Yeah, I’ve seen this video. She’s pretty out of it at first, but she gets oriented pretty quickly, so that’s good. I’m guessing that she didn’t have anything more than some bruises though. Could have been worse, but it’s still a reminder to always have an escape route, and that anything can happen, not just the things that you expect. In order to see that coming *at all* you have to be scanning way ahead.
Harder braking could have helped, even if there was still contact. A reminder to keep emergency braking fresh. A combination of braking and then swerving behind the gold car (braking and swerving separately, obviously) could have helped. Swerving left could have avoided it too, but it also could have made the wreck worse if it didn’t work (and we don’t know if there was a car directly to her left or not). It’s hard to tell how hard she was braking (she says in the video “I couldn’t stop” or something like that), so it’s possible that it was just too close for emergency braking to stop her in time. Of course, any braking will make the impact less severe.
I can’t tell why the car’s brakes locked like that though (rather, why the driver braked so hard). I’m assuming he was looking down or just not paying attention, and then saw that the car in front of him wasn’t going as fast as it was before, and he hit the brakes as hard as he could. It doesn’t look like the white car in front of him slammed on their brakes or anything like that. He did have his cell phone in his hand when he got out of the car though. He says that he braked and swerved, but I wonder what caused it. Just inattention, I assume.