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“Everything happened so fast,” Ashpia Natasha, recounted in a video on TikTok that had more than 68M views as of press time.
She said she was alone driving eastbound on the Belt Parkway in Queens, toward the Southern State Parkway, on Wednesday, Oct. 16, when another driver cut her off and slammed on his brakes.
At first, her dashcam video shows what appears to be just a close call; she hits her brakes and avoids crashing into the other vehicle.
But then, the other driver does the unthinkable; he puts his car into reverse and intentionally rams into the front of Natasha’s vehicle.
“Oh my god. What is he do–,” she’s heard telling a man on the phone.
“I believe the intention was to say I hit their car for insurance fraud purposes,” she said on TikTok.
Immediately following the crash, the video shows a man and two women get out of the car and begin feigning injuries. A second man, who was driving at the time, then exited and was picked up by another car before fleeing the scene, Natasha said.
“The remaining three people’s demeanor changed once one of them noticed the dashcam,” she said. “They only came out of the car with their phones ready to record the damage to both cars. They were quick to ask for my insurance and quickly left after the exchange.”
Natasha called the police but was told officers no longer respond to collisions if nobody is injured and those involved are willing to exchange information.
“I did not realize at the time that the driver switched and left in another car or that it was a set-up,” she said on TikTok.
A spokesperson for the NYPD told Daily Voice that detectives have interviewed Natasha and the incident is under investigation.
You can watch video of the incident below.
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