For licensing and usage, contact: licensing@viralhog.com

I was behind this guy for about ten minutes on NC 194 between Banner Elk and Elk Park. He was driving erratically so I started recording. Luckily, no one was injured. He drifted onto the shoulder and left of center a little bit. People who are familiar with mountain roads know that it is common for drivers to "straighten out" the curves a bit when you can see ahead far enough to know there is no oncoming traffic. But this guy wasn't doing that. He slowly drifted left of center a couple times in straight-aways.

Then he went WAY left of center. He was mostly in the other lane. By this time there was no cell signal. I know this because I drive this road everyday to and from work. If there was a signal I would have called the cops. I was afraid he was going to cause a head-on collision and possibly kill someone so I started recording. I thought if I could get some footage of his erratic driving before he caused an accident then it might be helpful. Instead he hit the side of the mountain just 30 seconds after I turned on the video.

This is the only time I have ever used my phone to record video while driving. I was fully focused on the road, not the phone and had both hands on the wheel. I was watching him and was following at a safe distance. I was easily able to come to a complete stop even though it was fairly sudden. I could have stopped in half that distance if I needed to. Using a cell phone for shooting video is legal in NC.

I stopped recording to make sure the guy was OK. He was fine. I then tried calling 911. It took about 5 tries as I walking up the side of the road to try to find a spot with a signal. I got a call through after 5 minutes of trying. Then I helped clear debris from the road and directed traffic with a couple others that stopped.

The driver told me that he was a mechanic and was working on the car for a client. He told me he was running a diagnostic program on the car while driving it. I saw what looked like a tablet computer with cables hanging out that ended up in the road. The driver said the car had a "death wobble" immediately before impact and he lost control.

I don't know if the wreck was because he was distracted by looking at his tablet or if in fact his steering failed. I also don't know if he was working on the car because it had a steering problem. I don't know if his previous erratic driving was due to a steering problem or distraction.

I do know that if I was driving a car that had a steering problem that caused me to drive that badly, I would have pulled over immediately. The car in front of him was his coworker, so he could have gotten a ride.

A sheriff's deputy arrived after about 20 minutes and a state trooper about 5 minutes later. I gave him my statement and left. The trooper wanted to see the video but it wouldn't play back. I think that was because my phone was set to upload all photos and videos to the cloud and it couldn't do that because there was no wi-fi- and very poor cell signal. It didn't matter anyway because I only got the wreck and that was not in dispute. Also no other vehicles were involved and no one was hurt.

Edit 1-15-2016,

I got a text a month ago from a lawyer who was representing the owner of the Jeep. He contacted me just to see if I would make a statement in court if needed. He told me that the repair shop that the owner used claimed that the mechanic was an independent contractor. Therefore the repair shop was not liable. He also told me the car had been in the hands of the repair shop for 7 days and that the odometer read that it had been driven for more than 800 miles during that time.