Well, I almost collected my insurance money on my 'B tonight (and I have
just received the insurance renewal reminder too).
Driving a friend home I stopped at an amber (orange/yellow) traffic
light and glanced in the rear view mirror to see a woman driving a Ford
very rapidly up behind me. I could see by the panic in her face (and
the attitude of the car) that she wasn't sure she could stop in time so
a nimble bit of maneuvering put my little car on an angle out of her way
across the turning lane on my right.
A bigger car would have had nowhere to go and all my cursing at the
large turning circle of the 'B went out the window. There was a lot of
traffic starting to head into the intersection across the front of me so
I could not go straight ahead but if necessary (and it was one of my
escape plans) I could have slid her around the median strip in a
tyre-smoking u-turn without bothering the cross traffic.
By the time the squealing of her brakes had subsided this other driver
came to rest about halfway along the length of where my car had been.
The 'B would probably have ended up in the middle of that intersection
and the cross traffic. Funnily enough (proabably because of this list) I
was thinking at the time that she would have had ABS as it was a pretty
new car - but the brakes definitely locked up and she took ages to stop!
Strangely enough I was really calm throughout the whole thing and my
friend said that she reckoned I got "those great reflexes" from the
racetrack. She might actually be right - wow, that sport does have some
real-life benefits :-)
My car, my friend and I are all in one piece because of the "nimble" 'B
- pity lots of people see this intermediate light as being "put the foot
down and see if you can beat the red" instead of "stop if you can safely
do so".
Eric
'68MGB MkII (in one piece)
|