have my sympathies to write off the car is not a next a nice experience.
So if somebody's driving too fast or that take the band too fast and they crash into the wall,
they're going to cause a lot of damage to the wall to the car hopefully not to themselves or it is a
big pile up often you hear that a number of cars were written off because of the impact of the the
accident so your phone your friend and he says, Where were you I was expecting you to call me
last night or you won't believe it. I had a bad traffic accent. Oh my God. Are you okay? Yeah,
but I wrote the car off of the car has been written off. It's a complete shambles. Hopefully,
you're okay and there's no damage to you. So to write off means to completely destroy or
have an impact on the car that is so bad that nothing can be salvaged, everything has been
damaged the chassis, or the engine, the axles, the suspension, everything has been destroyed.
So to write off your car. Now, to shatter is another expression we have when we're talking
about traffic incidents and accidents. So if a stone hits your window, the window might shatter,
meaning it would break into many small pieces. If you drive along and a stone is thrown up by
the car in front of you. And if it hits the windscreen in the wrong spot, then the whole
class will come in on you and the windscreen will shatter the modern Windows a little bit better,
they just crack and they don't completely break. But you do have to get them repaired. Or at worst,
you have to get them replaced. So when something shatters, it breaks into 1000 little pieces or
it feels like 1000 little pieces and you spend forever cleaning it up from the car hoovering
these little pieces of glass, so a stone or a brick. So some bad guys, some thugs were standing
on one of these overpasses on the road, and they dropped a brick onto a car travelling along the
road and the windscreen shattered, okay, so to shatter means to break into 1000 pieces. And then
finally, we've got to run someone over or to run something over Well, again, not a nice experience,
particularly if it's a dog, or a cat or some other wild animal, you're driving through
the park late at night, and you see something running in front of you, you jam on the brakes,
but it's too late. And you get that terrible sound of bump that you've run over something in
the park. And when you stop the car, it could be a rabbit or a fox or something like that. Okay. Now,
hopefully you never have to run over somebody. But you do hear about these unfortunate accidents.
And you'll see it in the the newspapers or on the internet and the social media, a young boy
was run over by a car late on Saturday evening, a young child run out on the road and was run over
by a passing bus. So all of these unfortunate accidents happen. So we use the expression to
run somebody over or to run something over. So if you are the person in the car, or the bus,
you run over that person, that child or that animal. But if you happen to be the person on
the road, then you get run over by the car or run over by the bus or run over by the truck. Okay,
so these are all of these expressions and words connected with traffic incidents or accidents
and they're at a high level an advanced level, so try to practice and try to understand them.
Let me give them to you one more time. To collide with something. To skid on something. Like skid on
a slippery surface. To swerve across the road to avoid oncoming traffic. To hit the car head-on,
it was unavoidable to hit it head-on. To jackknife a truck or jugger or jackknives when it puts on
its brakes, not able to stop the truck in time. Jackknives. To overshoot. That plane to overshoot
the runway or to overshoot the band and the role that you missed to crash into something. Crashed
into the lamppost crash into the tree . To write off the car now it's a goner, it's written off,
to write off. To shatter. The windscreen shattered when the brick hit it full-on. To shatter into
1000 small pieces. And then finally to run someone or something over. Okay, as I said, all advanced
English words and expressions connected with those traffic incidents or accidents. I hope
you enjoy them. I hope you understand them. And I hope you can practice them. Thanks for listening.
Thanks for watching. This is Harry saying goodbye. Join me again for the next lesson.