7 Craziest Moments Caught on Dashcam
Dashcams are increasingly popular, as drivers use them for a host of practical reasons:
to protect themselves from theft, report bad drivers and as evidence in an accident.
But sometimes these cameras capture events so sudden and unexpected, that you simply
wouldn’t have time to reach for a smartphone or camera.
Today we’ll be looking at some of the craziest moments ever caught on dashcams.
An Unexplained Flash
The truth is out there… and “out there” may actually be Russia.
On November 14, 2014, a driver in the rural town of Rezh, Russia captured a truly bizarre
phenomenon on his dashcam.
Just after 6:30 pm, the car travels along a dark, nearly deserted road in the Russian
Urals, its dashcam filming the tree- and snow-lined lane ahead.
No one on that quiet roadway is prepared for what’s about to happen above them.
An enormous, bright flash suddenly lights up the entire night sky, beginning as a faint
orange glow and intensifying into a glowing yellow before fading away.
Locals in the area were stunned after witnessing the sky ablaze.
The flash only lasted about ten seconds, but it was captured on several cameras, including
widely circulated cellphone footage.
However, even with the video recordings to study, it seemed no one could offer a reasonable
explanation for this sudden, mysterious event.
One possible explanation for the flash was the aurora borealis, commonly called the “Northern
Lights” which had been visible farther south than normal in some areas of Russia over the
same weekend, but scientists couldn’t point to that explanation with certainty.
Another suggested explanation was that a meteor had caused the flash.
On February 15 of the previous year, the Chelyabinsk meteor had entered the Earth’s atmosphere
over Russia.
This event had also lit up the sky.
Although, because the Chelyabinsk meteor had entered the atmosphere during daylight hours,
it was easier to identify.
The pattern of the flash in Rezh was harder to explain.
Internet detectives suggested a broad range of other theories, including secret military
projects and extraterrestrial visitors.
Had a nuclear weapon test gone wrong?
Had a UFO burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere?
Was this some unprecedented weather event?
Despite the widespread conjecture, the Russian government has never declared an official
explanation for what many called the “Yekaterinburg Fireball,” so what really happened that
night is anyone’s guess.
A Terrifying Ride
This next driver’s dashcam footage captured not just one shocking event, but two.
In the summer of 2015, Typhoon Soudelor ravaged Taiwan, China, the Mariana Islands, and Japan.
On August 9th, a man and woman in Tainan City, Taiwan found themselves in the middle of some
increasingly dangerous weather brought on by the tropical cyclone.
Without warning, a powerful tornado tears through the area, jerking the cars forward
and throwing debris everywhere, before continuing its devastating path down the road.
When the air clears, the dashcam reveals something even more incredible than the sudden cyclone:
to the right of the car, a woman sits upright in the wake of the twister, having been pulled
into the violent storm and deposited in the street, as the tornado sped away.
The driver rushes to check on her.
Unbelievably, the woman stays upright and responds to the driver.
She is conscious and able to talk just moments after she’s been in the eye of the storm.
The woman in the video, who was not named, was seriously injured.
The others at the scene only suffered minor injuries from this unbelievable experience.
It just goes to show that at a moment’s notice, Mother Nature can turn very nasty.
Two Wrongs Don’t Make A Right
Upholding the law is an important job, but unfortunately, even police aren’t immune
from breaking the rules of the road.
On August 15, 2019, a police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma was involved in a car crash in his cruiser.
But the detail that made the story especially newsworthy was dashcam video of the accident,
which revealed that just before the moment of impact, the officer had been breaking a
very simple rule.
The road is not very busy as the officer cruises along, but as he drives, he is also texting,
glancing away from the road and down to his phone several times.
This part of the footage is shocking, but what happens next blows the texting out of
the water.
Though the officer’s behavior is dangerous, the crash is the fault of the other driver,
in an SUV, who crosses the median and suddenly slams into the cruiser.
The airbag deploys as the police car spins to a stop.
The officer struggles for a moment before getting out of the vehicle and calling emergency
services.
Thankfully, neither the officer nor the driver of the other car was seriously injured, though
the officer did go to the hospital to be checked out following the crash.
It was not clear what caused the other driver to jump the curb and slam into the cruiser,
but that driver was found at fault for the wreck, even though the officer had been quite
distracted himself.
If he hadn’t been texting, the officer may have been able to avoid the collision altogether.
The texting officer was not named by the Tulsa Police Department.
A review board does exist within the department to investigate officer-involved accidents,
but the results of such investigations are kept private.
Hopefully, if the officer did keep his job - he is doing it more carefully these days.
Caught in the Act
Before you try breaking the law, it helps to make sure you aren’t being filmed.
Two men in the UK learned this lesson the hard way in July 2017, when their attempt
at an insurance scam was caught from start to finish - on their would-be victim’s dashcam.
As a woman drives down a suburban street, a man appears on the left and guides a scooter
onto the road in front of her.
But rather than getting on the scooter and driving forward, the man rams the scooter
backwards, into the front of the woman’s car, then throws himself onto the hood.
Immediately, the second scammer, acting as though he just happened to be walking by,
begins filming the scene on his phone.
The setup would have been perfect for getting a big insurance payout, if only the trick
hadn’t been caught on video.
As the driver gets out of her car to confront the men, they begin to argue with her, insisting
she’s at fault.
But when she says the magic words, “I’ve got a camera,” pointing to her dashcam,
the scammers immediately make a run for it, disappearing down the road as the woman phones
the police.
The only downside to this story?
If the woman had waited until police arrived to reveal the dashcam, the scammers would
have been caught red handed, instead of escaping on foot.
Nevertheless, this video does a great job at showing how a dashcam can potentially get
drivers out of sticky-and nefarious-situations.
Plane Crazy
Drivers in Clearwater, Florida got quite a shock on November 19, 2017.
Just after ten in the morning, two police dashcams captured the moment a single-engine
plane made an emergency landing… on the highway.
The officers, who were in the area on an unrelated call, were able to respond within seconds
as the plane crept lower and lower toward the road, ultimately clipping the top of a
small tree and coming to a shaky stop, at the edge of the highway.
Pilot Marc Allen Benedict and his passenger Gregory Guinee walked away from the sudden
crash landing with no injuries.
Amazingly, No one on the ground was hurt either.
Benedict said that shortly after takeoff, engine trouble had caused him to make the
emergency landing on the roadway.
With no injuries or major property damage to report, this was definitely a best-case
scenario for a plane crash.
With a Bang
Most people believe they are safe in their own homes, but this next video shows how a
freak accident can quickly turn into a disaster.
On April 7, 2018, police were called to a residential area in Hurst, Texas after a vehicle
crashed into a home and hit a gas line.
In a situation which at first seemed unfortunate but routine, officers arrived at the scene,
not expecting what was to come.
There were three people inside the house at the time of the crash; Dixie Bridges, her
husband Charles and their adult son.
The footage shows the moment Officer Travis Hiser Pulls up outside the home and exits
his vehicle.
So far, everything seems normal.
But as the officer approaches the front yard; without warning - the house suddenly explodes.
The violent explosion was also captured on the two other officers’ bodycams.
Though the officers were shell-shocked, they immediately entered the residence and were
able to rescue all three of the victims.
61-year-old Dixie Bridges had been injured by the crash itself, and was reportedly burned
on over half her body from the explosion.
Her husband Charles was also burned as he tried to help her get out of the house, and
their adult son, who was in the back of the home at the time of the crash, was mildly
injured trying to help get his parents out safely.
Two of the responding officers also suffered minor injuries, while the driver of the SUV,
Arnulfo Castro, walked away unscathed.
Castro was arrested for driving without a license, but he, like the others, was lucky
to walk away from the explosion with his life.
Over the Edge
When things go wrong on the road, they go wrong fast.
Auto enthusiast James Shaw, Jr. shared terrifying dashcam footage from a ride he took along
the Angeles Crest Highway on January 4, 2015.
Behind the wheel of a 2004 Subaru Forester XT, Shaw winds around the snowy mountainside,
then approaches a tunnel.
As he exits one tunnel and enters another, he increases his speed.
But soon after, loses control of the vehicle.
With the car out of control, Shaw hits the brakes hard, but it was too late.
He speeds over the cliff edge, crying out “Oh no!” as he tumbled down the side of
the mountain.
It looked like a death sentence, but in a stroke of unbelievable luck, Shaw’s car
did not fall all the way down the side.
It came to rest on a drainage pipe jutting out from the side of the cliff.
Rescue crews arrived quickly, and Shaw was pulled from the car, not seriously injured.
One of the rescuers was actor Lou Ferrigno, famous for portraying The Incredible Hulk
in the 1977 TV series.
Celebrity sightings really do happen everywhere in Los Angeles.
Shaw shared the video on his social media channels hoping to inspire others to practice
safe driving.
He certainly won’t need a reminder himself anytime soon.
Which one of these videos did you find the most unexpected?
Have you ever captured anything crazy on your own dashcam?
Tell us about it in the comments below.
Thanks for watching!