The most important thing to know about this video is that no one involved was seriously injured. Not the driver of the BMW pulled over. Not the police officer. Not the person in the BMW Z4 that drives by. Not the moronic teen in an M3 going 120 MPH who almost killed a bunch of people for no good reason. The second most important thing to know is that this is not a weird BMW ad.
Here’s the video. Again, no one is seriously hurt.
This happened on Monday in Fairfax County, Virginia, on the Fairfax County Parkway in the middle of the day. The video you’re seeing above is from a dashcam from a county police officer who has a BMW 7-series pulled over. According to the local NBC affiliate, that car’s driver was ticketed for doing 70 mph in a 50 mph zone.
As you can see, the officer is quick-witted enough to spot the 2018 BMW M3 coming and get out of the way before it collides with the parked BMW. Somehow, an E89 BMW Z4 happens to just miss getting hit. The odds of all these BMWs being involved in one accident seems low until you remember this happened in Fairfax County, Virginia. No offense to any readers who live in the NOVA suburbs, but we all know you people and your defense lobbyist parents aren’t hurting for cash.
While I’ll credit the officer for good training and high situational awareness, it’s also a bit miraculous he was not seriously injured. According to Fairfax County Police, the BMW was traveling at a rate “well over 120 MPH” before hitting the cruiser and, though it had probably slowed before launching over the median, it’s still moving at a high rate of speed. It didn’t take long after getting hit for him to call for help and, as the video shows, bystanders pulled over to quickly help.
The driver of the car, who was 17, had two passengers in the car and was ticketed for reckless driving, which is a misdemeanor. (Editor’s note: Which is something they will send you to actual jail for in Virginia. A lot of people ask me, Patrick, is jail an experience you’d recommend? Should I try a stay in jail for myself? And my definitive answer is no, I do not recommend and no, you should not give it a go to see if you like it. -PG)
So what happened?
Here’s a GIF of the vehicle crossing the median. I cannot say with 100% accuracy that I know for sure what happened, but I have a pretty damn reasonable guess. Anyone who drives cars on track or has received motorsports driving instruction knows that your car, ultimately, is going to go where you look.
This teenage driver was traveling way too fast on the parkway, comes around the corner, and sees the police officer. The driver then does the one big thing you aren’t supposed to do in that situation: Lift. Or, perhaps, lift and some brake, but I don’t hear the brakes until he’s in the opposite lane of traffic.
It’s a classic case of target fixation mixed with some lift-off oversteer.
Obviously, the other cause of this is giving a 17-year-old who can’t drive worth a damn a car with a top speed of 155 mph. I don’t want to be too prescriptive about this, because I think people should generally be able to own the cars they want, and I’ve met young drivers who are totally capable of handling a car with 400+ horsepower (mostly race car drivers), but you can’t just give a teenager a land missile and just hope it’ll turn out right.
This is too much car for many adults and, certainly, most teenagers. If you want your kid to be a fast driver, don’t give them a fast car. Power covers up for a lot of driving deficiencies. Give them something slow and fun with a lot of feedback. A ten-year-old, base 3-series has plenty of power (an E90 makes like 230 hp), is safe, and is a great way to learn about oversteer. A five-year-old M3? Not so much.
I feel like I’m preaching to the choir, here, because most of our readers seem smart and responsible. Nevertheless, I will repeat: Don’t give your kids cars they can’t handle. You’re putting a weapon in their hands and you’re doing them a disservice.
If ever there was a justification for police brutality. I can’t say for certain what I would have done when I walked up to the driver’s window of that M3. Especialy if I had a nightstick.
Rate of Speed = ATM Machine. Just say no to redundant repetition.
Everyone wants to blame the kid driving but you’re wrong. It’s BMWs fault.
We all know BMW has been on the downslide for the better part of the last 2 decades. Well, they tripled down with the recent pig nose models and the universe has had enough. That’s right, this was the universe trying to take out 3 BMWs all at once and boy did it get close. So, so close. Next time Gadget, Neexxxxxt Tiiiiimmme.
This officer went to the Prometheus Academy of Running Away From Things
Now I know what “Prometheus Academy of Running Away From Things” is. Thanks for that.
I have a particular contempt for shitty parents who let their children drive cars like this because a rich brat with a sports car almost killed my brother. He was 8 at the time and sitting in the backseat of our Reliant wagon. While my mom was stopped to make a left turn, a 16 year old boy driving the new 5.0 Fox body Mustang his parents just bought him slammed into them. The collision was hard enough to buckle the Reliant’s body and push the rear axle into the cargo area. The backseat was pushed out of position, but thankfully not far enough to make my brother hit his head or snap his neck. He came out shaken up but otherwise ok. My mom’s shoulder got fucked up from the energy of the crash and still causes her pain over 30 years later.
The Mustang driver and his girlfriend also made a lucky escape as the Reliant’s rear bumper nearly came through their windshield. Of course the stupid kid was hooning the car to try and impress his girlfriend’s pants off. What the hell else would you expect a 16 year old to do with a car like that? I’d like to think his parents realized how stupid it was to give him that car and made sure he only had access to something he could control from then on. Unfortunately, it’s just as likely that they bought him another sports car because he was sad about wrecking his new Mustang. Money can’t fix stupidity.
I graduated in 1990. I had a classmate whose father was a very successful insurance agent in town. He drove a maybe two- or three-year-old Bronco that was loaded – nice truck. He wrecked it screwing around after the football game on Friday night. So what did his father the insurance agent – of all people – replace it with for him? An equally like new, equally loaded red Corvette C4 convertible. All I could do was chuckle and shake my head. And it’s not like I had the cleanest driving record by the time I graduated high school either, but yikes, man. Some things are an obvious bad idea, even to a 17-year-old boy.
Then there was the weekend night I came over the hill and down into the cul-de-sac that I lived at the end of, and as my headlights got closer, I could see that a tree near the curb in my neighbor’s yard had fallen into the street. This was odd, because it was a clear, calm night. As I slowed down and approached the tree, which was lying right next to my driveway, a car I hadn’t seen backed out from under it – the 1978 Monte Carlo driven by the jackass delinquent douchebag that lived about five houses up the hill from me. The front of it was smashed into a perfect V clear back to the fan clutch.
It doesn’t even take much horsepower to get a teenage shit head into bigger trouble than he can handle. Ask a former teenage shithead. The 130 raging ponies generated by the 305 2-barrel in my 1978 Camaro were more than enough to get me into more stupid, expensive trouble than anyone needs to bring on themselves. I can’t imagine being that same dumbass with triple the power on tap. I might, say, smash into a cop on the side of the highway while traveling at triple digit speeds. That’s not good.
up here in frozen western NY it’s right of passage for teen drivers to drive shitty cars because why? winter beaters. they get to drive their parents winter cars all yr long. BUT seriously so glad no one was seriously hurt and that asshats parents should at the very least be punished for “Chad” parenting
> at a high rate of speed
Can we banish that dumb cop-ese phrase from a car site? It doesn’t mean what cops think it means. A rate of speed, if it means anything, means acceleration
Just say at high speed. Or, you know, fast as balls.
It’s not the cops that are writing whatever you are reading.
Most police I know colloquially refer to it as speeding.
“Don’t give your kids cars they can’t handle. You’re putting a weapon in their hands and you’re doing them a disservice.”
Doing THEM a disservice? How about the disservice to everybody else within the ballistic distance of the death missile who had no choice in the matter but suffer the life altering, maybe life ending consequences of your shitty parenting.
I’m super happy for him of course, but that officer was more lucky than anything. I might be a little paranoid, but my parents drilled defensive driving into my brain before I ever turned a key in an ignition. I try to always know what my “out” is if somebody else effs up.
If I were a highway patrol officer whose job is to stand next to a highway for a living with distracted drivers going 65+ mph just feet away from me while I’m having a conversation through a car window with someone who may or may not be armed, I would have had a personal landing spot on the OTHER side of that railing visually picked out before I even set foot out of my patrol car. What a terrifying job.
That kid should get a pair of used shoes under ankle bracelets for transportation, 2 passengers, driver of other bmw and the officer all nearly killed.
I was a young dumb 17-year-old in Fairfax County once and got pulled over going 20+ over, but I only had a Honda Civic.
Now I have a BMW and every morning in the office parking garage park it next to a BMW, across from a BMW.
When I was in high school I got a VW bug with an automatic stick shift. There was no danger of me going over 60 mph.
I live in Alexandria, Va., and can attest to the fact that there are many young drivers foolishly driving way too much car way too fast all around the Beltway.
There are also many people aiming cars down the road who are doing everything but driving–eating, applying makeup, texting, watching funny cat videos, etc.
And TONS of them have “Student Driver” stickers, which I never noticed until recently.
I’m your neighbor, and on 95 yesterday I was doing 65 and was getting RUN OVER. I am NOT usually doing 65 and Prince William County and I have had several expensive conversations about this. But the definition of “Defensive Driving” has gotten a little confusing out there.
My all time favorite was when I lived in Portland, going through a stretch of Interstate 5 south of town known as the Terwilliger Curves. The geography there dictates sharp curves and hills, and the posted speed limit is 50 mph. So one morning I’m driving through the Curves on my way to work, and I see a Porsche Boxster in the far right lane that is all over the road – not speeding, but drifting side to side, occupying about one and a half lanes from a center point in the right lane. I gunned it to get around, so that if the driver did anything too erratic, it would happen behind me and not in front of me. I just had to get a glimpse of the driver as I went by, to see if either someone was having a medical event behind the wheel, or someone was just driving like a jackass.
Imagine my surprise when I saw a perfectly healthy looking, awake, and alert 40-something woman, definitely old enough to know better, typing on her phone with both thumbs while STEERING WITH HER WRISTS. On a sharply curved three lane wide freeway up a mountainside.
And it is pickup drivers that are the deuschbags! Sorry it is the small weiners in small fast cars complex.
Calm down. Have a taco man.
I will credit you for (intentionally or not) getting close to a “Deutschbags” pun.
Bro was in full Deutsche-Tasche mode here. Yikes.
The humor in the fact that it’s a speeding BMW hitting a BMW that’s being pulled over for speeding and narrowly missing another BMW in the process is not lost on me.
If that kid gets a new car anytime soon, I’d recommend a Nissan Versa with a CVT.
I can’t believe I just recommended a Nissan Versa with a CVT sincerely.
Personally, I’d suggest a 240D.
Until out of college
What did the brick do to deserve being driven by this yobbo? That’s way too nice a classic to waste on this teenage meatbag. CVT Versa on trays to learn about oversteer.
A Hyundai Accent with 100k (if you can find one) is still too good a car for that idiot.
Apparently your idea of punishment is different than mine.
That sounds awesome!
A 240D at seventeen?
Sign me up.
Much better. A 240D is slower than a tax refund, but it’s cool. A Versa would make the kid hate cars and driving and motorized transportation altogether. He might not even ever take a train again.
Fairfax County is the 5th richest county in the country, and it’s next to 1,2, and 8. Daddy will not buying a Nissan Versa.
I know, sadly.
That kid has probably already posted his dash footage to TikTok for hits, bragging to his friends and laughing about it.
He’ll probably get something bigger like an EscaladeV so mom and dad “feel he’s safe”.
Oooh, didn’t even think. You’re absolutely right.
This hits brutally close to the bone for me. When I was in high school a kid I knew crashed and flipped his dad’s work truck, scattering his friends (who were riding in the back) across the highway. One suffered a life-altering spinal injury, the others were incredibly lucky to get away with a few broken bones and some nasty scarring from the road rash.
As soon as the kid got his license back (I think it was a 6-month driving ban), he was driving a brand new M3, bragging about how it cornered better than “anything else he had ever driven”. Hearing him say that made me physically sick, and to be honest also probably made me a much better driver than I otherwise would be.
Damn!
Anytime soon is way too soon.
Username checks out.
I agree.
Considering the reckless driving I observed as a passenger in K-Cars, Cavaliers, Sunbird/Sunfires, and other 80’s/90’s econoboxes that had even less performance than a modern Nissan Versa, I’m not sure that ensures the kid doesn’t do this again.
The most dangerous driver in my entire high school drove a Chevrolet Celebrity. He was a menace.
Sorry about that. You give me a 2.8 liter V6 at 16 years old, I couldn’t help myself.
Wait, it was a Pontiac 6000. And I was a menace in it.
doing 70 in a 50 is reckless driving in VA, court date and all. i wonder if they will have their hearings back to back…
Cop was kind of a dick to follow though with ticketing the 7-series driver. I know Virginia’s enforcement of speed limits borders on Judge Dredd levels of compliance, but c’mon! The guy’s car was just side-swiped and will be in the body shop for a month with damage to both sides. Isn’t that punishment enough?
Mega-City One Municipal Code violations:
and, most egregiously. . . .
Looking at the angle on the rear wheels of the ticketed BMW after the collision, it’ll take more than a bodyshop to put it right. My guess would be a total insurance write-off.
(And I’m sure some arsehole at the insurance company will be trying to work out a way to deny payment right this minute.)
For reals. At that point, yikes buddy, just give him a warning. (Especially if the pulled over has to pay out for any injuries caused by the Deutsche-bag that hit him.)
Pigs gonna pig.
User name checks out
Thanks for the feedback.
“Yo Dawg…”
I refuse to accept that Xzibit wasn’t involved in this…
I was such a complete asshole idiot driver at 17 and anyone who lets the average male that age drive a high powered vehicle unsupervised is a complete asshole too.
I suspect he hit the brakes while on the grass, but alas, no traction.
Hopefully it’s his dads car.
Hopefully his dad’s cocaine is in the glove box.
There are teens I’d trust with that much power and they’re all kids who basically learned how to drive at the race track.
That should be the deal: you wanna have a fast first car? Okay, here’s where we’re farting around every weekend. It’s fun, buuuuuut also a lot of time spent driving around in funny-shaped circles with old dudes.
You can see the rear wheels become the “front” wheels (relative to direction) and alter the car’s line slightly, causing it to cut across the highway at a sharper angle than inertia alone would have carried it. A shallower entry may have head-on’d someone, who knows. It certainly could have been much worse, and very nearly was. Be safe!
First of all, that cop is amazingly alert to start running when he did. I would have died for sure. Second, I agree about the last point in the article. Sometimes I miss my old Kia Spectra. It only had 126hp, but it was manual, and I could drive like I was Steve McQueen from zero to the speed limit, but to anyone outside the car, it would just look like a guy driving along normally. You don’t need a lot of power to have fun!
For the life of me I do NOT understand why he didn’t dive over the rail. The odds of outrunning a 120 mph car are…not good.
I thought the same thing, but we have the advantage of not being in an adrenaline fuelled ACT NOW OR DIE situation, and a different vantage point.
Dude is lucky for sure, but my thought is, maybe the ground over the rail is a steeper drop-off than the dashcam shows.
I refuse to believe a Spectra ever reached a speed limit.
Any speed limit.
Here’s a crazy idea, and one that’s been mentioned before, but maybe, just maybe, cops pulling cars over on busy or highspeed roadways isn’t the best of ideas?
Yeah this was all the cops fault. Defund the police let teenagers destroy downtown Chicago, let the homeless steal all of downtown San Fransisco it will all be fine let the rich pay for it all. (Sarcasm)
Little worried about those taco trucks on every block, Dave?
Or, you know, they could send the speeding tickets in the mail?
“Or, you know, they could send the speeding tickets in the mail?”
Or perhaps pulling over speeders is what prevents exactly what we saw here. Maybe if that kid had been pulled over before s/he lost control none of this would have happened.
But (as shown here) roadside stops are one of the more dangerous things a cop can do – so at least over my way, they hesitate to pull anyone over who isn’t an absolute menace. And there’s no way to know when the kid hit 130 – would he have been pulled over in time?
It’s a really unsatisfying answer but if people are determined to be idiots in cars, it’s hard to stop them. Especially when it’s not their money.
We don’t know how fast the pulled over Bimmer was going. There’s a difference between stopping someone going 10 over for the sweet, sweet revenue and stopping a legitimately dangerous driver going 120.
We do, actually. It’s in the article above:
“… police officer who has a BMW 7-series pulled over. According to the local NBC affiliate, that car’s driver was ticketed for doing 70 mph in a 50 mph zone.”
That would work for fines but a speeding/reckless driver wouldn’t get points on their license since there’s no way to ID the driver, or to even know if the driver was legitimate (licensed, properly registered and insured).
Dave’s comments are always well thought out and great to read. (Sarcasm)
And yet so much of the time I see the officer get mad and suspicious if the driver attempts to pull over anywhere slightly safer such as an off ramp or lit up gas station.
I attempt to do this when I can. In the city it’s not too hard because there’s usually exits every mile but out where they were it could be several miles. Much better for the officer to follow the speeder until an exit is coming up and then hit the lights.
1st, that officer should have jumped over the guardrail, but I’m glad he happened to be in the exact right spot. 2nd, I saw no brake lights after the car spun out. I don’t know about anyone else, but my first reaction when I’m out of control is to hit the brake, and not just let it go
No kidding on the “exact right spot”. Just a bit slower or faster and he wouldn’t be here.
The cumulative rectal torque index of the participants must be off the charts.
As my dad says, “pucker factor of 10.”
First, that officers guardian angel was working overtime.
Second, 1.5psi low tire pressure will get you every time. 🙂
I came straight down to the comments to see if we were still doing the 1.5psi jokes on this site 🙂
I felt like it was obligatory like the “yeah but can it run Crysis” comments on PC sites.
Isn’t the new version of that “yeah but can it run Microsoft Flight Simulator?” lol
I honestly could not say as Flight Simulator never appealed to me, though I have a life long friend who has loved it since the Commodore 64 days. Now put me in Falcon or F/A 18 Interceptor on the Commodore Amiga or Gunship on C=64 through PC and I’ll happily blow things up. Especially Gunship because I would pretend it was Airwolf and I was Stringfellow Hawke.
B-56 Bomber (?) was the first one I remember. Don’t remember which of the early systems it was on.
Or, “does it have HDMI”.