Near life ending accident?

[SportWest]

Here's what happened in my 21 Bronco Sport:

I slammed on the brakes, swerved into the opposing lane, and then swerved back to avoid t-boning an idiot who made a left turn in front of me. He couldn't just wait an extra second since there were no cars behind me for over a mile.

Fortunately there wasn't oncoming traffic otherwise I would've collided with someone. I was going about 50 mph and swerved in and out of the other lane pretty quickly. I never felt like I was losing control of the vehicle or that I was going to roll. The Sport handled it well.

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[Flash]

FTFY. No one can multitask; it's a made up word that doesn't reflect actual human behavior.

It also doesn't reflect computer behavior. Even computers can only do one thing at a time. They can switch back and forth but only one thing at a time. Years ago when this got popular with managers I'd sit in meetings and patiently explain this to the managers that it's impossible and they'd definitely get P.O.'d.

 

[Mark S.]

It also doesn't reflect computer behavior. Even computers can only do one thing at a time. They can switch back and forth but only one thing at a time. Years ago when this got popular with managers I'd sit in meetings and patiently explain this to the managers that it's impossible and they'd definitely get P.O.'d.

We've known this for a very long time. There's a reason every air carrier in the world requires a co-pilot on the flight deck. One pilot flies the jet, the other handles the radios and checklists. This is one of the primary reasons that the safety record for general aviation (private pilots) is so much worse than air carriers. Granted, the systems in a light aircraft are far less complicated than an airliner, but the basic flight deck duties remain the same: someone has to fly, navigate, talk to air traffic control and keep up with checklists. When it's just one person you have to prioritize and divide your attention effectively between these duties. In the GA world, it's called staying ahead of the aircraft.

 

[rootdoc]

I'm sure we have all had our close encounters, whether they are related to distracted driving, drug/alcohol induced driving or road rage. I was lucky to escape a road rage incident a few years ago. A guy was tailgating extremely close to me as I was driving over the speed limit in the left lane on a interstate highway in Florida. I couldn't switch lanes due to the other cars and trucks in the middle lane. When I was finally able to switch into the middle lane he then sped past me. After I moved back into the left lane he slammed on his brakes. I had to swerve to avoid hitting him, and then spun out as I tried to avoid other vehicles. My vehicle stalled and I was a sitting duck in the right lane. Luckily, there was no immediate traffic in the far right lane. I was able to restart the engine and move off to the shoulder before a semi-truck came barreling through. That was definitely my lucky day. Unfortunately, road rage stuff happens a lot.

 

[sajohnson]

We just don’t know what other people are going to do.

A truck driver in my state just caused a 3 semi, 2 car wreck. Smoked a bowl of weed and started driving then just had to check his ring doorbell notification. Manslaughter charges filed. This is a professional driver.

I spend more time nowadays driving my Silverado pick-up and my Expedition…I can see the glow of cell phones in every car now. The BS doesnt sit up high enough. Although I still love it and will keep it, it’s a secondary vehicle lately.

Everywhere I go, I see people that are distracted. I see over corrections and panic breaking. Glanced down at your phone for what you think is 1 second for what is more like 7 seconds. They look up and see brake lights and do a panic pump. That’s because their eyes were off the road and they looked up and panicked because they hadn’t calculated the closure rate yet. No one among us can multitask as well as we think we can. I used to think that I was the best, but what I really was, was lucky.

here’s what’s really crazy to me; people have irrational fears and anxiety and won’t get on airplanes or roller coasters or boats, but those same people will happily and carelessly get behind the wheel of a vehicle and stare at their cell phones, while passing 4 feet from an oncoming vehicle, whose driver is also on the phone. At deadly highway speed. As if that double yellow stripe is some sort of barrier. oh but I’m always hands free…I mount my phone. Yeah, but you are still looking at it and mounting it up on the dash might help keep your eyes up…. But you still look at it.

I was driving in Kentucky last week and a driver crossed the line and was coming right at me. I ended up completely off the shoulder, 2 wheels in the grass. I thought it was over. tunnel vision, slow motion…God intervened. I don’t know how we didn’t connect. I looked In the rear view.. car was still in my lane! i’ll bet they were still on their phone and never knew. Ignorance is so blissful.

My aunt is law enforcement in Denver area. She said it’s estimated that 1/3 drivers during afternoon rush hour are under the influence, health or eye sight impaired or on their smartphones… or a combination of. ONE in THREE!!!

I imagine that’s probably consistent everywhere.

Watching where we are going is easy. anticipating what other drivers are going to do is the challenge.

Getting behind the wheel of your vehicle and sharing the road with other vehicle is the most dangerous thing you will ever do in your life and we do it every day… in total complacency

here are some fun stats

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813435

Great comment!

I see Mark already touched on the multitasking myth. Even before hearing that NPR piece I knew that I could not multitask. When I'm driving, I have to focus exclusively on driving. It's so bad that one day (years ago) on the way to work in the WRX I was talking on the CB (which is not as distracting as a phone conversation) and I blew past a cop in a marked Montgomery County cruiser. He was just entering the highway and I was in the left lane doing about 80 mph. He gave me a look as I backed off to closer to the limit but let me go.

One thing I became pretty good at was anticipating what other drivers were going to do. Not always of course, but a good percentage of them. That came from 25+ years of commuting 75-100+ miles per day in the D.C. area.

The distracted drivers were the worst. I lost count of the number of times I was run onto the shoulder or into the next lane by someone with a smartphone clamped to their head. Then there were the infamous left lane campers -- swerving back and forth, doing 50-55 in a 65-70 mph zone, with a phone glued to their ear.

Good times.

Actually it wasn't all bad, because I worked an evening shift (3-11 PM) I avoided a lot of traffic, especially at night. So I was able to have some fun with the WRX.

 

[cprcubed]

Back in '84, I was driving my 1969 VW Baja Bug when a guy in an oncoming 1970 station wagon turned left right in front of me. I locked the brakes and skidded for a whopping 26 ft before impact. I hit the station wagon broadside at the firewall and ended up pushing the windshield out of my car with my face (stupidly wasn't wearing my seatbelt!). Somehow I only ended up with a totaled car, an ambulance ride to the hospital, and 10 stiches in my forehead. Kids, wear those seatbelts! Cheers!

 

[sajohnson]

I'm sure we have all had our close encounters, whether they are related to distracted driving, drug/alcohol induced driving or road rage. I was lucky to escape a road rage incident a few years ago. A guy was tailgating extremely close to me as I was driving over the speed limit in the left lane on a interstate highway in Florida. I couldn't switch lanes due to the other cars and trucks in the middle lane. When I was finally able to switch into the middle lane he then sped past me. After I moved back into the left lane he slammed on his brakes. I had to swerve to avoid hitting him, and then spun out as I tried to avoid other vehicles. My vehicle stalled and I was a sitting duck in the right lane. Luckily, there was no immediate traffic in the far right lane. I was able to restart the engine and move off to the shoulder before a semi-truck came barreling through. That was definitely my lucky day. Unfortunately, road rage stuff happens a lot.

It was clearly your fault for not driving even more over the limit. You should have sped up, gotten pulled over, and cleared a path for him.

Yeah, that's a fairly common scenario. It's as if drivers become hyper-focused on getting down the road and neglect to comprehend certain facts that should be obvious -- like other vehicles beside you preventing you from moving into lane 2.

Behavior like you described is a good reason to have a dash cam. Before GoPro existed, I used to use a Sony camcorder. I bought a commercial grade suction mount and had it in the center of the dash. Of course, after I had the camcorder in the car I had no need for it...

Even as an unrepentant lead-foot I did not expect other drivers to break the law for me. I'll admit that it was irritating to have someone doing the limit in the left lane, with other drivers passing them on the right (so it should be obvious they need to move out of lane 1) but that's no reason to do brake checks and almost kill people.

Have I mentioned how glad I am to not be commuting anymore?

 

[sajohnson]

When I was about 10 years old, my family was driving to the beach in our 1967 Ford station wagon. It had a problem with the carb, probably a bad accelerator pump, so when moving from a stop the accelerator pedal had to be 'feathered'.

We were at an intersection, and when the light turned green my step-father pulled forward slowly so it wouldn't stall. As we were approaching the middle of the intersection, a semi came barreling toward us from our left, blowing his horn. It was obvious he wasn't going to stop. The wagon was not going to be able to clear the intersection in time. All my brother and I could do was watch as the front end of the semi came closer.

At the last second, the driver swerved, missed the rear of the wagon by inches, and took out an aluminum utility pole that flipped up into the air. Then the traffic lights came crashing down right behind us. I think the truck ended up crashing into a building -- but that part is a fuzzy memory.

If that driver hadn't swerved we would have all likely been killed.

 

[Escape2Bronco]

Life was way better on the roads before cell phones. Yes, I know there were the occasional book or newspaper readers but never to the extent as there is today. One of the reasons we bought the full size was to have a “topless” vehicle that isn’t easily ran over. My wife refuses to get on the back of the bike these days because of the terrible roads and the terrible drivers.
Glad you weren’t hurt.

 

[Bronco2.7]

My wife served time as an ICU nurse for a few years and is still a medical professional. As part of her effort to encourage sanity, she tells me about some of the injuries she's seen from unfortunate riders, and it's worked. I do not get on a motorcycle without full gear: helmet, jacket, long pants, gloves, and boots. I don't care how hot it is, I'm not riding without wearing it all. I do not want to become a meat crayon.

Me too! I live in Idaho! No helmet law. Most riders don't wear helmets here, I wear a full face all the time.

 

[Sleddog]

I never have ridden without a helmet. I raced motorcycles for many years. So on the road I wear my sport bike leathers no matter which style of bike I’m on, sport or Harley. It drives the no helmet t-shirt wearing Harley riders crazy.

I’ve had 2 very close calls. I high-sided my race Ducati at Daytona one year coming out of the in-field. It tossed me a good 40 feet down the track. I landed hard and bent my right knee 45 degrees the wrong way and broke my left shoulder. 3 surgeries in 2 days on my knee with a 12 inch fasciotomy, 14 days in hospital and 3 months in external fixation. It’s a fairly gross injury. Have a few pictures if anyone wants to see them.

The other, I was driving a pickup truck in the Wasatch mountains in Utah. It was over Memorial Day some years ago. It started snowing and the roads got slick. I came around a corner and standing in the middle of the road was a bull moose.

I couldn’t stop and couldn’t avoid him. Thank goodness he decided to move out of the way. I’m glad he did and I’m glad I was wearing the brown pants. If I had hit him he would have come thru the windshield.

 

[BSBB4Les]

Here's my cautionary tale. This occurred in the late 80's, the exact year escapes me. Anyway, I had made a quick trip to the grocery store at the end of our neighborhood with my 2 young children who were with me. I was driving my wife's 82 Toyota Corolla wagon. When I went to pull out of the parking lot onto the street this yahoo it a full size van came barreling past without slowing down, nearly hitting us. We'll, I wasn't going to let him get away with THAT without my giving him a piece of my mind, so when we got to the next intersection, he was turning left I was turning right and as we were stopped, I informed him of just what a poor driver he was in the only language that expresses the true meaning I was conveying. He made his turn then swung a youie. I had made my right turn and headed to my house. As I pulled into the garage, he came barreling up the driveway and stopped right behind the car. Now, in the trunk of MY car I had an aluminum bat that I grabbed and went straight for his windshield. Of course, this time I was beyond the point of driver instruction and straight to "you're in my world now grandma" to quote Ben Stiller in Happy Gilmore. Not funny at that time, and as I began to swing the bat into his windshield he peeled back out onto the street and tore off. My wife, bless her, had gone into the house and called the police. About 10 minutes later they arrived. In all the excitement I forgot the kids were still in the car and saw the whole thing. The officers took down the information (again, my wife had copied down the license number of his van) and then one of them said, you pulled out a baseball bat, what if he had a gun? Your children might have witnessed their father get shot. They left and found the guy, came back and said he was truly sorry for his actions. Moral of this story is, I quit giving driving instructions, both verbally and signing. I don't want to tempt fate.

 

[NMhunter]

I tell my grankids that driving is the most dangerous thing they do. Still my grandaughter ran into a semi-truck parked in the right hand lane on a road with 45 mph speed limit. I don't know what she was doing. Fortunately, the airbag saved her from serious injury.

 

[sajohnson]

Moral of this story is, I quit giving driving instructions, both verbally and signing. I don't want to tempt fate.

That's been my policy as well. The other driver could be suicidal; armed; and/or right on the edge of completely losing it. I don't want to find out.

All I ever want to do is get down the road with no drama. What I've found is that it is most effective to ignore other drivers -- no matter how obnoxious they are. No horn, no flashing high beams, no hand gestures. Just act like you don't have a care in the world.

Many of them seem to want to get a reaction. Take the "self-appointed speed enforcement vigilante" that intentionally drives next to a slow truck, creating a rolling road block. It's all but guaranteed that if s/he thinks they are aggravating other drivers they will keep it up indefinitely. What I do is hang back several car lengths and wait for them to drift far enough ahead of, or behind, the truck. Then drop the WRX into 3rd and be past them before they realize what's happening.

 

[Elegance]

I was driving a Ford Transit for the zoo I worked for in college. Drove a few hours away to a library and gave an educational talk to a group of kiddos and their parents attending a library sleepover. It was late by the time I got to leave the event and head back to the zoo through the state highway in the middle of WV.

I was 30 mins down the highway and there was nobody else on the road except me and one semi truck. He was traveling 45 mph, so I merged left to pass and sped up to 60. He swerved into my lane suddenly, jerked the wheel, and almost wound up on top of me. There was nobody around us for miles. Laid on my horn and had to ride over the shoulder to avoid winding up a tin can. He almost killed me and the opossum, owl, and snake I had in their carriers in the back. I'll never forget it.

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