The wife & I are just starting one of our regular, long holidays in South Africa. I picked up a relatively new Toyota Etios rental car at Cape Town airport.
I'm driving along the N2 motorway. Everything is just fine & dandy. South Africans drive us the left like us Brits, so no confusion there. The conditions aren't great (the roads are wet from a bit of fine rain) but not bad. I'm in the overtaking lane doing a steady 80-100 kph.
Suddenly I'm aware the car parallel to me, on the inside lane, is heading broadside into me. I suspect I was in his blind spot, he wants to overtake but he doesn't know I'm there.
I swerve to the right to avoid being hit. Immediately I know I'm in big trouble! I turn the wheel left and it's like I've massively overcorrected and am swerving back into all of the traffic. I turn the wheel to correct again and the swerve right is very violent. I'm now off the road, onto the central reservation (a flat, grassy patch of land) and skidding, out of control, straight into two lanes of oncoming traffic and there's absolutely bugger all I can do about it!
BOOM! I hit a van. The car spins 360° and stops, half on the road, half on the central reservation. I'm alive. The wife's alive. I get out & open the wife's door and she gets out. The van I hit is on it's side some way up the road. The front of my car is a horribly mangled mess!
Almost immediately the cavalry arrive. Strangers helping us. The police, ambulances, a fire truck too (although nothing's on fire). South Africans really are the nicest, kindest of people. After an hour, a replacement rental car arrives (thank you First) and we continue on our merry way with just a few cuts and bruises.
So BITOGers! I'm been driving for 40 years and nothing remotely like this has ever happened before. It felt there was this massive, heavy, swinging pendulum attached to the front of my car. What happened and what should I have done differently??? I should add that all this happened in a matter of seconds and all rational thought stopped functioning almost immediately but even so, any thoughts???
I'm driving along the N2 motorway. Everything is just fine & dandy. South Africans drive us the left like us Brits, so no confusion there. The conditions aren't great (the roads are wet from a bit of fine rain) but not bad. I'm in the overtaking lane doing a steady 80-100 kph.
Suddenly I'm aware the car parallel to me, on the inside lane, is heading broadside into me. I suspect I was in his blind spot, he wants to overtake but he doesn't know I'm there.
I swerve to the right to avoid being hit. Immediately I know I'm in big trouble! I turn the wheel left and it's like I've massively overcorrected and am swerving back into all of the traffic. I turn the wheel to correct again and the swerve right is very violent. I'm now off the road, onto the central reservation (a flat, grassy patch of land) and skidding, out of control, straight into two lanes of oncoming traffic and there's absolutely bugger all I can do about it!
BOOM! I hit a van. The car spins 360° and stops, half on the road, half on the central reservation. I'm alive. The wife's alive. I get out & open the wife's door and she gets out. The van I hit is on it's side some way up the road. The front of my car is a horribly mangled mess!
Almost immediately the cavalry arrive. Strangers helping us. The police, ambulances, a fire truck too (although nothing's on fire). South Africans really are the nicest, kindest of people. After an hour, a replacement rental car arrives (thank you First) and we continue on our merry way with just a few cuts and bruises.
So BITOGers! I'm been driving for 40 years and nothing remotely like this has ever happened before. It felt there was this massive, heavy, swinging pendulum attached to the front of my car. What happened and what should I have done differently??? I should add that all this happened in a matter of seconds and all rational thought stopped functioning almost immediately but even so, any thoughts???
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