Videos of car accidents can range from gut-wrenchingly awful to downright hilarious, depending on the circumstances as the possibility that someone was seriously hurt. This clip out of Singapore is notable not because it’s tragic or particularly humorous, but instead because it’s a complete and total head scratcher. Prepare to be completely and utterly confused.
In the brief clip, a white BMW attempts to navigate what appears to be a pretty straightforward intersection. As it makes its way across the road, no other cars seem to be in its way, but out of seemingly nowhere, it slams into the side of a passing motorist. The clip is somewhat jarring to watch because you don’t expect to see a car materialize just in time for it to be struck. What on Earth is going on here.
The obvious explanation is that the “ghost car” is simply perfectly blocked by the BMW, from the camera’s perspective, all the way up to the point when the accident occurs. As Jalopnik points out, you can see what appears to be the roof of the ghost car for just a couple of video frames before the accident occurs.
The incredibly perfect timing is worth a slack-jawed stare on its own, but there’s another question that the clip raises that can’t be so easily answered, and that’s just what in the heck the driver of the BMW was doing that prevented them from seeing the car.
Given the angle of the vehicles in relation to each other, it’s possible that the BMW’s view was obstructed by the A-pillar of their own vehicle, and that the same remarkable timing that kept the ghost car hidden from the camera also kept it perfectly aligned with the obstruction. Either that or they were updating their Instagram while driving, which isn’t entirely out of the question.
The accident itself doesn’t appear to be particularly serious, and while there was no detailed report of the aftermath by the local media who published the video, it seems to be a fairly run-of-the-mill intersection mishap.
