Saw my life flash before my eyes today

[slipknotted]

So my guilty pleasure is being a bit of a DCW, as I'm sure some of you know. I'm a lot better than I was when I first got my license and I'm actually quite happy with my driving nowadays but something happened tonight that really scared me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wox4No5fDn8&ab...

I was shaking after the incident and had to take a few minutes. Once I'd calmed down all I could think was how late I saw him and how it almost put me in hospital or the ground - now I know the other driver is an absolute fking weapon and deserves points/ban for that level of driving but I feel as if I should've done better; been driving slower, saw him sooner, reacted better, etc. Any opinions or advice chaps?

FYI: This incident has been reported to the police and I'll probably stick it in the "S**t driving caught on cam" thread as well.

[LeoSayer]

My advice is don't beat yourself up.

You avoided an accident when it became clear the oncoming driver wasn't going back into their lane.

[Hugo Stiglitz]

Two things, your overthinking his driving (attempt murder?! Also)

and in the gtandscheme was nowhere near as bad as I've seen and avoided.

[Rowe]

attempted murder ahahahhaahahhahahahahhaa

[Jasey_]

I once had a 911 headed straight toward me doing c 90.

He couldn't swerve til the last millisecond as all 4 wheels were initially off the ground.

That was a proper brown trousers moment

[Paynewright]

I think being at night with lots of oncoming bright headlights plays a factor. I think in daylight you would have spotted sooner IMHO.

Other than a rapid slow down, which you did, there wasn’t really anywhere else to go! Well done on avoiding a collision!

[dundarach]

You'd have been more pissed off than dead, but I'd have been annoyed too.

[Pica-Pica]

Night time, more concentration needed. Plus radio on and singing along to it.

[akirk]

That the oncoming car is out of place can be seen several seconds before you seem to notice it… Also - you are in a built up area with cars on both sides and traffic in both directions - the speed limit might be 30 but the realistic safe speed might be nearer 20 - to drive defensively means assuming that someone else might do something silly and building in your own contingency - look further ahead to give yourself more warning, and slow down to give more time - it would then have been a non issue… If you drive expecting everyone else to be perfect you will have issues that you could have helped avoid…

That is probably the biggest issue with DCW - that they stick to (their interpretation!) of the law / Highway Code so rigidly because they are ‘right’ that actually many scenarios could have been avoided… the HC and law is far less black and white than many DCW realise and a part of every driver’s duty is to avoid issues - you are posting this in Advanced Driving - if that is what you want to be then look at what you can do to avoid issues even when you believe that you are in the right! Drive on the basis that actually in law as drivers we have very few rights (priority / responsibilities/ etc. but rarely rights…) anticipate more / plan more / make fewer assumptions and drop your speed and the issue(s) will vanish

[PHZero]

I'm not sure if the speeds involved would have led to fatalities if there had been contact between the vehicles, but you did well to avoid a collision. The other driver was probably on their mobile phone.

[mike74]

I generally have the opinion that anyone who is capable of leaning on their horn whilst simultaneously taking avoiding action then the incident is more of an irritation than anything else.

I doubt there are many fatal RTA's where the incident unfolds slowly enough that the victim still has the time to lean on their horn for several seconds prior to meeting their maker.

Poor driving on both sides from what I can see in this case, 29mph looked too fast in those particular circumstances plus a lack of awareness of the oncoming driver wandering into the wrong lane.

[loskie]

OP: I saw this on the st driving.

Quite obvious you are carrying too much speed (many towns now 20 mph limit for a reason) plus perhaps lacking concentration of the enthusiastic singing is anything to go by.

Other driver not without fault

[s55shh]

shocking singing btw

[donkmeister]

I think there are three problems here:

1) oncoming car wants to have lots of space between himself and the parked cars, but doesn't want to wait for a space to make that an option so just trying to force his way down the middle of the road
2) oncoming car is doing 30 when it's not necessarily safe to be going at 30
3) cam car is doing 30 when it's not necessarily safe to be going at 30.

If there had been a collision I'd have said 100% the oncoming driver's fault, of course.

[slipknotted]

Thanks for the replies & advice everyone! The common themes I'm seeing are:

• speed

I actually agree I was going about 5mph too fast for the conditions which contributed to the stop being longer than it could've been and could've given me time to notice the throbber. Just complacency and wanting to get home.

• dramatic title

Cry me a river it'll get views lol. On a more serious note if the Lexus had hit me (you know, that 1.6ton Lexus to my 1.25ton Skoda) I'm guessing 'causing serious injury by dangerous driving' would have very much been on the table so it's still a pretty serious incident imo and when I saw those headlights coming straight for me I genuinely panicked as I though I was about to have a nasty crash, there was no escape route until he swerved.

• singing being a distraction

I find this a tad peculiar as I'm singing about 90% of the time that I'm driving, it's more of a sub conscious thing at this point. I also have music on when revising at uni, fairly certain I concentrate better with music on.

• misc

One person mentioned that in serious crashes drivers never have time to sound the horn and if you do you're just annoying? I've brought this one up as I believe we would've crashed if I didn't sound my horn, the Lexus seems to react to it, fairly certain it 'woke him up'.
Someone else said about the Lexus going wide for parked cars, just not the case.

I will mention that one of the reasons I believe I didn't notice the Lexus until I did is the traffic island just up the road, with all of the headlights going around the traffic island it made it much harder to pick out headlights that weren't following the straight of the road.

[dvenman]

slipknotted said:

I will mention that one of the reasons I believe I didn't notice the Lexus until I did is the traffic island just up the road, with all of the headlights going around the traffic island it made it much harder to pick out headlights that weren't following the straight of the road.

I think it's more basic than that. If other people are seeing the oncomer move out before you did, then the level of concentration needs to be better. I think I counted a second or so between when there's a noticeable deviation and your reaction. At a combined 60mph closing that's 30 yards of barking wasted.

Depends how long you've been driving, but a RoSPA or IAM course would help towards that.

Edited by dvenman on Monday 15th November 15:19

[largespiced]

How come its always the ones with dashcams who seem to have all the incidents? I have been driving for 25 years and have had less attempted murders in that time than you seem to have suffered in a few months of YouTube videos? Maybe you need to shout and point "I have a dashcam" more to avoid these encounters?

[rampageturke]

largespiced said:

How come its always the ones with dashcams who seem to have all the incidents? I have been driving for 25 years and have had less attempted murders in that time than you seem to have suffered in a few months of YouTube videos? Maybe you need to shout and point "I have a dashcam" more to avoid these encounters?

your bias

you aint exactly going to see a video from someone without a dashcam, are you?

[Royal Jelly]

What’s a DCW?

[mike74]

slipknotted said:

• misc

One person mentioned that in serious crashes drivers never have time to sound the horn and if you do you're just annoying?

I didn't mean that you sounding your horn was annoying/irritating, I meant the fact that you had time to sound your horn as the incident unfolded suggests the actions of the other driver were more of an irritation/annoyance to you, rather than something more reckless or dangerous likely to result in a fatal collision.