The BMD-4 is an amphibious infantry fighting vehicle used by the Russian military and is stocked with some seriously powerful tank and machine guns. But, weapons capabilities aside, this beast weighs a hulking 30,000 pounds. Meaning that if this thing even just hits you, it's gonna leave a serious dent. And not the sort of dent you can easily get rid of with one of those DIY car hacks. We're talking a you're-gonna-need-to-start-shopping-for-a-new-car-immediately sort of dent. Back in 2017, one sorry SUV driver found that out the hard way.
The incident I'm talking about went down in Ryazan, Russia, and it started like how most Russian armored vehicle start crashes and collisions: with a military convoy passing through an intersection. Halfway into a right turn, the driver of the perpetrating BMD, for some inexplicable reason, decided to speed up, and in the process of course-correcting, slammed into a passing Skoda SUV HARD. And, well, you can probably imagine how the rest goes.
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It's safe to say that the BMD's driver wasn't a season vet. Judging from the reaction of the commander of the BMD (the guy who keeps smacking the hull after the crash), the driver was so shaken up, he didn't even realize that he hadn't hit the brakes yet. That's a first-day-on-the-job type of reaction right there. This dude was shell-shocked to the max.
Speaking of shaken up, the SUV driver likely experienced at least a little bit of whiplash after that one, and with the airbags having deployed, probably sustained a couple of bruises, too. The soldiers directing traffic don't seem all that concerned about the collision though, and left it to a couple of other drivers to check on the owner of the banged-up Skoda. Just another day in Mother Russia.
This post was originally published on April 8, 2020.