LexFather

So had a couple of near misses recently. The first was with my wife and her friend and we are on the way to an event on a 2 lane road with a 45mph limit. It was getting dark outside and I'm traveling straight and I see BENJI or rather a golden colored dog in the road trying to cross it! This is a very busy road!! The dog of course continues into my lane and I slam on the brakes and quickly glance over as I have to swerve into the next lane. I avoid hitting the dog and of course scare my passengers. I look and the dog safely made it across the street. Lucky doggy.

The 2nd incident I didn't fare so well. On the way to school and there are two right lanes that turn right. That means the right hand lane turns into the immediate right lane and the lane to the left which is turning right should stay in its lane to make the right turn.

Of course this lady in a newer Pathfinder is oblivious to this fact. So I am in the right lane coming down to turn right and she is in the lane to my left to turn right. Seemingly as soon as I come behind her she decides to make the right, NOT STAY IN HER LANE and just cut over into my lane. This meant I was going to rear end her. In a split second I average out her rear right side (of the truck) and my car and the curb. I knew I could avoid her but would hit the curb. I slam on the brakes and steer the car about 1 foot from her rear but in the process hit the curb. My windows were down and I hear people say DAAAAMMMMMMN.

I knew I didn't hit her but from another angle it probably looked bad. I hop out and the lady hops out and she is apologizing. She was shocked I didn't hit her as well as the people that saw the incident "that was some damn good driving". Unfortunately I curbed my front right hand wheel in the process to avoid the accident. Since I was on the way to a test I took this one as a loss and told the lady no problem.

SMH.......could be worse I suppose.

Anyone else want to share their "near miss" story(ies)?

PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

Multiple ones with the Duc.

But good planning, plenty of spacing, safe maneuvering, and that little bit of preemptive intuition made them all "misses"...

mmarshall

I've already dscribed, in my recent Porsche Panamera review, the near-miss I had with a lady in a Honda Civic, in the adjacent lane to the right of me, that decided to dart across my lane and try and make a left turn. If I had been driving the faster, more powerful Panamera Turbo (which, fortunately, I wasn't), under those specific circumstances, I might have hit her.

Jewcano

iTrader: (4)

Situation 1, involving animal: Was driving down a 3 lane road, middle lane for turning into opposite neighborhoods. Anyway, while traveling down the road, I see a squirrel a fair distance off in the center leaning into my lane as if its going to run across. I slow down to let it go through, it then turns around as if to go back to the middle lane. I speed up then to get past it, but no the critter decides to turn around and start to move towards my lane. I then jerk the car to the right to avoid running the stupid thing over, and I notice it JUMP towards my wheel..... I hear a thunk, and when I drove by and looked in my rearview mirror I didn't see anything, no dead squirrel. So I've no clue what happened to it.

Situation 2. Was driving on the highway 3 lanes merge into 2, and I'm in the middle one. This old lady in the right lane just starts to SLOWLY creep up next to me. I blare on my horn as she's merging into me, and I look at her and she doesn't even HEAR me blaring on the horn. I ended up having to swerve into the left lane which was ending soon to avoid getting hit by her.

Lil4X

I never cease to be amazed at the number of drivers who believe their car ends at their left shoulder. Twice in the past week I've had people passing me abruptly change lanes while a large part of their vehicle is still alongside mine. I suppose they are unaware of the length of their vehicle. This phenomenon also manifests itself when people cross a turning lane on a boulevard, leaving several feet of their vehicle hanging out in the traffic lane, when there is plenty of room to pull forward and clear traffic in BOTH directions.

I understand that some vehicles can be deceptively long. Our old minivan is of the long wheelbase persuasion, being nearly two feet longer than some of its relatives. From the driver's seat, I have to be aware that although our little van may be small, it is as long in both WB and LOA as many luxury sedans.

Gojirra99

I missed a deer suddenly dashing out in front of my car by literally less than 2 feet, that was like 15 years ago on a dark farm road with no street lights in Alberta.
It suddenly flashed across the front of my car, and there's no way I could have avoided it had it crossed my path just a split second late ......

Rob Daddy

I had one on a road when i lived in Germany. I owned a BMW 323i & was letting my friend drive. We were talking about how good the car felt since i just got it back from the shop. For a while we riding & the conversation stopped & he was concentrating on the turns. I see we are approaching an intersection where you have to turn left or right. i break the silence by asking him if he wants something to eat & he forgets to stop at the stop sign then realizes he was driving & then jerks the wheel left. We slide through the intersection sideways & end up in the ditch sideways. No damage to the car but needless to say I never let him drive my car again!

metalgear

I almost hit a lady driving a Honda Fit on my left side. I was going to merge on the middle lane. I looked first and didn't see her, then when I was halfway on the next lane she came out of nowhere! Good thing we were both pretty quick to swerve to avoid hitting each other. It was pretty close. I let her pass and tried to catch her to say I'm sorry but she wouldn't even look at me. lol

eyezack87

iTrader: (4)

Thanksgiving coming home from a church party around 11pm with my sisters. I had to get gas at a Shell station that is on the left side of me. I'm the first person in the lane and soon 3-4 cars wait as well. As soon as the light turns green, I start going and have a sudden urge that something bad was about to happen. I slow the turn to a crawl and sure enough, an F250 blasts through the red with no headlights or anything. That decision to slow to a crawl was something that saved me and my sisters from a very painful experience...

dunnojack

sometimes you just have to run the dog over.
they fit nicely under the car, without breaking much.


a deer with antlers, however- slam on the brakes as hard as you can

Dave600hL

I hit a cat about three months ago. Just darted out in front of me at the last minute, I didn't even have time to slam the brakes on. Did a U-turn, but it was dead. I still feel bad about it.

bnizzle87

had a really close "near miss" a few days back. on a two lane road, eventually merging into one near the stop light due to construction cones....im driving along minding my own and keeping up with traffic. i see red and blue lights from my rear view mirror so i pull over. a cop needed to get through, so veering off to the right lane everyone did, allowing the cop to safely proceed. normally at this point people would go back to their position on the road, each following one another. well, this snotty mb e63 decides to want to cut through all the traffic and make it in time before the eventual merging. im at the point right when the merging takes place. by this i mean there is literally no more room for another car to merge in front of me, or so i thought. this dude runs through cones and almost hits one of those orange signs that say "left lane closed"--all in a brand new black benz. and, of course, makes his way in front of me. he couldn't have been more than a few inches from my left side, and cutting me at such a sharp angle meant either he hits me or i had to let up and let this wreckless driver through, which i didn't want to, but was forced to. an accident on his part wouldn't be worth not have my car while its in the shop and getting repaired on his dime, especially with The Pursuit literally days away. sad thing is, he's driving a really nice car, and drives it like a POS. it wasn't like he was some rich trust fund kid that goes to high school; had his business attire, glasses, gray hair, but nope....drove it like a douche. such a classy car driven by a classless driver.

Stage3

iTrader: (3)

Lately, with me, it's been more of a "good timing" kind of thing. Within the last month, there have been two instances where if I would have left a few minutes early or on time, I would have PROBABLY been involved in a fatal collision.

Scenario 1:
I was getting ready to leave my office like I normally do at 4:30. At 4:25, I get an email from one of our Captains needing data regarding some activity within his area. I grumble and mumble to myself since these kind of "I need it now" requests usually come at the last possible moment. Anyhow, I get the request for the Captain, and head out. On my normal route home, I encounter a jam up on a rural road that's pretty fresh. As a matter of fact, I was passed by more than one FHP Trooper running code to the scene. As it turns out, there was a fatal head on collision that occurred when a driver had a medical issue and veered into the east-bound (my) lane. I spoke with a friend of mine who was running traffic control, and confirmed the next day with the actual report, that if I would have left on time, I would have been at that same spot at the time the accident occurred... YIKES.

Scenario 2:

This past week, I was in training and, as such, I was rewarded with a flexible Friday schedule. My options were 1). Come in at the usual time (8:00) and leave at noon, or 2). Come in at 10:00 and leave at 2:00. I really don't care about waking early to get to work at 8 as I've been doing it most of my adult life, but for some reason, I just felt the desire to sleep in that day. So, I chose 10am. The next morning, I go to work the normal way that I go with no issues. When I get to work, I begin to read the reports that have come in for the morning. As it turns out, at the time that I would normally be passing a specific intersection every morning, there was multi-car collision that caused two fatalities in two different cars.

Both cases have me spooked. I've been having these "feelings" that something bad was going to happen to me on this road (very rural and very high speed) and I've been telling myself that I need to go the longer more urban route to work. Well, those two events definitely did it for me. That road has me spooked for right now... I'm not too sure I can go back that way for a while...