Russians, its seems, do everything a little bit crazier .
Even road rage.
Russian roads are extremely dangerous, by any civilized standard. Even though the country has only one car for every six in the U.S., Russians still manage to kill each other, and themselves, on the roads at almost twice the rate of Americans — 25.2 traffic deaths per 100,000 people in 2007 stats, compared to “only” 13.9 per 100,000 in the United States.
So there you have it. Empirical evidence that Russian drivers are crazy. Even Russia’s own former president, Dimitry Medvedev , placed blame for Russia’s high fatality rate on the “undisciplined, criminally careless behavior of our drivers.”
But if that’s not enough, this road rage video will provide a little more proof.
Assuming the time stamp on the video is accurate, this video was shot on Sunday, May 11. Many Russians use dashboard cameras in their vehicles to protect themselves against insurance fraud, apparently a pretty big problem over there, as well as against the institutionalized corruption of Russia’s traffic cops.
But the prevalence of dash cam videos plus the inherent insanity of Russian drivers has produced a whole new internet phenomenon: The Crazy Russian Driver YouTube Video.
This one falls into that category, but the twist is that, for once, an obnoxious jerk gets some comeuppance. This driver apparently feels he’s been cut off by the driver of the car from which this dash-can video was taken, so he speeds up and deliberately shifts into the lane ahead of the first driver.
But he’s going just a little too fast. Watch what happens.
The entire video is below. There have been no reports so far surfacing of injuries from this example of Russian road rage craziness. Unfortunately, the poor guy who was just getting out of his car is an innocent victim. Though you could also ask — why is he opening his door into onrushing traffic?
Watch the entire road rage video below. Note the reaction of the drivers in the first car. Not exactly empathetic.