PHOENIX – Arizona freeways can be incredibly dangerous. A Phoenix man found this out when, in an instant, a truck was pushed across three lanes of I-17 traffic and crashed into the median in front of him. His pick-up was a total write-off when it crashed into the already wrecked truck.
Fortunately, no one involved in the wreck was seriously injured and the whole thing was captured on video from the dash camera.
Mike Millar had just buckled up on a typical Tuesday afternoon.
“Something inside made me feel a little stupid for not wearing it. So I put it on and thank goodness I did,” said Millar.
Millar was running errands with his best friend and the two were driving down Interstate 17 near McDowell Road.
“Surprisingly, I even went to the speed limit,” Millar said with a laugh.
Ironically, Millar said the two were talking about his buddy’s previous accident involving a “jackknife on the 17th” went.
“And my friend looks over and says, ‘Hey, just like that.'”
The friend pointed to a truck with a trailer that had just blown a tire and was turning off the highway.
“It ended up making an inadvertent pit maneuver on the poor guy coming up the freeway that took him right across the freeway into the divider in front of us,” Millar said. “Then he hit the wall, in the air, turned around and then I thought, ‘Uh oh.'”
It happened within seconds, but Millar paid attention and helped mitigate the damage.
“I was able to hit the brakes as quickly as possible and try to avoid as much damage as possible,” he said. “I was just covered in glass and my door was stuck … A DPS officer [quickly] had his head in our window and asked if everyone was okay. “
When the glass settled and the paramedics examined everyone, Millar had the entire incident recorded.
“Give [DPS] In this video, I didn’t even have to do an interview. They said, ‘Oh, we have it. We understand, ”he recalled.
Video is something Jerry Savage would have wished for in 2019 when a construction sign caused $ 8,000 in damage to his wife’s BMW.
“If I had a dashcam in my wife’s car at the time, it wouldn’t have been a problem. You would have paid for it right away,” said Savage, referring to the construction company who denied his claim.
Now he has four dash cameras.
“We even have them in the back of the car and point them out the rear window,” he said. “It’s a type of insurance that you only pay once.”
Miller said his dash camera also helped prove that another dishonest driver was responsible for a fender bender.
“He said she said something like that. And the video cleared it up right away,” Millar said. “I think my $ 50 dashcam saved me $ 1,000 in the first month.”
Now Millar is a dashcam disciple who believes everyone should record their movements on the road.
“They’re worth gold … especially in Arizona.”
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