Driving is one of life's joys. But it can also change your life completely in a second. After many years on the road, accidents are not limited to something you read about in the newspapers. Although I have seen accidents up close, I have yet to be involved in one, but it has been close!
It didn't happen
I am hardly alone when I say that countless times I have helped to prevent accidents due to the mistakes of other drivers. For the sake of balance, I can probably mention that it has also happened that other motorists have averted mistakes on my part. The point is that many accidents never happened because the other party managed to avert the accident. On one occasion I confronted a fellow motorist after a near miss on a slippery road. Then I got the answer that "it didn't happen". It may not matter so much who did what. The most important thing was that it didn't happen.
Unconscious impressions
When I have intervened to prevent an accident, I summarize it all afterwards. What was it that I saw? What made me react? I use to say that drivers have to react to spinal cord sensations - before the impressions reach the brain. Often it concerns signals that are perceived in a lightning-quick moment.
About "knowing the louse in the hallway"
A few days ago I got one "hope she doesn't swerve right in front of me"-feeling. It was this feeling that made me avert an accident.
A young woman was about to turn onto the heavily trafficked Slemmestadveien outside Oslo. She came from a side road and was about to turn left. What put me on alert was her look. It was fixed the wrong way - to the right - not to the cars coming from the left. Then she drove straight into the road without looking back.
If I hadn't been on standby, we would have crashed!
Section 3 of the Road Traffic Act provides that "Everyone must drive with consideration and be alert and careful so that no danger can arise or damage be caused, and so that other traffic is not unnecessarily obstructed or disturbed."
For a collision to occur between two cars, it is not just one driver who has made a mistake. There are two. Perhaps not in a legal context, but everyone has a duty to be alert - that is - to follow what is happening in the traffic picture. It's about seeing other people's moves forward. Feel free to compare it to football or chess.
Look far ahead, move your gaze, get an overview, be seen and understood, and look for possible ways out.
"Possible ways out" is the action that can avert the accident. If it is too late to brake, you can perhaps increase speed and steer out of the situation. It is of little help to detect a threat if you do not act in the right way. Imagine meeting a car in the same lane. Should you turn right or left? Imagine if the oncoming car steers the same way?
The way out
A few years ago, we were met by a foreign truck train that was in the middle of an overtaking round a bend on national highway 3. The road lacked a shoulder and was not wide enough for three vehicles. Neither the car that was overtaken nor the train showed signs of changing course. I had to choose a way out quickly. Flashed right, braked suddenly and left the right pair of wheels in the terrain outside the asphalt. A second later the wagon train thundered past at close range. No damage occurred.
Best not to react
What should one do after averting an accident? You can't expect anyone to thank you. You are left with a high heart rate and gasping for air, while the other party drives off without saying a word. One might think that a reaction would have been in order, but it will hardly help. If that person really understood whatever happened, he or she will probably learn from it anyway. When confronted, most people will downplay the incident. Should the other party obviously not have been mentally present during the incident, there is at least no point in reacting.
Lost case?
I tried to make contact with the young woman after the episode on Slemmestadveien, but she was in her own world with a companion, probably on a practice drive without an "L" plate. Hope she learns to drive.
