Caught on Camera: Thief’s High-Speed Drive in Audi R8
For anyone with a respect for human life, the dashcam footage of this stolen Audi R8 is a harrowing watch.
Dash cams are useful for all kinds of things, from proving fault in an accident, to making sure a valet doesn’t hoon your car, to reliving a particularly good set of laps around your local track. But like the old saying goes, the camera doesn’t blink, and there are all kinds of opportunities for these systems to capture unsavory, dangerous activity. That’s exactly the kind of action we’re looking at here, as an Australian criminal goes on a destructive spree in an Audi R8.
For anyone with a respect for human life or a drop of mechanical sympathy, it’s a harrowing watch. But after getting through the nearly half hour of footage here, I can assure you that nobody was injured as a result of the driver’s actions. As you might expect, however, the supercar isn’t as lucky. All the reckless driving takes a toll on the car’s precision suspension components, and given some of sounds I heard at various points, it sounds like the six-speed is going to need some going over as well.
In the video description, it says the man behind the wheel, Darren Johns, was stopped by police under suspicion of drunk driving. Johns then fled his vehicle, and broke into some nearby homes looking for a getaway vehicle. Unfortunately for the owner of this lovely performance machine, he found the keys to the R8, and proceeded to, as they say, drive it like he stole it. Because, you know, he did. In one shot, you can see him zip pass the patrol that’s presumably out looking for him, but even though he’s apparently not being pursued, he proceeds to drive like a total maniac.
Johns repeatedly hits speeds wildly inappropriate for the surface streets he’s — often poorly — navigating, and also pulls of a host of dangerous passes. At one point, he hits a speed bump at about 50 mph, and that’s when the Audi starts to protest. By the end of the video, one of the rear wheels has left the building, and he limps the crippled car off the street and dumps it in the backyard of a house.
Fortunately, the car was recovered, and the Johns was apprehended. But how he managed to drive like this for an extended period of time, while there was a manhunt underway no less, boggles my mind. Watch the video below, and see if you don’t agree..
Photos: Audi, YouTube