Tape Of Awful Crash Showcases New Tech

Somehow, Driver Survives; 'DriveCam' Caught Incident, May Help Probes

(CBS)  Dramatic video of an accident this week on a New York expressway shows how lucky one man was, and perhaps how useful a new tool can be.

As Hazel Sanchez of CBS station WCBS-TV in New York reports, a camera mounted inside a passenger bus was rolling as the driver of an 18-wheeler lost control, and the vehicle veered into the express lane on the far left side of the road.

In an instant, an Audi sports car smashed into the tractor-trailer, and a bus hit the car.

When the chaos settled, the mangled Audi was crushed under the truck and against the concrete median.

Miraculously, the driver survived, and was reported to be alert and moving his limbs when he was taken to a hospital. He was listed in stable condition. Eight people were hurt on the bus.

The view from the bus was captured by an event recorder called DriveCam. The camera records both the driver and the driver's view when sensors detect erratic driving behavior.

"You are driving," explains Bill Schoolman of Classic Transportation, whose bus was involved in the incident, "and if you alter the "G" forces by a certain amount, by swerving the wheel or jamming on the brakes, DriveCam creates an event."

Classic says the camera shows its driver did nothing wrong in this instance.

The tractor-trailer's driver was cited for, among other things, bald tires and driving a truck 16,000 pounds overweight.

DriveCam CEO Bruce Moeller told The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm Friday this shows how useful his company's product can be: "Clearly the truck lost control of his vehicle and came from the far right lane over to the left lane, in the high occupancy vehicle lane, and cut off our bus, and clearly, our bus driver had under two seconds to respond to that. It was almost like a bullet coming out of nowhere. And it's very fortunate that no one was killed and the injuries were limited.

"But I can't imagine trying to reconstruct what happened from just eyewitnesses or from memory with almost no time at all to react. Thank God they had this video to see what actually happened."