And I don't say that in jest.
I was driving east on Highway 290 from Austin doing about 70mph, the speed limit, in the right lane. The wife was in the passenger seat. We were at the head of a loose group of about 10 cars.
I consider myself to be a pretty good, defensive, driver. I glanced at the interior rear-view mirror and saw one car behind driving a bit erratically. "Another asshole," I thought to myself.
I looked back at the road for a second, then glanced at the left rear-view mirror to see a silver car in the left lane crossing the middle and heading right for me. It's not hard to distinguish a safe lane change from a maniacal lane change.
Seeing him on my left, I swerved to the right a bit, letting out a "Fuck!!" in the process. As the wife gasped and hung on, the silver car sped past, barely missing my rear bumper by what must have been only inches. He continued to veer to the right, right in front of me. By this time, I was hitting my brakes.
The silver streak then, as if finally noticing he was about to go off the right side of the road, veered back hard left, locking up his brakes, sliding almost sideways in the middle of the road, with smoke pouring from his tires.
It was obvious he wasn't going to be able to straighten the car out before hitting the left guardrail, and he then veered just as sharply to the right and cut across both lanes of traffic, tires practically on fire. The smoke was so thick I couldn't see. But I could sure smell it. It smelled like burning rubber. Like a hospital. Like a graveyard.
Still slowing down, we emerged from the smoke cloud to see the silver asshole sitting in the grass on the right about 20 feet off of the road, right-side up, miraculously, tires still smoking.
I stopped the car on the right shoulder as did the car just behind me, thinking we might need to render some aid. After all, the first person on the scene of a crash is supposed to stop to render aid. It's the law. I rolled the car slowly forward and could see inside the silver car at what looked to be four young adults. The driver was stiff-legged and frozen. It looked like he was standing on his brakes.
I put the car in park and we were about to get out of the car when we see the silver asshole put the car in reverse and start to back up. It appeared the driver was OK. Well, maybe not OK OK, but OK enough, so we and the car behind me hit the gas and sped off. I didn't want to be anywhere near that asshole.
You know the old saying: all's well that end's well. Well, we narrowly averted a nasty crash. Dodged yet another bullet. The wife was a total wreck for the next 15-20 minutes, shaking and sobbing. Understandably. Somehow, I didn't seem too fazed. After all, my defensive driving just saved our lives. Or, that's what I'm going to tell myself.
Can't wait to get back out on the road again, right?
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