What’s the Deal With Russian Drivers?

Mayhem, crashes and craziness

One of my guilty pleasures is watching car accidents on YouTube. Compilations of crashes, fights in the middle of the road, crazy truck turnovers. Hapless people sliding through intersections at high speed and getting nailed like a board to a fence.

Search “Russian driving videos” and you will be shocked. It’s quite the spectacle of insane driving matched with innocent people’s lives being ruined. For every loser who was speeding into oncoming traffic, someone was just minding their business when some stranger showed up to completely destroy their car and injure them.

I’ve probably watched people die. It’s a terrible thing. No one ever flips a car and just has a couple scratches from it.

But why is it so bad on their roads? And why can we watch this tragedy so easily?

Everyone records

In these “Russian driver” videos, everything is always recorded by a private dash cam. Damn near every car must have one of these gadgets. I imagine them getting together around a bottle of vodka and sharing their crazy car crashes. Then they put them all together in videos and send them out for the rest of the world. What a valuable export!

Here in Canada, it isn’t as popular. Probably because we would record hours and hours and hours of nothing except boring, mostly safe driving where no one died or crashed in a fiery explosion.

There might be the occasional rude jerk who cut you off. You could record a lot of other people texting and driving while they swerve about a little. You would get some footage of speeders pulled over getting tickets from the authorities.

An accident here or there.

But for the most part, boring as pillows.

A fatalistic attitude

I’ve asked co-workers who emigrated to Canada from there. They tell me that everyone in that part of the world is more fatalistic about things, even superstitious. A lot of people think they aren’t really in control of anything.

Since you aren’t the master of your fate anyway, your actions can’t cause accidents. If you are due to get smashed up, then it will happen. Otherwise, you’ll be lucky and squeak right on through no matter what.

If it’s in God’s hands, why worry about safety? Let the big man handle it. Suicide pass, drive at ludicrous speed, tailgate, pass on the right side, no problem! God’s got it. He’ll make it work.

Corruption

At one time anyway, money could buy anything over there. It sounds like this is slowly changing for the better. Before, if you wanted to get a license without passing a test you could just bribe someone.

Get caught driving too fast or causing an accident and you could bribe your way out of that too. As long as you had money or connections there wouldn’t be consequences to your destructive behavior. Even knowing this is possible would make some of them less responsible.

Road rage

Tire irons, fists, even guns are featured in some of the videos. Road rage is a big problem over there. Not garden variety road rage. Incredible Hulk style road rage.

That dude cut you off and annoyed you? Now you’re gonna get there three whole seconds later. Stop at the light and grab the tire iron, it’s headlight bustin time!

I witnessed one clip where a man picked another driver off the ground and hurled him over a railing, down a steep bank. Right after they collided, there was a roadside confrontation. The one dude picked the other up and threw him off that small cliff, maybe killing him.

Winter tires? Fugedaboudit!

A lot of these crashes feature cars losing control on winter roads. There are at least three factors involved. Poor driving skills/ high speeds, unplowed icy roads, and no winter tires.

You might be a terrible driver who likes to suicide pass and keep the pedal to the metal. They might not do much plowing or spread any salt and gravel on the treacherous, icy road. But you can make up for some of this if you have good tires.

I feel like I’m watching a lot of accidents involving summer slicks. Tires as bald as a baby’s behind. Smooth like a glazed donut. The kind of tire a Canadian laughs at and throws in the recycling pile.

Cars and roads questionable

Just like winter tires, the actual car might be a big part of the problem. I don’t know much about their cars, but from watching the videos on winter roads, a lot of the crashes remind me of driving in Canada in the 80's.

Picture it. Alberta, Canada, 1986. You would be following someone for miles with no issues. Suddenly they started having a little wobble, then swinging side to side more and more. Soon they’re swinging 180 degree spins while still travelling at 60 miles an hour. Then, the inevitable. They would shoot off the road into the ditch.

This had a lot to do with car design (and tires.) Those old cars were just pieces of shit, that’s all. They were unstable and it took all your concentration to hold those old rear wheel drive crap cars straight.

Some of those “russian driver” crashes look exactly the same. Their cars seem unstable compared to the ones we drive over here now.

I understand their road system is in poor repair, too. If the roads are garbage and the cars are poorly designed, these just magnify driver errors.

It makes me glad I never have to drive over there. Piles of gratitude for Canadian drivers, Canadian roads, winter tires and modern vehicles. Next time I see that snow plow working hard to keep me safe, I’m going to give him a big wave and count myself lucky.