Jason Weisberger is Boing Boing's publisher. He often does what he ought, instead of what he should. On instagram and twitter he is @jlw

  • Gregory Primosch

    #meanwhileinrussia

  • Kyle Sarrasin

    Anyone know what the stats are on drink driving in Russia?

    • GawainLavers

      Yes.  High.  Definitely a few of those in there, although I’d say about half (the shoulder side-zoomers, the guys crossing 4 lanes at once at 80, etc.) is all shit I see pretty much any time I’m on a freeway in the Bay Area.

      It’s almost always the little Hondas — I don’t think it’s young kids, I think it’s middle aged guys who live in some shithole housing development in the middle of nowhere, commute an hour and a half in stop and go traffic every day, and have basically lost the will to live.

  • Mike A

    4:14 lightning strike?!

    • Felton / Moderator

      11:15 ghost!!

  • http://www.facebook.com/ai.rasmussen Aaron Rasmussen

    I’m always curious about the everyday music in these videos, so I shazammed the first four audible songs:

    Big Fat – Tonic Feat. Tarantual Man

    Глаза-убийцы by Макс Барских

    Don’t Stop Me Now – Queen

    Fortress Europe – Asian Dub Foundation

    • bcsizemo

      Fortress Europe was in one of the Need for Speed games…perhaps that explains something.

    • Wilson Afonso

      In some cases, the music actually enhances the incident significantly. “Don’t Stop Me Now” was amazingly well suited, for example.

      • http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

        The timing and irony were superb.

        The horse using the zebra crossing was quite perfect too : D

        • http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan

          A zebra’d've been perfecter though.

  • Robert Hendrickson

    I don’t know what they are using for tires, but it isn’t working.

    • ocker3

       Also Ice Ice Baby!

  • OldBrownSquirrel

    At least the horse was considerate enough to use a crosswalk.

    • http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

      A zebra crossing, mind you!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1606613036 Michael Manchester

    Does auto insurance even exist in Russia? Can’t imagine any company accepting drivers when there is so much reckless behavior.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=688945082 Joe Seatter

      It’s not that there’s so much, it’s that nearly everything is caught on camera.  Due to insurance fraud, nearly everyone who drives had a dashcam, so nearly all of the accidents are recorded.

      And some of them are fantastic.

  • freshyill

    I love that in nearly every case, there’s no audible reaction from the driver of the car that’s doing the recording. I get the impression that these videos would be very impressive to Russians at this point.

    • OldBrownSquirrel

       The ones where the driver *is* saying something constitute a fairly comprehensive primer on cursing in Russian.

  • max00

    Maintain your speed!

    Drive with confidence.

  • http://twitter.com/ManekiNico Maneki Nico

    At this point, I think it’s safe to assume that driving in Russia is just one long, elaborate performance art homage to J.G. Ballard.

    • millie fink

      And Don DeLillo. I’m expecting the Russian Highway Killer any day now.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/James-Agenbroad/100002463876063 James Agenbroad

       And here I was thinking that they need to make GTA: Moscow.

      • Luther Blissett

        Sure as hell this does already exist? I mean, there’s even one for Dubai, and Russian Brogrammers don’t waste all there time on ponyesque forums and brogramming anti virus software, right?

  • http://twitter.com/randywalters Randy Walters

    Before you come down too hard on the Russians, just wait until these dashcam thingamabobs become commonplace in the USA.

    Mark my words, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

    • awjt

      You are correct, sir.  My dad drives for a living, and he always has some wild stories to tell.  People are effen outrageous.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=name&id=1118134806 Doc_S

    I’m just going to assume that every car sold in Russia comes with cupholders capable of holding vodka bottles.

    5:30 – Smash! ::puts bag on shoulder, staggers off to work:: toodle-doo…

    • http://www.facebook.com/marko.raos Marko Raos

      I believe this is a very common reaction to severe traumatic shock. The mind cannot cope and it switches to automatic mode, whatever it was thinking about before the accident. Rule No1 when dealing with car crash victims: Do NOT believe them when they say they are fine and they “really need to get to work.” Especially if you see pieces of their skull sticking out.
      Oh, and shock state does resemble drunkenness… Wasn’t there that terrible accident in london a while ago when passers-by refused to help a dying opera singer (who happened to be black) because they thought she was drunk while in fact she was going into shock?
      I’m mildly hypoglycemic and I’ve had a few ugly experiences in public transport where I began “going under” and would have been basically left to rot if I either weren’t with friends aware of my condition or managed to gasp that I’m diabetic. It is sad that nowadays people automatically assume you’re drunk or on drugs and therefore not worthy of help if you begin to exhibit perfectly typical shock symptoms.

      • ocker3

         A good friend of mine is a strategic genius at an online game we play, but he’s also diabetic. Sometimes it’s hard to tell when he’s being particularly inspired, or he’s just going loopy from low blood sugar

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Aguirre/10601304 John Aguirre

        I had a supervisor who was diabetic (he had an insulin pump and everything).  He was out of the office because his grandfather had passed away, and called me at work.  I thought he was super drunk. He was incoherent, rambling, and acting very strange to say the least.  I figured at the time that he was depressed and hit the bottle a bit too hard. It only crossed my mind a couple of hours after that his blood sugar was probably dangerously out of wack and he needed to get himself to the hospital.

    • GawainLavers

      My guess is that there are guns in those bags.  Probably guns that just shot people.

    • http://twitter.com/there_from_here John Carter

      My thinking on that one was, yeah they’re probably drunk, but that they were just trying to disown it, given the relative values of their car vs the one they’d crashed into.

      • http://www.facebook.com/marko.raos Marko Raos

        Trust me on this one: if you see someone walk away from such an impact, taking care to straighten his bag and looking a bit wobbly, do NOT assume he’s drunk. Do assume he’s not a worthless drunkard but someone in severe shock with a very probable heavy trauma to the head and spinal column and force him to lie down, as gently as you can, of course. You might well save his life.
        Believe it or not, most deaths and permanent disabilities are incurred AFTER actual accidents. Victims with multiple spine and skull fractures walk around, seem ok and then collapse after a few minutes, hours or even days. I hate to sound preachy but really this should be common knowledge.

  • millie fink

    Russian Dash Cam is becoming old-hat already. 

    What mediated spasm is going to bob up to the surface of Internet’s blur and glut and replace it? 

    Oh right — Russian Meteor Blast!

  • euansmith

    No wonder I had so much trouble with my driving in GTA IV; I thought I was just crap, but evidentially the physics engine had been tweaked to give that authentic Former-Soviet-Bloc driving experience.

  • xzzy

    The very best one was about halfway through, old car gets clobbered by a new one. Pair of people in the old car casually get out, collect their bags.. and walk off.

    I admire that kind of courage. Can’t imagine the other driver was too impressed though.

  • Pasketti

    Here’s a Livejournal community of Russian dashcam videos.

    http://ru-chp.livejournal.com/

  • WinstonSmith2012

    And that, children, is why everyone in Russia has a dash cam and why Russia is the ideal country for YouTube videos of asteroid reentries.

    • http://twitter.com/tadasyoyolt Tadas Jelinek

      *asteroid entries*

      FTFY. That asteroid never left Earth atmosphere.

      • http://twitter.com/thetherc ㋶㋑ー㋷ ㌍㎈

         That’s what the Round Earthers want you to think…

  • Jed Goldstone

    There’s also one where a tank drives across the road just in front of the car, and keeps on going across the highway.

    • invictus

      There was a video posted recently of an APC driving *over* the hood of a car and keeping on going. Though that one was likely not in Russia.

  • gracchus

    The most quintessentially Russian of these clips are the ones involving military vehicles (I’ll include the horse in this category). Here’s a bonus one with a tank:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmbMd_KxEM0

    As with approx. 70% of these videos, I’m certain that alcohol consumption is involved in the military vehicle incidents (I’ll include the jet and helicopter in that category, but give the benefit of the doubt to the horse).

    The resigned indifference of most of the drivers to these WTF moments adds to the Russian-ness of the clips.

  • Wreckrob8

    Like with dodgems I could never get my head around the idea that you are not supposed to try and hit the other cars.

  • http://www.footballandmusic.co.uk Webbie

    the bizarre thing was though, this all happened to the same driver.

  • http://www.facebook.com/aaron.silva.3979 Aaron Silva

    ….everybody…speeding…

  • Kenmrph

    Dashcams clearly cause a lot of car accidents.

  • L_Mariachi

    Why aren’t civilian dashcams commonplace here (in the western world?) They’re cheap enough, certainly cheaper than getting your insurance premiums hiked because you can’t prove it was the other guy’s fault.

  • http://twitter.com/daniloberga Danilo Albergaria

    ~Don´t Stop Me Now~

    • http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch

      bump

    • xian

      I know, even the radio was trying to warn him!

  • http://twitter.com/chrisjimson chris jimson

    “Eба́ть!”

  • Atomicpanda

    Safest place to be is not on a Russian road. 

  • Bevatron Repairman

    I just like the MiG-27 buzzing the freeway at around 4:21.

  • Antinous / Moderator

    Ignoring the driving on the wrong side of the road, inexplicable 90° turns and psychopathic need to pass when there’s no place to do it, why do they all react to obstacles in the road by speeding up and aiming at them?

    • http://www.aldenbates.com/ Alden

       They wanted to double-check the Mythbusters’ findings about speeding up when you’re about to hit a moose?

    • headcode

       It’s double points day?

  • http://expatriato.blogspot.com/ Muscato

    Except that there are many,many fewer real junkers on the road here, much of that could be typical day in the UAE.  It’s a festival of insane truck drivers and rich boys flipping Dad’s Maserati…

  • http://twitter.com/bigbadchang Chang Terhune

    Harrowing. Hilarious.  Scary.  

  • CLamb

    In Russia Assault Weapons have wheels.