A lousy, cruel way to die. My wife barely escaped. Our friend's son did not.
Between ten and fifteen years ago, my wife was waiting for the light to change an an on ramp to the Autobahn here. She was in the right lane. A huge semi was in the left lane. Both had to turn right to get onto the Autobahn when the light changed. The semi was in the left lane, presumably because he had to make a wide turn to the right. What he did NOT do was to check to see if anyone was in the right lane before he turned. He got a slight jump on the light and made a sharp right turn, crushing my wife's car from the driver's side. She saw what was happening, saw she would be killed if she stayed in her seat, and immediately crawled over to the passenger side, and escaped before it was crushed as well. The truck driver realized something was drastically slowing his turn down, but he was too high up to see, and made no effort to see if there was anyone else there before making his turn.
A couple of weeks ago, exactly the same thing happened to the son of one of our best friends here in Germany. When we heard he has dead, we thought it must have been a heart attack. We just heard today that it was not a medical issue. He was in exactly the same situation my wife was in when her car was crushed, but he didn't escape from his driver's seat in time. He was barely alive when the paramedics arrived, but was DOA by the time they got him to a hospital. It was nearly an identical situation (different Autobahn). The truck driver sat too high up, and didn't check to see if there was someone in the right lane below him before turning right onto the ramp.
The truck driver wasn't acting aggressively, he was just careless--just like when my wife was nearly crushed. Even now, after all these years, she gets in a light panic when we are on a two lane road with a semi to our left.
We aren't religious, but the phrase was still apt: "there, but for the grace of God, go I."
Never assume you have a free pass to make it to the end of the day alive--you don't.
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Very frightening.
Life can change in the blink of an eye.
I usually hang back unless there's time and room to get out ahead. Their back ends always take a short cut and you don't want to be there when that happens. My condolences to you and your friend's family.
"If you can't see my mirror, I can't see you."
More passenger-car drivers need to be aware that trucks are basically blind on the right side. It shouldn't be that way, that cars must yield to the trucks, otherwise they'll run you over. How sad for that young man to lose his life.
