You know the old pit trap gag? The one where a character falls into a hole in the ground as a little bit of slapstick, it’s a classic. Sinkholes are a bit like that, only less funny approximately 99.7 percent of the time. Videos of cars falling into sinkholes aren’t unheard-of, but a car driving extremely slowly into an incredibly well-marked sinkhole is an exceptionally rare thing to capture.
See, if you’ve driven a modern car, it likely came equipped with a thing called a windshield, which is a big piece of glass that lets you see where you’re going. However, despite this Nissan having a windshield, its driver seemed to suffer a lapse in looking where they were going, with Looney Tunes-esque results.
This incident happened on March 14 on the home turf of the dashcam, Russia. More specifically, it happened in Izhevsk, and judging by the video clip uploaded to the Mildly Bad Drivers subreddit, it seems that the sinkhole was met with a reasonably sensible response. Traffic cones? Check. Warning triangle? Check. Nissan Qashqai, sold in America as the Rogue Sport, turning right from a main road directly into the path of the sinkhole? Oh, crap.
Fascinatingly, the Qashqai driver isn’t moving terribly quickly, takes four full seconds to complete their right turn, and even manages to avoid the sign in the road warning of the sinkhole. Avoidance of the road sign suggests they must’ve seen the gaping hole in the road, which makes the event that’s about to follow even more bizarre.
Fantastic situational awareness
byu/VelvetSnuggle inMildlyBadDrivers
Ah, yeah, that’s not obstacle avoidance. If we’re being charitable, that’s passive obstacle detection. The Nissan driver proceeds, the front left corner of the crossover utility vehicle slowly drops into the sinkhole, and that’s one normal day turned embarrassing in a matter of seconds. As Russian news reports, nobody was hurt, but I’d imagine the ego of the driver was somewhat bruised.
I just can’t help but wonder exactly what went through the driver’s head to end up in this predicament. Did they expect to straddle the sinkhole? Did they not think it was that deep? They clearly saw something in order to not hit that sign, but like, what led them to proceed? Perhaps that great unknown is why I keep watching this clip on loop. Anyway, I guess the moral of the story here is to keep your eyes on the road and avoid overestimating the clearance and capability of your vehicle. But seriously, does anyone have popcorn?
Top graphic credit: Reddit/velvetsnuggle
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I do have to wonder who put the warning triangle out there and left it off to the side so it wouldn’t actually block access to the hole but would block access to the uncollapsed part of the road.
I once had a close call after construction re-routed a road I used to drive a lot. They left basically no signs on the old road (which still existed far enough to get to a house that was on it) and had a code brown moment when I realized that the road now ended in a 3 foot drop with no indication whatsoever. This was at night too so it was not easy to see that part of the road had been torn out until you were pretty close. At that point it still looked like it continued.
They now have signs there, but I’m pretty sure I saw tire tracks going over the edge before those were put up, and I sympathize with those people.
Dude. They didn’t hit the sign or the cones. Complete success.
Everybody knows that signs and cones delineate where you are supposed to drive and where you’re not. The sign was the right boundary, the cones the left boundary. They went right down the middle of the marked lane, perfectly, exactly as they were supposed to.
The idiot here is whoever set out the sign and cones to create a lane that led right to a giant car-eating hole.
This being Russia, I really wanted sound, just to hear the mildly interested grunt from the driver of the camera car.
Every Nissan has to start its journey to claim a missing bumper, dented fender(s), and two spare tires somewhere. This is the first step – wish the driver well in their quest!
This Russian Nissan identifies as American and is just performing it’s normal morning routine before the roller derby
There’s nada Lada reason for this…
Thought it was a puddle? Lol
I just can’t help but wonder exactly what went through the driver’s head to end up in this predicament.
Vodka. Vodka went through their head.
Ha! The potato strikes again!
That Nissan went Rogue just for Kicks and Sent(ra) the driver right into the sinkhole for Maxima(l) laughs. Altima(ke) a point, I guess. Perhaps a Pathfinder or scouting Patrol could have found a better route. One must also consider that since it’s a “sink”hole an Armada would have been a more appropriate victim. Ariya getting my point? Or am I just reaching a new Frontier in bad punnery?
Leaf it alone before we get 510 Stanzas of this.
Cotd
I juke(d) Silvia yesterday while she was looking at the Skyline…all it was in S-Cargo position or vise Versa
Think about it! Russia! Vodka! Also the pictures don’t show view from driving side. May look like a puddle instead of a hole. The signage may not be clear. The camera person may have removed signage from the approach to get clicks. Have we not learned to distrust scam Russian videos? It might have been set up clearly no damage.
They knew they weren’t supposed to hit the cones or the sign, so mission accomplished.
I’m not sure what the used-car import situation into still-sanctioned-last-time-I-checked Russia is, but there’s a nonzero chance that was the Rogue Sport I had as a rental in Florida last year. In that case whatever was done to the suspension might be an improvement.
I’ve blanked out Ghosn-era Nissan to such an extent that I forgot the Rogue Sport ever existed and freaked out when I saw one the other day because I thought someone imported a Qashqai.
Ah Russian drivers. Not that we don’t have our share of bad ones but they are quite … special. I watch their crash videos from time to time and I swear 99% of time they just drive into one another on purpose, no joke.
You can’t park there, sir!
“Hey, mind your own biz – OH shit!”
Where do you suppose a Nissan parks?
What else do you do with a Nissan?
It’s Russia, probably an attempt at insurance fraud.
Big Talltima Energy.
This reminds me of people who blindly drive into lakes or rivers because the GPS tells them to. My favorite is here in Colorado there are always folks who follow the GPS in their Corolla or box truck onto dirt and rock mountain passes that are usually strewn with signs warning them that a lifted 4×4 is required. Somehow, even though they see all of the signs, along with the obvious road conditions, they still follow through.
The geologic pedantic in me gets to come out here – that is more accurately termed a collapse, and not a sinkhole. Colloquially, yeah, everyone is going to call that a sinkhole, but given it is in the middle of a street, with the likely presence of water lines and mains around, it was likely formed via a man-made issue and not natural geologic processes.
i’m pretty sure pedantry is mostly welcome ’round these parts. that distinction is nice to know!