dashcam snow plow

Dashcam captures Ontario driver nearly crashing into truck while passing snow plow

Roads all over Southern Ontario remain dangerously snowy this week, despite robust clearing efforts in Toronto and beyond, as weather systems continue to pummel the region with ice, flurries, freezing rain and bone-chilling temperatures.

Snow plows have been busy, to say the least, with operators working day and night to make streets accessible for drivers.

But nobody thinks about the importance of salt trucks or snow plows when they're running late and get stuck driving behind one of these slow-moving vehicles; plows become obstructions to jockey around, similar to tractors on country roads in August.

Trying to pass any type of vehicle on a road with two solid yellow lines is illegal. One solid line means you can proceed with extreme caution and a broken line generally means it's safe to pass around whatever is driving too slowly in front of you.

When you can't see any lines at all on the road because they're covered by snow, it's probably best to chill out and be patient, lest you end up like this person who almost got themselves into a head-on collision with a garbage truck.

"In an instant, everything can change," reads the caption of a video posted by the County of Brant to Facebook last week following the blizzard. "A county snowplow dash camera captured this terrifying footage. Everyone was safe, this time, due to the quick actions of the waste collection operator."

In the clip, we see a a black SUV driving straight toward a much larger truck (the garbage truck) while trying to pass a snow plow on its left side.

Had the sanitation worker not veered toward the road's shoulder, the situation could have gotten very ugly. Instead, the SUV manages to narrowly squeeze through and get back into their own lane before killing themself or someone else.

"It's a dramatic example of what our public works staff and some of the other people who work on our roads have to deal with," said a local councillor of the clip at a committee meeting in the county, which lies just west of Hamilton. "It just shows how ridiculously stupid some drivers can be and it shows how careful and conscientious our public works staff is."

In light of what happened, the county has shared a message that everyone in Ontario and beyond would be wise to listen to: "Be patient with plows. You are safer behind a plow than in front."

Lead photo by

County of Brant


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