Closest call driving you've ever had 4012

I think I've posted this before, one morning I had something that I needed to take care of before work so I was going to work later than normal. I was tooling down the mostly-deserted highway at about 75 MPH in the right hand lane (65 limit.) As I was pbutting an interchange (ironically, the one I'd get off to go to where I live now) I saw some slow-moving vehicles preparing to merge. I indicated and changed to the middle lane as they merged on. The lead car, a POS minivan replete with woodgrain, immediately changed lanes directly in front of me, too close for me to comfortably slow down. I flicked left instantly, and a little peeved, I gave my car a little more gas to get around this bonehead as quickly as possible. Minivan driver, still accelerating at about the same rate as good ketchup pouring from a bottle, changes lanes in front of me AGAIN. I flick back right, not even having the option to brake this time, only to discover that the second vehicle, a blue Subaru, was lazily oozing into the middle lane! At this point, even if I'd gone into full-on panic braking, I couldn't have missed the Subaru, whose driver obviously had no idea I was even there. (this was while driving a bright red 16V GTI mind you.) Purely on instinct I threw it into third, floored it, and held on - threaded the needle between the two other vehicles as the gap was rapidly closing, I still to this day don't know how I managed to make it without any paint trading.

One other incident that's more funny than dangerous... I was driving north on I-75 heading towards Sault Ste. Marie in a beat up 4WD Ford pickup that had been a prototype-development vehicle and was now basically a shop beater. I was following an old Chevy pickup that was actually travelling a little slow for my liking, but the roads were a little wet, and being the UP of course it was snowing - enough that I didn't feel comfortable attempting a pbutt as I would have had to exceed my comfort speed to execute it in a reasonable amount of time, and also the pbutting lane is generally a little more slushy and slick that the right one. So I just settled in behind him at a respectful distance... anyway about five miles down the road we were driving along and all of a sudden the trees that were beside the road ended and I got slammed with the mother of all crosswinds. The Chevy driver must have had better tires than I; he kept going but the next thing you know I was in the pbutting lane and at a 45 degree angle to the road. I was steering into it before I even had time to realize what was happening, but I just didn't have enough traction to gather it up and I plowed through the huge mbutt of snow on the shoulder down into the bottom of the median. Fortunately this truck had electric 4WD; while still moving I just engaged 4WD (I'd disengaged it after getting on the highway, not thinking it was that slick) crossed my fingers, planted my boot on the gas, and crashed back through the huge pile of snow and back onto the highway, all crossed up and sideways again. Fortunately we were the only two vehicles on the road (and I knew that, otherwise I wouldn't have chanced it and probably would have been calling for a tow truck) and I made it back to my hotel with nothing worse than some badly unbalanced wheels due to all the snow and crap packed into the wheels.

nate

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