Thanks to the miracles of modern vehicle design engineering, the unidentified driver of this Kia Soul walked away from his suddenly unexpected lesson in advanced Newtonian physics. The wildly insane crash happened Thursday, March 23 on Ronald Reagan Freeway in Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Kia Soul goes airborne
It’s not often that a Kia Soul is spotted flying along 15 feet in the air over a Los Angeles freeway. A dashcam just happened to be rolling in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time, to capture the entire and amazing incident on video.
This is one of those crazy freak occurrences which underscore the driving lesson of “expect the unexpected.”
According to Fox News, Anoop Khatra, who recorded this insane surprise, was “driving behind a dark-colored Kia Soul in the left lane when her dashcam recorded the heart-pounding moment.”
Witnessed and recorded the most INSANE car crash yesterday, you can see Autopilot also swerve and avoid the rouge tire for me $TSLA pic.twitter.com/csMh2nbRNX
— Anoop (@Anoop_Khatra) March 25, 2023
It clearly shows a white pickup truck proceeding with the flow of freeway traffic in the lane adjacent to the car, which was moving faster and overtaking.
At precisely the instant the Kia started to pass the pickup, the truck lost it’s front-left tire, which rolled directly in front of the small car. A Hollywood stunt team couldn’t have planned timing this fine.
This was no movie stunt and could have been a horribly fatal tragedy. Obviously, there wasn’t a single thing the driver could have done to stop what happened next.
Instantly launched skyward
Considering the time it takes the human brain to react to new input, the Kia was airborne before it’s driver knew anything had happened. When it came back down, it landed hard, sending debris scattering in all directions along the freeway.
As the camera continues to roll, the offending tire can still be seen rolling along contentedly, before coming to rest beside it’s victim.
After being launched “several feet” in the air above the roadway, the video shows the Kia flipping in the air “before landing on its roof and rolling several times.”
Video shows a wild crash on the 118 Freeway in Chatsworth in which a vehicle went flying into the air after being hit by a loose tire from a pickup truck nearby. https://t.co/PMN5nEMBGT
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) March 27, 2023
By the time it came to rest, it was sitting right-side-up, “as the stray tire continued to roll and strike the rear of the vehicle.” It simply had to have the last word.
The pickup truck “rolled across the freeway to the right shoulder and appeared to come to a stop.” Ms. Khatra dutifully stopped to render aid and was thrilled to see that “the driver was the only occupant of the Kia and appeared to walk away without significant injuries.” LAPD also confirms “there were no major injuries following the incident.”
The driver did have injuries, just not life threatening ones. They’ll be feeling the effects of this one for a long time to come. Initial investigation suggests that “the pickup truck’s tire came loose due to what appeared to be sheared-off lug nuts.“
