In the distance you see coming down the centre of a straight road towards you is another car, what do you choose to do?

grahamg

grahamg

Old codger
Location
South of Manchester, UK
This happened to me once on my way to work in the morning, I saw in the distance a car coming down the centre of a straight length of country road towards me. :(

What should you/I have chosen to do, 1). "pullover and wait till they pass", 2). "try to stick as close as possible to your side and hope the other car realises the jeopardy they are placing you both in", or 3). "head down the middle of the road towards them", (in order that they get the message and get back to their side of the road in time so you can both pass comfortably)? :unsure:

I chose option number three, as my father used to say he did if other road users were trying to squeeze him off the road, and of course it worked or I wouldn't be here to tell the tale of course, (the other driver seeming upset about something as we passed one another, though I can't think what was bothering him?). :rolleyes:
 

It happened to me years ago, in my twenties, while I was driving with family to the park. We were on a bridge, and someone was driving towards us, and they were in our lane (only one lane). I honked and honked, and it must have woken them up because they swerved into their lane last minute. My heart was beating so fast for a long time after that!
 

palides2021 said:
It happened to me years ago, in my twenties, while I was driving with family to the park. We were on a bridge, and someone was driving towards us, and they were in our lane (only one lane). I honked and honked, and it must have woken them up because they swerved into their lane last minute. My heart was beating so fast for a long time after that!
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Sounds scary. I grew up in Louisiana..in the small college town of Ruston. We had many country roads but fortunately I have never had this experience.
 
The question is hypothetical for me since that hasn't happened to me. But there is no question in my mind that pulling over as far as possible to avoid a collision would be my action. Chancing the mental state or sobriety, of the other driver isn't worth the risk of being another road death statistic.

Because this scenario is on a country road, & this is hypothetical. As far as possible because, there is no way to know how much room to safely pull over. Might still not be enough but could help to minimize any impact.
 
I'd pull over. Highway 99 in California is notorious for accidents. I once had a car passing a truck (only one lane each way). How they thought they were going to make that, I have no idea. Luckily there was a wide area to the side of the road, which I had to drive into. Or it would have been head on. I got out of that stupid bitches way.
 
Somewhere, there is probably professional writing about this, by an expert. Maybe from a police department or from some kind of advanced driving skills course (those are sometimes used by law enforcement or, particularly, security people who are trained to protect a client from being kidnapped).

I was once about 10 minutes out from a suicide by car.

Someone literally sped into traffic to take their own life. (they succeeded).

When I got to the scene, everything was backed up for miles and you couldn't see anything. I just found out later from the news what had happened.

There may be some kind of professional "trick" to solve this.

If the person has fallen asleep at the wheel..there is probably one kind of solution.

If the person is trying to change lanes and has no time, there is probably another solution.


One solution might be quite scary...but I would imagine if you sped up and directly aimed at them...and then, at the last minute sharply turned away... the other driver would have no time to react and change direction...so either they would turn away, or they would not know when you would be turning away.

Now that is just a kind of wild guess....but I think the professionals would know of techniques like that, that do work.

I know that there are extremely advanced techniques with braking, which would cause a car to spin around another car. But, I would assume you would need fully professional skills to execute that.

Here's a little fun video of a professional driver taking a driving teacher for quite a ride...

Fast & Furious Nerd Shocks Driving Instructors - Drift Prank

 
Looks like dad got it wrong again, if following his advice seems as unpopular as this, (maybe I've over dramatised the situation here!).

There was time to think of a few options, but on a fairly busy road in the morning rush hour traffic, pulling over might be seen as creating an obstacle for others coming along behind to get around.

I didn't immediately come up with my idea of behaving as crazily as the guy heading for me was prepared to do, so he had time to return to his own side, but seemingly wasn't going to "until I forced his hand"!

Never mind, I got away with it, and whether said individual made a habit of this kind of driving or not I'll never know, though it is fairly common in this country for folks to head around blind bends on country roads without sounding their horn, (or whatever its called in the USA, "honking" is it?).
 
Is this really a serious question? You didn’t say how fast the drivers were going, but all things considered, what are my options: 1. Die 2. Get out of the way.
 
Where I live the roads are country gravel roads. The center is the smoothest (and in wet weather the firmest). Everybody drives down the center of the road. If someone is coming from the other direction we each shift over toward our own side, but the timing depends on the person. I tend to shift over early unless I think I can make it to my driveway and turn in before they arrive to the same place.
 
On a two lane hwy, there's really no choice

If the oncoming is in your lane, the temptation is to go to their lane
but
If they swerve back in their lane, yer dead.....aaaand at fault

If you hug the outermost part of your lane, it's just too risky

Gotta get OFF the road

Typically, there's an emergency edge (lane)
Sometimes it's gravel
Gotta brake, and slow to a crawl if it's gravel
Then, get in that lane

If there's no emergency lane, you gotta find a place to get off the road

The best way to avoid all this is to aim high when driving
You'll see the oncoming culprit soon enough to react in time

I've done this a few times
No regrets
 
oldman said:
Is this really a serious question? You didn’t say how fast the drivers were going, but all things considered, what are my options: 1. Die 2. Get out of the way.
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Oh, he was only going about 5mph, (no, really about thirty or forty mph, so not ultra fast by any means, "that would be reckless" gettin in the way of someone doing a ton or summat!).

Am I being serious, well yes, "it did occur an awl"!

I was half the age I am now, so doubt I'd repeat the exercise if I was confronted with the same scenario these days, (but best to keep folks guessing if you won't to keep folks guessing!?).

I'd be too worried about what to put on the insurance claim if there had been a collision, if we'd survived and impact, (which I'm assuming I would, as it wasn't a station wagon, or truck heading my way or anything!). :)
 
dseag2 said:
I guess we should all figure out what we should do because it is a reality.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/four-dead-in-wrong-way-crash-on-i-45-wilmer-police/2974876/
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I'm unable to follow your link on this tablet computer, so can't check out the circumstances of the case you've found unfortunately.

However, I'm reminded of a second occasion when I met a motor vehicle coming towards me, (you couldn't make this up could you, how could I be so forgetful!).

This was however a very different case in the sense it was first of all an army truck coming towards me down a hill in the middle of the road, (well we were both in the middle of the road due to some very icy conditions, and there being only one track in the middle, all rutted in as I'm sure you can imagine!).

Luck played a real part in saving my skin that day because once I'd seen the truck as I approached the brow of the hill, and they were just starting to come down, I managed to lock over and escape the ruts, so both of us were able to avoid a collision, (not that he was in any danger in an army vehicle, except perhaps from his commanding officer afterwards, had he taken out a civilian!).
 
go as far right as I could or pull off - I had this happen when someone got on the freeway in the wrong direction - I flashed, I honked, I got out of the way, I called 911 to report it. Since we were far from the entrance/exit ramps, this driver was obviously unaware that they were going the wrong way for quite a while. It was night and it took me a while to figure out "What's wrong with this picture? Why am I seeing headlights coming towards me?" It scared the crap out of me.
 

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