Today I was nearly killed. No, that is not hyperbole.
I was on the freeway, to my right is one more lane of travel and an "Exit Only" lane that is about to turn off. Ahead of me in the lane to my left is an old Crown Victoria with the specialty "Realtor" license plate and very saggy rear springs. The Crown Vic suddenly slows down and moves into my lane. I lift off the gas to slow my closing speed, the Vic starts moving into the right lane, presumably to make the exit that she is about to miss. She has her right signal on and is looking over her right shoulder, it is clear that she intends to exit, but she will likely miss this one and have to take the next ramp. I get back on the gas a bit and bring the X back up to speed to pass her. The following happens in about 1.25 seconds:
- When I am about two feet away she suddenly slams on the brakes and violently swerves halfway into my lane.
- I jumped on the brakes and felt the ABS start to kick in as I start to downshift from 6th to 4th. It is clear that I am about to rear-end the Vic in an offset collision with my right front corner. The closing speed is currently at about 40 mph, which will likely cause me to spin and roll.
- I release the brakes to get some weight on the rear wheels an violently swerve to the next lane to the left, which I know is clear. Note that I am doing this with one hand, because I'm still in the process of downshifting.
- As the X swerves around the Vic, with about three inches to spare, I turn back to the right to bring the X along a parallel course in the center lane and avoid shooting over all the lanes of travel, which would take out multiple cars.
- As I steer right, I feel the back start to rotate around in the start of a spin, I have completed the downshift and give the X a bit of gas to stabilize the suspension and a half-turn of opposite lock. The result is essentially a sideways drift perfectly into the adjoining lane. The X settles down on the suspension and goes back to acting like a car and less like a rabid dog trying to murder its own tail.
The Crown Vic was oblivious to this entire maneuver, she had no idea what was going on and presumably didn't hear the chorus of honking and the scream of tortured rubber. To her right through all this, in the Exit Only lane was a Ford F-350 crew cab, that possibly had spooked her into the violent swerve that caused this near-collision.
If I didn't have years of experience driving top-heavy vehicles on loose surfaces like dirt and gravel, slippery surfaces like snow and ice, and experienced the behavior of SUVs when they cock a wheel up off the ground, I'm 100% sure that the VDC would have been overwhelmed and the X would have spun and rolled down the freeway.