Anyone who has ever watched Don Cherry on Coaches Corner knows that you've got to keep your head up on the ice. If you don't, you're likely to end up on the next highlight reel as you get driven into the ice by an opposing player. As this Toronto area dashcam video shows, the same thing applies behind the wheel. You need to keep your head up, eyes open, and be aware of your surroundings. If you don't, that big hit could be between you and another car at 100 km/h.

The driver of the red Volkswagen Golf GTI is the one who isn't looking ahead in this dashcam video. The driver moves over one lane to the right, because traffic is slowing slightly in the leftmost lane. At 34 seconds in, if you're looking ahead, you can see brake lights start to come on in the left lane. Six seconds later, the GTI driver wants back into that left lane but doesn't notice the brake lights and the fact that the cars in that lane are braking hard. The GTI hits the brakes, and you can see it start to dive, but it's too late.

The driver reacts quickly and attempts to dive into the carpool lane to the left. Unfortunately, because he doesn't seem to be keeping his head up and paying attention, he fails to notice that there is already a car there. A driver paying attention would have noticed that the lane he had just left was still clear.

The collision sends the dashcam tumbling, but we can still hear some of the conversation that follows the accident. The driver of the GTI tells the driver of the camera car that "you slid into me" which we can fairly safely say is not what happened.

So the lesson here is don't stare at the car in front of you. Look ahead, as far as you can. Look around you to the sides and rear as well, because if you have to make an emergency lane change, you don't want to make one that makes things even worse.

Keep Your Head Up, Kid

1/4/2017 4:13:33 PM

1/4/2017 4:13:33 PM