The world today revolves around using our smartphones to capture our surroundings. Unfortunately, some people choose to use their phones even while driving, which can jeopardize themselves and other people who happen to be on the road, especially when they are driving at high speeds while using their phone. Nevertheless, people can still get distracted here and there. Friday’s Falcon 9 rocket launch caused a lot of curiosity and distraction on the roads where it could be seen. A dash cam captured the rocket launch trail, as well as a car crash which was likely caused by the distraction of seeing the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch.
Mark Sales captured the launch along with the car incident with his dash cam and uploaded the video onto his YouTube channel. He was traveling with his family along I-10 near Beaumont, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles, when his dash cam captured the car crash. The video shows that minutes after the Falcon 9 rocket launched from the Vandenberg Air Force Base, about 200 miles away at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 22, its trail brightened the night sky.
The rocket trail, that also confused a lot of people and shared their concerns on Twitter, appears to be right in front of the people in the car, traveling west. The people in the car sound like to be a dad, mom and several children who are amazed and excited by the rocket leaving its trail behind in the sky.
A few seconds before the car crash happened, the driver who is in the third lane mentions that “people are noticing [the rocket]” while the drivers in front of him are hitting the brakes. In the next moment he expresses his concern about the behavior of another driver, and asks, “Is this guy an idiot?”
The traffic slowed rapidly from roughly 65 mph to 35 mph, as a car crashes into the back of another car in the fourth lane, which then hits a third vehicle at 1:10 on the video. The driver of the car which has the dash cam avoids the crash fortunately. The video doesn’t reveal whether there were injuries.
The local news revealed that there have been hundreds of phone calls from people that saw the rocket launch and the spread of its trail across the night sky, noting that a lot of drivers pulled over to the side of the road in order to see the view.
