Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Motorways - our fastest,

widest, and busiest roads.

But when risks are taken...

That's one hell of a near miss.

...laws are broken...

People are just far too impatient.

...or sheer lunacy takes over... Oh!

One of the most dangerous clips I've probably seen.

...motorways become the stuff of nightmares.

Eeh!

You just can't fix stupid.

It's just dangerous. All-out dangerous.

In this series, we'll reveal the shocking,

jaw-dropping,

and just plain frightening incidents

all captured on dashcam by the public in the UK,

and across the world,

where incredibly, no-one was fatally injured.

You can hit the brakes as hard as you want.

That force is pushing you forward.

We'll show you our panel of drivers and driving experts

reacting to the mayhem in real time.

Jeez.

Before they reveal what they think really went wrong...

Some of them have completely failed to look at what's in front of them.

...why they think things ended in catastrophe...

The driver's just going too fast for the conditions.

...and why almost all of this chaos

was almost completely and utterly avoidable.

It's a recipe for disaster.

It's like bumper cars.

This is how not to drive.

Coming "P.

Our dashcamers capture car chaos from across the globe.

From terrifying tailgating...

...and exiting errors...

It's highly dangerous if you get it wrong.

...to loose loads turning the motorway

into a scene from a computer game.

That just opened up, like, a can of sardines.

First up, tailgating.

For the uninitiated,

tailgating is driving so close to the car in front,

you can not only read the bumper stickers,

but you can also watch whatever the kids are streaming

on the back seat, too.

It's not big, it's not clever, and ultimately,

it won't get you home any quicker,

as these next unfortunate drivers will painfully illustrate.

We're in the US, in Oklahoma,

home to the cowboy, and also this idiot in the black truck.

Wow. Now, that is close, innit.

He's not going to be able to stop in any distance there.

We just say, "Why don't you open t'boot and get in?"

CHUCKLES

But getting into the boot doesn't appear to be top

of the black truck's priority list.

And the driver with the dashcam senses danger.

If I saw that in police car, when he's following directly behind,

he'd have been pulled over straight away.

People do bully other drivers to get 'em out of way.

The car isn't moving out of the overtaking lane,

and the truck doesn't appear to be backing down.

The driver of the truck

is very clearly signalling

to the driver of the car

that he wants to get into that space.

If he's that far up behind you,

it's just dangerous for both drivers.

Is he actually pushing him out of way?

What the hell?

Is that what it's like in Oklahoma? I don't want to go.

Ha! It looks violent.

That's a very hostile, aggressive, tailgating situation.

And it's about to get much worse.

You can see the brake lights coming on a few times

where he appears to have gone for further acceleration,

made contact with the vehicle.

It's just shocking, is that.

He just wants to get past so he's smashed him out of way.

That's not a road traffic collision, that's like an assault.

He's used his vehicle as a weapon.

As a result of his actions,

the driver was charged with two counts of assault and battery

with a dangerous weapon,

and one count of leaving the scene of an accident.

You can see there's only a bit of grass between both carriageways,

so the car could have gone into the other lane,

across the grass into the other carriageway.

One of the most dangerous clips I've probably seen, is that.

You and me both.

Staying in America, we're off to Arizona now,

which is home to something they don't mention in the guidebooks -

this five-lane highway

that's one of the deadliest roads in the States.

You've got quite a complex traffic environment here.

He's kind of boxed in, isn't he?

The green car in the middle lane

is about to start tailgating the car in front,

and we all know this isn't gonna end well.

So, it's driving too close for the speed and the conditions.

So whilst it might be quite acceptable to drive relatively close

to the vehicle in front at 20 miles an hour,

you wouldn't want to be at the same distance at 70 miles an hour.

What you want to do is,

open up the distance of you and the car in front.

You want to be proactive, not reactive.

Oh.

Oh, God.

You can see lane three locked up

and you see skid come on, don't you?

Skid and straight out.

The tailgating green car appears to switch lanes

to avoid the breaking truck in front,

but rather unfortunately,

it steers right into the path of an oncoming people carrier.

Ouch.

At that speed, once your wheels turn and you start skidding,

there's not probably a lot he can do there.

He's just anchored on brakes. It's sheer panic.

You've locked up because you're driving too close

to the vehicle in front, so literally car's out of control

and straight into left-hand lane anyway.

So you've got five vehicles involved in a collision

just for following someone too close and tailgating.

If he'd left more space,

he would have had more time

and all of the other elements would not have come together.

Miraculously, the shamefaced driver of the green car

manages to walk away,

presumably to explain himself to the other drivers.

But if that incident had happened when Ben was on shift,

he'd have thrown the book at him.

Driving without clue care and attention,

causing an annoyance to another road user,

which is driving too close,

or trying to intimidate him out of way.

That's a separate of fence in itself.

Ancl when he goes straight into the left-hand lane,

he's not checked his lane, straight across,

ancl again, that's dangerous driving all clay long.

If he's wanting to get somewhere fast,

he's not doing that now, is he?

Our next tailgating tale takes place in the overtaking lane

on the M5 motorway in Sydney, Australia.

So, I'm trying to keep my eye on this guy in the right lane.

Normally, you should be driving on the left hand lane,

unless you're overtaking.

But he's not reacting to the car in front going quite slow,

speeding up for no reason.

The driver to the rear, you can see he's actually moved out

in a staggered position, almost.

Which is something that is clone to show presence on the road.

It's something that they do in police driving,

cos then you're more visible in the mirror.

People are more likely to notice that you're there

and you're trying to get past them, so it looks to me like this vehicle

has been trying to get that vehicle in front to move out of the way

so that they can do the overtake.

Anyone that is being tailgated, you're constantly looking

in your mirror thinking, "How close is this guy?"

Then what you might not do

is you might not see the hazards in front of you.

In a classic example of Aussie grit and determination,

neither appears to be backing down.

The car in front isn't budging

and the car behind isn't taking no for an answer.

Oh, my gosh.

So he's just lost control.

He's probably touched his brakes and lost control of it.

It's hard to tell what the vehicle in front actually did

and what their motivation was for doing it.

I mean, clearly they decreased their speed,

but why, I'm not sure.

Thankfully, Drjulie is on hand with the perfect prescription

to help prevent a nasty case of tailgating.

In this country, we talk about the two second rule on motorways

and faster roads, so if we take a reference point

like a road sign or a lamp post or something and count two seconds

from the point where the vehicle in front passes it,

that's where our following distance should be.

We've got a saying that we say when we're doing lessons,

and it's, "Only a fool breaks the two second rule."

In a nutshell, keep your distance, keep it nice and safe.

Coming "P.

We'll see what happens when the wheels fall off a truck,

Elon Musk gets himself in trouble again,

this time with a rocket launch...

MAN SCREAMS

...and find out what happens... Oh, my God.

...when the satnav sends you the wrong way.

NARRATOR: In my driving rule book,

number one is keeping your eyes on the road.

That means no searching for the chip you dropped in the foot well,

no liking your mate's Becky's TikTok,

and absolutely no gazing up at Elon Musk's enormous rocket

lighting up the California sky.

Let me explain.

It's Friday evening on the I-10 highway,

as Elon Musk's Falcon 9 rocket lifts off into the night sky.

It's fairly busy traffic.

Four lane highway, or interstate, as they call them in America,

and there is something distinctly odd in the sky.

I think everybody's eyes are gonna be on that

as soon as they notice it because, well, wouldn't yours be?

I'll be honest, I can't take my eyes off it either.

If I was a passenger, I'd have probably tweeted about it.

That's human nature right there.

They're all looking up in the sky

cos that's not something you see everyday.

But look at everybody braking cos they've caught sight of this thing.

If you're in this situation, always watch the road.

You've got to look at what's happening in front of you.

It's Elon Musk's fancy new rocket! I've already said that!

Are you distracted by it, too? Careful, you're driving.

An unexpected distraction

can take up important cognitive resources.

The psychological belief is

that there is no such thing as divided attention,

there is only attentional switching between one thing and another.

MAN SHOUTS

Damn right, he's not.

He's too busy looking at the massive distracting rocket in the sky.

Somebody behind him came piling in because everybody else

has slowed down to look at the rocket falling apart,

and that white car ended up

being a little bit of a pinball in the middle.

Big damage on the rear.

Bish, bash, bosh, at least two written-off cars,

and I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few more behind.

But amazingly, our man with the dashcam avoids the carnage.

He's maintained safe space and time.

He was keeping an eye on the traffic.

It appears that some of them

have completely failed to look at what's in front of them.

They were distracted.

The lesson here is - eyes on the road, no matter what.

Even if it's something as out of this world as a launching rocket.

Staying in America, we find ourselves driving along the highway,

and we're about to hit yet another situation

where keeping your eyes on the road is absolutely vital.

Even if you are on roads that you know really well,

you still have to pay full attention.

You just can't predict what's gonna happen.

On Georgia's I-75 motorway,

the driver and passenger in this car

have noticed the lorry ahead has a set of smoking tyres,

and they're thinking about reporting it to the cops.

WOMAN GASPS

That really wasn't good, was it?

You've got the large goods vehicle

losing an axle.

The twin wheels have come off together.

Incredibly dangerous scenario,

to lose a set of axle wheels like that.

The driver in the wheel's path reacts at lightning speed.

The car in front of there, look,

you can see him braking to avoid the wheel.

He's clone what anybody else would have clone.

But the hefty twin wheel's taken on a life of its own.

I ain't being funny,

but if you've got a wheel coming off at that speed,

and it hits you, those wheels are heavy as hell.

What happens next is a classic example

of why you should keep your eyes on the road.

WOMAN SCREAMS

Eeh. Bloody Norah!

I'm gonna assume the female who screamed,

she's witnessed the stationary vehicle in lane three.

The driver, I wouldn't have said has seen this issue,

and that's why they have failed to brake.

I was doing it myself,

I was watching where that tyre was rolling.

This is where lack of concentration comes in.

There you go, there's an accident. Look at that.

Shards flying.

The absolute moral of the story

is just never take your eyes off the road.

And if you're a truck driver,

Hayley has got some additional words of advice for you.

As a driver, your responsibility is to make sure

that your vehicle is fit for the road.

That's why you have your walk around, your daily check.

Ancl if you don't do them...

you shouldn't be on the road!

And I, for one, wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of Hayley,

so do your daily checks, truckers.

Back in Britain now,

and it's time for distracted driving of a different kind.

White van men get a lot of stick, and I'll be honest,

this next clip isn't really gonna help their reputations.

But, obviously, it's wrong to stereotype.

Cruising amongst the traffic in North Yorkshire

on a busy main road is a commercial van driver

who's not entirely focused on the job.

He appears to have something to celebrate.

Perhaps it's the pink interior.

What's he doing?

Is that, like, champagne?

No, that's ridiculous.

Oh, he's having a party for one, isn't he?

In his pink palace there.

It's unknown if this bottle of booze

is the driver's first alcoholic drink of the day.

You could have a milkshake or something like that

and still not be in proper control of your car.

Eating a sandwich, smoking a cigarette.

Talking of cigarettes...

Roll a cig as well. What else do you want to do behind wheel?

Read a paper, comb your hair, make a pizza.

And the driver now has both hands off the wheel

as he makes his roll-up while still moving

at what looks like a considerable speed.

Oh, there we go. Yeah, wow.

Mobile phone as well. Take a selfie? There you go, lad.

And a text.

Get on Twitter, get summat tweeted.

He's driving with no hands on the wheel.

But the phone is going to present a massive risk.

This is somebody who does not have the right mindset

to be driving a large heavy vehicle.

Ancl that's frightening.

As he stares at his screen, oblivious to the road ahead,

drivers in the opposite lane pass just inches away.

Disgusting. I'd be dishing tickets out like confetti on that lad.

Obviously lad just don't give a toss, does he?

He needs taking off road and prosecuting.

The dashcam in the cab of the van was recording every minute

of the driver's impromptu celebration,

and once his boss took a look at the footage,

the party was over.

People kind of acclimatise to the fact that there are cab cams.

I suppose they're confident that most of the time,

nobody's actually watching.

It really annoys me, especially now I'm not in the job,

cos I see it all the time.

Ancl cos I see it all the time,

I know what I used to feel like when I used to see it on duty.

The man was promptly sacked from his job,

reported to the cops,

and after pleading guilty to dangerous driving,

his licence was revoked

and he spent eight months in the nick.

I don't think eight months in prison is harsh at all. Send him down.

Proof, if proof were needed,

that the police take distracted driving extremely seriously.

And if you're watching this on a mobile on the M6,

pull over, watch it at home. Have you learnt nothing?!

People out there that are doing it, you will be caught,

so keep both hands on the wheel and don't do owt silly.

Now, hands up if you've ever missed your exit

whilst driving on a motorway.

Whether it was the broken satnav,

the kids in the back distracting you,

or a particular engrossing episode of Pop master,

we've all done it.

But there are some drivers who just won't accept defeat.

On this motorway in Poland,

a dashcam on a car in lane one

shows an exit slip road to the right.

So you've got a perfectly good filter lane

appearing there on the right-hand side.

Now, any vehicle wishing to exit this motorway

should be in the right-hand slip road by now.

You've normally got markers,

so they normally count you down, three, two, one.

You normally see them.

You'd want to be starting to get into the closest lane for your exit.

If you look now, that silver car,

he's got his position, that's where he's exiting,

he's going off up into that slip road.

But this chancer in lane three

indicates right and pulls into lane one.

He's in serious danger of missing his exit.

If you look to the right hand side, it goes to a solid white line.

Solid white lines are Do Not Cross.

When they have realised how close they are,

instead of weighing it up as a rational decision,

"Do I carry on to the next junction and turn back?",

they just go, "Oh, oh, I can just make it",

and veer across and take the chance.

Don't try and do a late exit, you're not trained for it.

It's highly dangerous if you get it wrong.

And for those of you who are curious as to just how badly an exit can go,

cue this car.

What? Wham? PH“!

It has only just missed the barrier there.

That's ridiculous. He's driving up a wall, in't he?

That's late planning, not thinking about your exit.

Subaru driver needs a reward for keeping that on the road like that.

Amazingly, the driver of the silver Subaru

manages to get the car safely back onto the road

and both cars have a lucky escape.

But presumably he gestured his irritation through the window.

Over in China,

and a white car has taken the bold decision

to stop and straddle both lanes of a fast-moving expressway.

What on earth is he doing?

Like, stop! You're an absolute maniac!

The white car is trying to leave the carriageway,

left it extremely late.

Wow.

Ancl they're still not moving, are they?

You can see how far the chevrons are up the road for turning in.

They've left it to literally two foot.

They've stopped in the lane.

With the white car seemingly oblivious,

a heavy goods vehicle and a coach are approaching at speed.

Oh, my God.

This lorry has got no choice but to try and go round him or hit him.

Because he's swerved like this, the centre of gravity's shifted,

his wheels have lost traction with the road,

and it's caused his trailer to have completely turned over.

Having narrowly missed a collision with a lorry and a coach,

the white car is still a sitting duck.

The absolute plonker's decided to sit there on the motorway,

and he's still debating on which way to turn off.

But on the road, the situation is far from over.

BRAKES SCREECH

We see the articulated blue vehicle in the distance there.

So heavy on the brakes.

BRAKES SCREECH

Now he's slammed on his brake, which has caused him to jack-knife.

He's clone really well there to not hit that driver,

but the driver's just completely unaware

of what's gone on around him,

and that trailer is now sitting there, dicing with death

and waiting for someone to come and hit him or her.

I bet they drive off as well, don't they?

Yep.

That's like where I used to police, is that.

Just drive off. "Nowt's happened, officer. Didn't see owt."

Leaving the carnage in their wake,

the white car makes its way up the slip road

without a scratch on it.

Extremely lucky person,

and they're just gonna go about their day.

I mean, what a really stupid, stupid thing to do.

TYRES SCREECH

But there is a way of ensuring these sorts of dramatic exits

are on their way out.

These signposts are miles back, telling you your exit's coming up,

informing you of what's going on.

Plan the exit, look at the road signs beforehand.

Make sure you know where it's coming off

and it's safe to do so, indicate and pull off slowly.

You don't wanna leave it last minute

because everyone's travelling at high speeds.

Now, if you find yourself in a situation where, unfortunately,

you have missed your turning, it happens to us all,

you get your little backside, and you go up that motorway,

and you turn off at the next turning.

It's a no-brainer if you're weighing up ten minutes

or having an accident.

Coming up...

Undertaking ends in disaster.

Looks like it's out of control already coming in there.

And heavy rain sends drivers into a spin.

SHE HISSES Ooh...

NARRATOR: Let's be honest.

Most of us consider the lanes of the motorway

shorthand for how quickly you want to get somewhere.

The right-hand, or fast lane, for places I really, really want to go

and the slow lane for places I don't wanna go,

like the in-laws' or IKEA.

But actually, the left-hand lane is meant for regular driving

and the other two lanes are simply there for overtaking,

and one thing they are definitely not for is undertaking.

In Dorset, we're about to witness two undertakes

and learn a valuable lesson as to just how badly this can go.

On the dual carriageway near Poole,

a car with a dashcam is travelling in the overtaking lane.

The car on the right-hand side,

he is making progress and overtaking cars,

so the best thing for him to do at this point is stay in this lane.

But to the driver of the dark car,

it appears the dashcam vehicle isn't going fast enough,

and they make their move.

This car on the left,

there's no need for him to now start speeding up,

so that there is the first fault, he's now undertaking him.

The naughty dark car gets away with the undertake.

There's reasons why you don't undertake.

People are not gonna be expecting you

to be swinging out from the left-hand lane.

There should be no reason to undertake

unless the cars in the right-hand lane are held

either at traffic lights or for a slow-moving vehicle.

But the dashcam driver's day is about to get an awful lot worse.

Oh! Ooh...

I just didn't see that coming.

It just goes to show, doesn't it? You're not paying attention,

you don't realise how quickly the car in front of you

is closing the gap.

But this coming up isn't even a gap.

It's just like forcing their way through.

So, he's seen the first car do it,

and then the Mini's probably thinking now,

"Oh, I can copy that. I can do that as well."

But if you're looking now,

the car on his right side and that car on the left,

the gap's getting smaller and smaller.

So this Mini now has run out of space, run out of time.

You can see it looks like it's out of control

already coming in there.

It's just literally... It's gone for a gap,

and it must have thought, "Oh, I've overcooked it."

Fortunately, the driver was wearing a seat belt

and no-one was seriously injured.

That car clone about ten cartwheels in the air there,

so he was really lucky.

Well, we always treat people

that have been in cars that have rolled

as it's serious until proved otherwise

because you never know if they've got a spinal or neck injury.

It's only when they're checked by ambulance and fire crews

and found to be OK they get chastised by the police.

When it came to the crash,

they were lucky to escape with minor injuries,

but they might not be as fortuitous when it comes to the law.

It's just cheek.

That's just like, "I'm just gonna have a go.

"Check me out. Look what I can do."

You could have waited, what? Another ten seconds?

Ancl then your journey's fine.

In this case, the driver of the Mini undertook

a National Driver Alertness Course as an alternative to prosecution.

On the A35 in Southampton,

the driver of this black car is about to learn

a very important lesson on undertaking the hard way.

The right-hand side there, you've got the black and white chevron,

so that, as a driver,

if you see that, you know you're coming to a bend.

The warning signs are there,

it's telling you you've got a sharp bend coming up.

You shouldn't be overtaking or undertaking.

Signs ignored, the driver ploughs on.

TYRES SCREECH

00f!

What the hell?

Indeed.

The black car loses control, hits the outside barrier

then vaults the central reservation.

Not only has he hit it at such a high speed,

he's flipped over the barrier.

Once you're flipping over that barrier,

you're now dealing with oncoming traffic at high speeds.

It's gone straight over on its roof.

That could be a serious collision.

Plus, he's just hit another vehicle as well.

Amazingly, this set of smashes doesn't result

in any serious injuries.

And let's give a special mention

to the drivers on the other side of the road.

If you look at the white van, the white van driver,

he's got his observations, he's got his planning,

and he's avoided a collision.

He's then got to rely on everyone coming behind him to do the same.

But whoever's driving that white van should be praised.

The black car driver, on the other hand,

needs to go to the very naughty step.

That driver's to blame for what's gone on,

so he's a bad boy in bad books.

It's just clue to one stupid action on the road.

So, for him to have survived that, it really is his lucky clay.

But the driver was only lucky

in terms of the lack of injuries he sustained.

He was later convicted of driving without due care and attention,

driving without any insurance, received six points on his licence,

along with a two-week driving ban and was fined almost £400.

And risky undertaking isn't just a British thing.

Over in China,

this white car in the right-hand lane of a main road

looks like it's about to pull over into the hard shoulder.

Yeah, there he goes.

But it just keeps going.

The white car has approached some bunched-up traffic

across both of the lanes of the dual carriageway

and has taken a position on the hard shoulder

to undertake that traffic.

In a hard shoulder, it's for breakdowns, emergencies, only.

Idiots like this, who think the hard shoulder's

an extra lane for overtaking on, or undertaking on in this case,

and unfortunately, I see this kind of behaviour all the time.

Some people are more easily frustrated,

feel impatient more quickly.

If you add additional pressure onto them,

that's when you're most likely to get the real high-risk behaviours

that are gonna lead to the incidents.

The driver in the white car is about to illustrate

yet another textbook example of the dangers of undertaking.

What's that white car doing?

I just don't know what they're trying to achieve.

Because if you look at the flow of traffic, it's not that busy.

It's just simply they just wanna get past that car.

The white car overcooks it, smashes into the silver car,

which forces the unfortunate and terrified occupants

onto the other side of the road.

Ooh...

Oh, clear.

Look what he's clone! It's not bumper cars.

This is how not to drive.

That's just absolutely ridiculous, is that.

And they've even stopped in the fast lane.

No excuse for that at all.

Miraculously, the silver car makes it to the other side

without hitting anyone else.

It's sent the innocent car into the opposing carriageway.

With the central reservation failing,

the white car's ridiculous undertaking manoeuvre

could have been disastrous.

This is what happens when you are an idiot on the road.

Ancl he's very lucky that no lives were lost.

GLASS SMASHING

Given the amount it rains in this country,

you could be forgiven for thinking we invented the stuff.

You might also have thought

we'd all be experts at driving in it.

Turns out driving in the rain isn't as easy

as Lewis Hamilton makes it appear.

In Lancashire, on the 22-mile-long M61,

a dashcam catches more than it bargained for.

I used to hate driving at night time when it were raining.

Visibility's just almost zero.

There's no motorway lighting.

You're just relying solely on the lights of your vehicle.

Driving like this is nerve-wracking.

The wet weather also means a whole new set of risks.

Sometimes, your vision alternates

between the windscreen and the distance in front.

Your car's sometimes steaming or misting up inside.

Visibility is incredibly poor,

so you can see the spray coming off the vehicle on the left,

which has then caused the vehicle we're watching to do a lane change.

Because that spray is so intense,

he's now thinking, "I can't see,

"and I wanna move out to improve vision."

At this point,

you'd like him to be looking further

than the spray pattern in front of him.

A poor car driver looks at the bumper in front looks at the floor,

a professional driver is looking far, far into the distance.

What's going on over there,

and how is that going to affect me in about 30 seconds?

You can see people putting the brakes on in the distance.

But why are they braking?

Because there's spray on the roads, you can't really see.

You see him slamming on his brakes there, something's going on.

SHE INHALES Ooh!

BRAKES SCREECH Ooh! Ooh, Jesus.

That's quite shocking, is that, innit?

Oh, God. That were horrible cos you're like...

That could've happened to anybody.

Fortunately, the car is empty,

but it looks like its lights have been damaged.

There's no headlights on that car.

And 'R's a Mack car as we“.

So, you know, visibility there is nil.

It looks like that accident's just happened

because there isn't really a lot of traffic build-up yet.

I mean, without seeing footage of that one,

you don't know whether he's lost control

because of excessive speed, aquaplaning or something like that.

As an advanced driver, I'm looking down the road

and I just couldn't see that happening.

There were nothing to indicate

there'd be a car sideways in lane three.

It's just one of those things.

You're just not aware until it's right upon you, and that's it.

So, that's a full-on impact at, say, 70 mile an hour.

Very, very rare, very dangerous,

and I'm glad no-one was hurt.

From the dangers of driving in the rain at night

to the hazards of driving through it in the daytime,

it's the M66 and what looks like a glorious summer's day

in the North West of England.

That's bad conditions straightaway, is that.

We have so many collisions when the weather changes.

When the rain comes down and it comes down bad,

you've always got those people that want to drive faster.

A silver car speeds past the driver with the dashcam.

I'd like to see the speed of the car he's overtaking.

He comes flying past on that right-hand side.

You should always drive to what the conditions are.

Just cos there's a speed limit, it doesn't mean it's a speed target.

Thing is with rain on a motorway,

it gives that shine, and it's like ice.

And you can't see where there's a deep puddle.

It just looks like it's just a flat bit of road.

Hammering along at that sort of pace

is gonna make your life very difficult

if you do hit a big puddle.

If you lose control at higher speed,

well, you're gonna have a bigger crash.

The silver car looks like it's starting to skid.

As he's tried to move lanes,

he's probably hit a puddle, and cos his steering wheel's moved,

it's gonna make the back end of his car

skid out to the opposite direction.

What you don't wanna be doing is steering too sudden.

So, the driver's straight across, caught the wheels, aquaplaned.

Aquaplaning.

That's what happens when the treads of your car's tyres

can't cope with the volume of water.

The tyre lifts up, skates along the top of the water,

you lose complete control of your vehicle,

and the simple thing to do is just ease off.

Let the tyres start to grip again.

What you mustn't do is slam on the brakes

because that's just gonna put you into a really bad situation.

But it's easier said than done

when the car you're driving is out of control.

Barriers are designed to bounce cars back off into the carriageway.

If the car had've gone across, it'd have gone into another vehicle

and there'd have been a head-on collision.

So, luckily, it saved their lives.

But after their lucky escape,

the driver and passenger seem to have scarpered.

Perhaps they were over a drink-drive limit,

perhaps it wasn't their car,

or perhaps the insurance wasn't quite as up-to-date

as it should have been.

There's lots of reasons why a driver might flee the scene.

If you do run off from a collision, it is a separate of fence.

You get prosecuted for failure to stop at a road traffic collision.

Whether the occupants simply fled to find a safer spot

or had something to hide,

the abandoned car needs to be taken off the road pronto.

If you're involved in a collision, don't run off.

Ring the emergency services, and they'll take care of it for you.

We are out there doing the job, and we are keeping the roads safe.

Over to Taiwan now, where their rainy season is like

a wet weekend in Skegness on steroids.

Wet weather can be really intimidating,

but you have to react to it in the right way.

The worst thing to do is to overreact.

In the left-hand lane of this wet motorway,

a white vehicle speeds past the car with the dashcam.

You can see the surface sprays

coming off the back of that white car.

Ancl there is where he goes into that puddle, it loses grip.

The white car then does its best impression of Bambi on ice.

Sometimes, you can be driving along, totally safely,

and you'll just hit a river of water running across the road,

and the car will snap on you.

The driver might have over-steered initially,

and now they need to fix it.

I'd really like to see how they reacted.

Did they put the steering input on? Did they slam on the brakes?

Did they try to accelerate through it?

This is the sort of thing in motor racing

that you have a data system for,

but on the road, you don't have that.

But the white car's pirouette isn't over.

Oh, wow!

Incredibly, the spinning white car has crossed three lanes of traffic,

passed at least two oncoming cars,

and then exits unscathed onto the slip road.

The driver of that white car had an amazing escape there.

The late Ken Block couldn't do something like this deliberately.

How he's not hit anyone?

And then exits like it was just part of the plan.

HE CHUCKLES

Now he's on the other side of the road. Oh, my days.

Unless he does drifting in his part-time job,

I don't actually know how he's done that 360

and not hit anything else.

Luck or judgement - either way, I think the driver will take it.

My amazement with this one is the control he's got of his skid.

It's something you can't teach.

The minute his back end started sliding to the left,

you can see he's spun his wheels the other way,

so what that does is tries to counter the skid.

So he's done really well there.

They've clearly had their lucky pants on,

which they'll presumably need to change at the next services.

Coming up...

It's time for load-littering lorries...

O-O-Oh, clear!

Oh, wow. HE LAUGHS

NARRATOR: Over a billion tonnes of products

are transported cross-country each year.

Whilst most reach their destination safely,

some unfortunate objects never arrive.

This is the tale of the ones that got away.

And for the record, Gran, that jumper you knitted,

the one I swear I never received, it's probably in one of these clips.

In Belgium, the dashcam of this unsuspecting motorist

captures this large box van

as it completes an overtaking manoeuvre.

The light goods is doing a lane change.

He's made that manoeuvre to allow the cars to come through.

But there's roadworthy, and then there's "road-dodgy".

He's going at some speed there.

He's proper necking it down there, isn't he?

You see, these box lorries are quite flimsy, really, some of them,

especially older ones, the way they're put together.

I've seen some box lorries in my time, a mess,

and they just look like they've been stapled together.

Staples or no staples, the box van continues its journey

on the right-hand lane of the motorway.

You can see something flying off the top of the lorry there.

So that's just caused an opening for air to get into.

You've got the load bouncing up and down.

The driver of the van is probably unaware

that something has just flown off the top of the van

as the car looks to overtake.

Well, you can see it going, going, going.

Ooh!

Oh, wow. HE LAUGHS

The whole truck's gone, hasn't it?

He's still going. HE CH UCKLES

Ancl it's gone with some force, hasn't it?

Because it's created a lot of damage on the car.

I haven't seen that before. That's quite rare, is that.

The side curtain of the box van has ripped off

and flown directly into the windscreen of the car.

A sidewall of a lorry don't just come off like that.

There's got to be a defect somewhere.

You've got small amounts of rivets

going down the side of the vehicle, holding this vehicle together.

Over time, it's twisting, it's moving,

until the point where the rivet

is no longer holding the panel together.

Once that air gets behind there, it just peels that thing open.

That's just opened up like a can of sardines.

That lorry's had it...

and so has that car, unfortunately.

Thankfully, it isn't curtains for the driver,

but he is able to bring his car to a halt on the hard shoulder.

Over in China, and this driver is having a moment of indecision.

Do they want to pull over to get a McMuffin

or carry on and stick to the diet? A worthy dilemma.

But not one to have in the exit lane of the motorway.

What? Why? Eh?

Can't leave that there, lad.

I mean, look at the lane exit there as well.

Straight across, that's an of fence in itself.

Should have kept on going.

Mr BMW driver here isn't sure of where he's going.

So he's having a bit of a confusion now.

The BMW driver appears to have decided

to avoid temptation and stick to the diet.

But unfortunately, attempting to rejoin this motorway

isn't going to end well.

Rejoining the carriageway in front of those vehicles,

obviously, a big no-no.

Absolutely not. He needs to match speed.

Despite all the warning signs,

the BMW driver decides to merge back onto the motorway.

There is a lorry coming towards you.

Oh, my God. No. Oh!

Then the artic is heavy onto the brakes.

What I'm asking now is why that load wasn't properly secured down.

It shouldn't have flew off like that for no reason.

Ancl Mr Lorry Driver, what was you playing at?

That's come off too easy.

It looks like it's just a shipping container here,

but there's a good couple of tonnage in that.

The load-securing method for those containers

were nowhere near substantial enough to be securing

that type of load on that style of trailer.

The load's carried on going in the direction

it originally travel led on.

Ancl unfortunately, this is what happens.

The shipping container gets delivered abruptly to the exit lane,

and the BMW driver probably pretends like it's nothing to do with them.

I wonder if that BMW has actually stopped and gone,

"Sorry, I didn't mean to do that."

Looking at the size of it,

for him to shed that load and not hurt anyone - so, so lucky.

Back in the UK on the M20 in Kent,

a camera inside the cab of a lorry captures

the approach of a van, piled high with mattresses.

He's got a top cage, so obviously,

the cage itself needs to be secured and bolted, locked.

Especially the type of load that he's got,

which is gonna be so reactive to wind and turbulent air.

When you're travelling at speed, anything that's remotely flat,

the wind then causes lift, this is how a plane takes off.

You can see it's actually trying to lift there.

The cage isn't locked,

and the driver is oblivious to the pocket-sprung chaos

they've just created behind them.

O-O-Oh, clear!

Someone's not sleeping well tonight!

It's one of my biggest fears is

watching some of these vehicles go down the road

and suddenly seeing this obstacle

in lane two pretty much all the way over to one and three,

and then having to try and avoid that.

But there's a very simple way

how all of this mayhem could have been avoided.

You need to make sure your vehicle's roadworthy

before you go on any journey.

He should have checked to make sure it was all secure

before he even put his foot on the pedal.

Ancl this is what happens when you don't secure your load.

And when stuff falls off the back of a lorry,

Del Boy isn't always there to help pick it up.

The amount of clearing up -

we've had chickens, we've had thousands of gallons of milk,

hospital supplies, car engines,

so you need to make sure your loads are obviously secure and tied down.

So the next time you're loading your heavy goods vehicle,

make sure you're not the one crying over spilt milk.

And check your vehicle and contents before you leave.

Next time...

The shocking moments when lorries lose control...

Stupid. Absolutely stupid.

You're an idiot. You know you're an idiot.

...death-defying near misses...

Oh; no; no; no: no! no'

Agh!

I would have screamed my head off, like, "I'm gonna die. This is it."

That's a miracle on the motorway.

...and why you should never drink and drive.

Where have they gone? He's gone airborne.

That is absolutely shocking.

In real life, well, it's game over, it's game over.