An Ottawa man has been charged with careless driving after an incident that sent his car airborne before crashing into a traffic light pole.
The collision was captured on film by a rear-facing camera in the car ahead; both vehicles were travelling north on McNeely Avenue in Carleton Place, a town of nearly 10,000 people located a 30-minute drive west of Ottawa.
In the video, we see the driver of a mid-2000s Honda Accord veering side-to-side in his lane, driving for a short time on a painted median in the middle of the two-lane road before swerving back to proper side of the road and into the ditch just before an intersection, at which point the car is travelling at about 60 km/h. The end of the ditch acts as a ramp, launching the car about more than a metre in the air before it hits the light standard.
According to Ottawa's CTV News, the camera car's driver suspected the aspiring daredevil was impaired, but the Ontario Provincial Police charged the man with careless driving after an investigation that closed the road for a short time. The driver of the crash car was taken to hospital with what are described as minor injuries.
