Close Call

I've escaped a few close calls over the years while driving. I've also seen a few accidents 1st hand. When I was in college, a gal in front of me pulled out into oncoming traffic at a stop sign and got T-boned. That was crazy. The metal crunching metal sound is sickening, and once you hear it, you'll never forget it. Those of you that know what I'm talking about are probably nodding your head and smiling right now. When I was living in Chicago during my internship, I saw a Toyota Tacoma do a 360 on I-290 while on snow, cross 3 lanes of traffic and not hit a car or a guard rail and escape unscathed (during the morning rush hour commute, doing 50 MPH!)

Yesterday was about as close as I've personally ever been to getting hit and escape without a scratch. I was coming back from a client visit in Danville. I was about 3 miles from my exit here in Champaign. The roads were snow covered, granted, so we were only doing about 60 mph on interstate 74. This baby blue Dodge Intrepid was in the lane to my left, slowly passing me. I look over as I hear the "sliding on snow" sound. He started to spin around right next to me, but was sliding away from me, towards the far guard rail. I also for a brief second looked down at his tires, and it looked as though he had slammed on the brakes when he started to slide (a no, no). He ended up doing a 180, facing backwards, while still going forwards. A brand new black GMC Yukon was right behind him, and he ended up going around the Dodge on the shoulder, and also escaped. The Dodge and the GMC literally missed each other by inches. By this time, I had already passed them both. It was as close as I've even been without being in an accident (knock on wood, but I haven't caused an accident yet). My heart was pounding out of my chest by this point. It's crazy how fast things happen and split second decision making on my part (to tap the brakes and not hit them hard) was the difference between being in an accident and driving by a near miss.