Driver survivor: Trucker cheats death with acrobatic grace (VIDEO)

A Russian truck driver has escaped a potentially fatal crash by performing a miraculous stunt: after his cab collided with another truck, he escaped unscathed and on his feet after flying through his front windshield. The feat was caught on video.

­Uploaded to YouTube on Monday, the video was captured by an interior mounted camera in an anonymous vehicle as it traveled down a rural Russian road. Ahead of the driver is a large tractor trailer that is about to make a seemingly innocuous left-hand turn. As the trailer is completing the turn, a truck in the oncoming traffic lane suddenly barrels into view and swerves to avoid the back end of the turning behemoth.

With horror, the viewer sees it is too late; the oncoming vehicle slams into the rear of the turning trailer.

It is at this precise moment that the unthinkable occurs. As the right hand side of the oncoming vehicle is demolished by the impact, the driver is catapulted through his front windshield, and lands squarely on his feet, neatly placed in front of his truck. He circles the wreckage for a second, scratching his head, as if in disbelief that he is standing safe and sound outside the remains of his vehicle.

Adding to the surreal quality of the video is the Russian chanson in background, accompanying the scene like a kind of sarcastic movie soundtrack; the impact occurs at the precise moment the melancholy vocalist strikes a minor chord on his guitar.

The Russian tradition of “chanson” melodies differs from the French, as it is a genre of music dedicated exclusively to the Russian criminal underworld.

“And by the way, I’ve noticed that in every Russian video with a road accident, a chanson is playing,” one commenter on YouTube quipped in Russian.

“Chanson is the harbinger of disaster.”