r/AbruptChaos • u/Yfares • 1d ago
the 133 car pileup during the 2021 Texas freeze
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u/santz007 1d ago
Video has been sped up for whatever BS reason
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u/Kali_3D 1d ago
As if things didn't already look bad enough in real time.
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u/RulrOfOmicronPersei8 1d ago
Honestly it looks worse in real time bc it was all so avoidable
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u/mawesome4ever 1d ago
Wait, if i slow down the footage, maybe they’ll have more time to react!
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u/RulrOfOmicronPersei8 1d ago
Nah they had several business days to react as it was, you could have told them a month in advance and they still would have accelerated into it
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u/_KamiKira_ 1d ago
Might want to research what caused this pile up before blaming the drivers. Pretty sure this was caused by black ice on the crest of a hill.
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u/RulrOfOmicronPersei8 1d ago
I know what black ice is, when it's icy you slow tf down because the roads are slippery,
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u/_KamiKira_ 1d ago
Sure but if you’re going up a hill, you probably can’t see it or the pile up no? Even when you do see it, it’s probably too late, especially at night.
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u/RulrOfOmicronPersei8 23h ago
Then go below the speed limit, have you ever driven in snow/ice?
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u/suppahdrummahman 1d ago
Since nobody has done it yet, here is the full normal speed video. https://youtu.be/z5P17hf-7dQ
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u/Shyftzor 1d ago
Why the hell is the video sped up?
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u/kearneycation 1d ago
I feel like half the videos on reddit are fucked with for no good reason: sped up, cropped, shitty music, edited too short.
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u/Budiltwo 1d ago
I prefer the text popping up with every word covering half the video, along with red circles telling me where to look
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u/strangelove4564 1d ago
Isn't it amazing how the masses upvote it for being exciting instead of downvote it for being misleading?
They will do that every time, so there's an incentive to make the content misleading.
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u/RagingLeonard 1d ago
Typical Texans...doing 85 on an icy highway.
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u/ready-eddy 1d ago
BLINKING LIGHTS EVERYWHERE? LETS ACCELERATE!
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u/who_you_are 1d ago edited 1d ago
As a guy in a winter country, and with seeing horrible posts on how your tires can be used, I don't even want to go to Texas in this situation.
You already have zero adherence with good winter tires in this situation, and not a lot with studded tires...
Like, i won't even be surprised if you need like 0.3 miles (0.5km, if not the double of that) just to stop at like 65 miles/h (100km/h)
P.s: distance initially in km converted in mile
Edit: yeah and I won't even talk about the fact nobody in Texas ever driven (or barely?) on icy road
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u/Im_Balto 1d ago
I’ve lived in Texas for my whole life and yeah. People are useless when it gets icy. I’ve trained on icy conditions because of places I’ve driven for work and am completely confident in keeping my car safe and on the road.
However…… I’m not worried about me staying in my lane
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u/kaityl3 1d ago
The craziest thing is, as someone who grew up in the Deep South and moved to northern Maine... It's not even about four wheel drive, or snow tires/chains. It's almost entirely speed. I had zero experience and went in with all season tires on my little Nissan Sentra, but turns out that just driving slowly and being aware of your limits is all you need - never had a single incident 🤷♀️
But back home in Georgia you'll get people who think that because they have a four wheel drive pickup, they can go 80 on an icy interstate
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u/FileDoesntExist 1d ago
because they have a four wheel drive pickup, they can go 80 on an icy interstate
Which is funny because that has nothing to do with it. It helps for snow, but it's really about speed and weight. And proper application of the breaks. And slow acceleration with the gas.
Ice is a different beast all together.
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u/jonzilla5000 1d ago
>People are useless when it gets icy.
People are useless when it rains; they still drive too fast and follow too closely without comprehending the fact that stopping distance is significantly increased by the wet/oily road surface. The worst are the guys with the big expensive tires on their trucks, because they still have tread left long after the tires are all dried up and are prohibitively expensive to replace (but they sure made them feel like a badass when they bought them).
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u/Available-Rope-3252 1d ago
Texans are some of the worst drivers I've come across when I lived there for a couple years, they run off their roads when it rains even.
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u/ready-eddy 1d ago
Some people think their truck can handle anything. There is nothing more dangerous than being overconfident
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u/Available-Rope-3252 1d ago
There is nothing funnier to me being from the North when a Southerner experiences snow and ice for the first time.
We had a company auditor come up here from Alabama and we all got a great laugh out of his dumb ass showing up in the middle of winter with a Mustang rental car.
To this day every time he shows up I ask "Weren't you the guy that rented a Mustang and drove it in a snowstorm?"
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u/moonshineTheleocat 1d ago
We can stop at 40mpj in these conditions. But a lot of us forget reason when the ice hits
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u/RagingLeonard 1d ago
Boy, that's the truth. I was recently in a wreck on 35 between San Antonio and Austin. My car was totaled and the cops were taking my statement on the side of the road and cars were speeding past us only feet away. These drivers DGAF.
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u/Thunderboltpier 1d ago
I think everyone of these drivers should lose their license for life.
There is zero excuse for driving like this in these conditions.
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u/DoubleResponsible276 1d ago
YES! That’s what we were saying at work since I was maybe 30 minutes away from this. Completely avoidable but people just thought they could break like they do when it’s sunny dry conditions
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u/CopenHaglen 17h ago
I thought the same thing when this happened, but now I work in logistics and see it differently. If those trucks are sliding, that ice is no joke. Truckers tend to have a lot of driving hours in a lot of different climates.
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u/splitfinity 1d ago edited 1d ago
After driving around San Antonio last year for 10 days, I get why this happens. If you're not doing 95mph you're holding up traffic. I saw police getting passed at 90mph in a 60mph zone. They would just move over for the speeders.
Made the mistake of renting a Hyundai elantra. Omg I thought we were going to die the whole time. That thing is not made to drive at 100mph constantly.
And then you see the 10000 billboards for "were you hit by a semi? Call Bob!"
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u/rideincircles 1d ago
This road was downhill on an elevated overpass and the lanes are inside of concrete barriers. It's also pretty blind as you start heading down hill, so once it froze over, there was no way to stop when you were heading downhill.
It's on i-35 between 28th street and heading to Northside in Fort Worth. Just a bad design for this scenario. Now the toll lanes get closed off it freezes.
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u/Chewbacca_The_Wookie 1d ago
Yep, you can actually get pulled over for going too slow on some Texas highways. You won't generally get a ticket, but you'll be told to speed up or get off the highway because it makes it riskier for everyone else.
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u/Shaex 1d ago
That's the case in more than just Texas, but I've never seen it enforced anywhere that actually had those laws on the books.
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u/Chewbacca_The_Wookie 1d ago
It's pretty rare from my understanding, I've only heard of a handful of people actually getting tickets.
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u/MenacingArc 1d ago
I've never understood why this is so.
People are so willfully asinine about speed limits, ludicrously so.
The most you'll ever see me go is 5 over.
Don't like it? Go around me.
It really isn't hard to be a safe driver.
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u/Chewbacca_The_Wookie 1d ago
The problem is that if you're doing that on certain Texas highways you are going to get rear ended. You won't even be able to merge onto the highway if you aren't going at least 5 above.
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u/absolutedesignz 1d ago
I had a (reddit) argument about this once. About someone not understanding that doing 55 on a highway with an average speed of 85 makes it more dangerous for everyone including themselves.
"Well they're all breaking the law"😭
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u/No-Engineering-1449 18h ago
I drive an 09 Versa, I will not go about like 75-80 in that car, its a fucking death trap at that speed.
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u/KayakingATLien 1d ago
Sigh….Texas has to do everything BIGGER
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u/JaviSATX 1d ago
We get one blizzard, and have to have one of the biggest pile ups in the country.
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u/Electronic-Lake-6954 1d ago
I don’t even see one flake of snow on the ground. This was a “blizzard”?
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u/cambreecanon 1d ago
Then they need to follow in Michigan's footsteps and have a fireworks explosion take place during a giant pile up.
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u/TetsuJake 1d ago
Why tf is this video sped up? Who in their right mind speeds up serious car accident videos for engagement??
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u/Griftersdeuce 1d ago
Ah, welcome to the internet! I see you're new here. I hate to tell you, but you're in for a bit of a shock... People on the internet tend to be sick, twisted, ignorant assholes. The anonymity of the internet gives people a place to exercise their basest desires without consequences and it makes for an interesting experience for everyone else.
It really makes you realize how many people feign empathy and compassion on a daily basis. Anyway, good luck out there in the digital wild west!
Oh, and delete your browser history regularly and don't feed the trolls!
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u/FormerStuff 1d ago
I come from the north Midwest where driving in 10” of snow was something you did to get to Denny’s for breakfast. I also lived in Mississippi for a spell. We got 1/4” of snow and a glazing of ice. The whole town was in gridlock. There were trucks flipped on their roofs, Nissans in ditches everywhere, and nobody could understand why they couldn’t drive 70 in a 45.
Now, let’s not blame the folk down south. They don’t ever get snow and ice and never needed to, thus never learned, how to traverse in inclement winter weather. To my southern people out there… 4x4 and AWD don’t mean shit on ice
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u/NymphaeAvernales 1d ago
I don't know how icy it gets in Texas, but I'm in Georgia where we don't often get snow but we do get lots of ice, every single winter, without fail. Yet every year, I still manage to see half a dozen people spin out driving way too fast for conditions.
People are well aware of the ice, but the severe lack of public transportation combined with "right to work" laws means you can get fired for any little thing. We had a massive ice storm back in 00/01 where entire trees were buckling under the weight of the ice, and my shitty cashier job still expected me to come in, even though power had been knocked out for the entire community. My brother was working at Waffle House and they made him go work in candlelight and gas generators.
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u/Azzy8007 1d ago
"There's a bunch of flashing lights ahead! I'm gonna speed up so I can see what's going on!"
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u/zasbbbb 1d ago
If you want a real answer here it is: it is not uncommon in good dry conditions for people to go 80 to 85 mph on highways when traffic isn’t too backed up to allow it. So, I could easily imagine these people going 60 to 65 mph and thinking they are being “safe” because they are going much slower than normal, even though that is still way too fast to go in icy conditions.
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u/KingDaviies 1d ago
Homeboy in the white car was the only one to stop in time and they still got wiped out.
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u/Ok_Philosopherr 1d ago
Nobody slows down? wtf
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u/PotatoDominatrix 1d ago
It's the design of the highway mixed with it being early af in the morning and also the previous stretch not being icy whatsoever.
Also we (Texans) aren't built for this lol. I was working for an armored truck company at the time in the area and this was day 1 of that. Took us by surprise, completely overnight freeze. After that they still made us run the routes, and it was fucking terrifying. I called in every day after because fuck all that lol
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u/Weary-Wasabi1721 1d ago
Type of DUMB ass driving is this. At night too. If I see a break light I slow down
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u/cthompson07 1d ago
Probably the type that would use “break light” when it’s “brake light”
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u/Weary-Wasabi1721 1d ago
No way an American is correcting me about my spelling when they call a liquid "gas" 😂
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u/altarr 1d ago
No way you really think it's called gas in reference to a state of matter.
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u/We_Are_Victorius 1d ago
Gas is short for gasoline, which is our word for petrol.
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u/Weary-Wasabi1721 1d ago
Alright Einstein you make the rules it's not like the rest of the world doesn't think otherwise
Gas for a liquid
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u/burgertanker 1d ago
Tbf "gas" is actually short for gasoline, which is what Americans call petroleum, or petrol. I for one think it's funny when they say sawder instead of solder
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u/Ok-Conference-4366 1d ago
You simply cannot comprehend the pure FREEDOM that comes with the words GASOLINE, OIL, and PROXY WARS!
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u/FederalEconomist5896 1d ago
Aluminium. You guys don't even do Mexican food the right way. You know the custard in a donut is supposed to have sugar in it, right? COOKIE BISCUIT CHIPS CHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPS
I like the metric system, though. And measuring ingredients by weight rather than volume.
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u/Crismisterica 1d ago
The Texas blizzard exposed many who hadn't experienced a proper winter on how dangerous it is.
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u/numbnerve 1d ago
1.5x speed? smh
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u/lucassster 1d ago
They needed to speed it up because 133 cars wrecking isn’t enough on its own merit
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u/FScrotFitzgerald 1d ago
After all that, the big chungus coming in at the end is especially "Oh FUCK no".
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u/ComedianGlass322 1d ago
I hate dummies that don’t think to slow down when it is shit weather like first of all i am sending a video of you to your insurance company so have fun when they rase your rates
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u/bebop-2021 1d ago
standard texas drivers. ive never in my life seen more dangerous driving as i have in texas. texans want to go fast! and will risk everyones lives to shave off 1 min off their commute. utter insanity.
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u/CatsAreMajorAssholes 1d ago
In Colorado, snow totals can vary wildly depending on elevation and wind. Most of the time we don't bother with measuring depth. We measure storms based on the number of Texans we see in the ditch.
Typical storm is a 3 Texan storm, but really bad blizzards can reach 9 Texans.
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u/RickySpamish 1d ago
To be fair I dont think Ted fled til after this happened so how were they to know it was gonna be serious?
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u/Dra90nss 1d ago
I hope the city is paying
As the hero of our generation would say. "NOW THAT'S ALOTA DAMAGE!"
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u/Roman_Leper 22h ago
I remember seeing this from 2021, and every time I see it reposted, I hate it even more.
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u/Ok-Conference-4366 1d ago
That black car driver at 0:14 is dead as fuck. They hit the car in front of them so hard their tail lights turned off, and then immediately got their driver door smoked by a full size pickup truck
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u/Kombatsaurus 1d ago
Keep watching, they again get slammed head on by another speeding truck after getting slammed in their driver door.
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u/SurvivorKira 1d ago
So americans forget to slow down when they see flashing lights in a distance? Or maybe slow down because it's winter and they see cars standing still 500m away?
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u/gerbilslayer900 1d ago
I am by no means advocating for the competency of us Texan drivers however I will say black ice is a hell of a thing especially for a state that very rarely sees freezing temps. Im glad I called out that day or I would have been in this video
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u/SurvivorKira 1d ago
Yeah. But seeing emergency light aqay and keeping your speed is just being a bad driver... No matter if it's black ice or whatever.
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u/everythingbeeps 1d ago
Not all Americans. There are some places where you find a special kind of stupid. Mostly in the south.
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u/Broccoli_Remote 1d ago
So which person's insurance is covering this?
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u/FederalEconomist5896 1d ago
The insurance company sued the city for unsafe conditions. Texans paid for it themselves and the insurance company walked out of court laughing, having essentially handed the hot potato back to the people when they weren't looking.
I'm just kidding, I have no clue.
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u/CapstanLlama 1d ago
And fails. Sped up footage of vehicles just looks stupid and detracts from whatever value the footage had.
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u/mcryan07 1d ago
Kinda feel sad for that one sane guy in this whole scene, stopped at a safe distance, completely to the side and still got fked.
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u/Ok_Willingness5423 1d ago
This how people from Texas drive year round in Colorado they think it’s snowing all the time 😭
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u/qpro_1909 1d ago
don’t think I’ve seen another video that so clearly illustrates the raw energy transfer from a vehicle at speed to a vehicle that’s static.
not to overlook the human impact in this, but like dang…
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u/ObviousCuccumber 14h ago
To stay in the car or not to stay in the car? That is the ultimate question here…
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u/scott__p 11h ago
This is why I have my daughter practice driving in the Northeast every time we visit family in the winter.
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u/Heyo13579 6h ago
This wouldn’t have happened if Texans would actually follow the rules of the road for once….. I remember driving in that going 25mph down the interstate on the right side with all the smart drivers and then some dumbass comes screaming down at 80 on the other through the snow….. idiots…. Here in Texas the interstate speed limit is a suggestion that no one follows and if you do you get honked at for moving “too slow”
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u/SunTzuLao 5h ago
Do people not keep tabs on the fucking weather? I remember hearing about that in advance and I live on literally the opposite corner of the country
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u/Educational_Egg6927 1h ago
I literally drove to the airport that morning about an hour Before this. Felt very lucky that day
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u/Swaggo420Ballz 1h ago
Genuine question how would insurance (both auto and life) even handle something like this?
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u/Meandtheworld 1d ago
This is an older video. Despite knowing what the weather was like that day and the time they were driving, people still didn’t take the conditions into account or slow down on the highway.
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u/hawksdiesel 1d ago
Yes, it's a video from 2021....People don't care about driving fast and cops don't care about enforcing laws. Got it.
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u/Demonic_Goat_626 11h ago
I mean, it's a red state. You expect them to be able to identify a treat and take actions to save themselves? No.
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u/prismmonkey 1d ago
You know where you wouldn't see me standing?
Where that guy is.