“It’s a near hit! A collision is a near miss!”

BOOM! “Look, they nearly missed…” “Yes, but not quite!” So according to that definition (courtesy of George Carlin), that means yesterday afternoon, I was driving down the highway and got to experience a near hit.

I was in the car with Teresa (my fiancee) and our two dogs. We were driving to her parents’ house so we could attend her grandnephew’s baptism. It’s a long drive, about 2 1/2 hours. We were maybe halfway there and I ended up behind a pickup truck that was pulling a trailer with a couple of ATVs on it.

We were going the speed limit—60 miles per hour—and normally, I probably would have found a place to cross the center line to go around him to save a little time. However, the center line in that area had a rumble strip on it: a lot of small ridges that make a lot of noise when your tires hit that line. Little dogs don’t like a lot of noise. Since I care about their well-being (and Teresa’s well-being since they were riding in her lap), I stayed behind the pickup truck.

There was a car coming toward us in the other lane, which would normally be no big deal. It might have remained no big deal except the road curved slightly to our left. The oncoming car should have then turned slightly to that driver’s right. “Should have” is a very key term here.

Instead of turning, it continued moving in a pretty straight line, crossing over the rumble strip in the center of the road and was about halfway into our lane by the time it reached the truck in front of us. Thankfully, the truck driver was able to swerve to his right. Not so thankfully, his trailer didn’t swerve as quickly as the truck and the car hit the front corner of that trailer almost head on.

Remember, we were driving 60 miles per hour, which means the car was probably moving about the same speed toward us. A collision with that much force explains why the car’s airbags immediately deployed. It also explains why the car’s front left wheel stayed at the point of impact while the rest of the car kept moving forward.

The impact sent the trailer skidding toward the side of the road. The chains that kept the trailer attached to the back of the truck remained intact. Whatever was keeping the ATVs attached to the trailer didn’t. They were airborne, soaring over the downward slope next to the road and covering a pretty good distance before finally crashing to the ground.

The impact also sent the car with its three remaining wheels back into its own lane before it eventually skidded to a halt at the edge of our side of the road.

My brain had switched to automatic at that point and I remember stomping down on the brake pedal and swerving toward the outside of the road to avoid both the oncoming car and all of the debris that had suddenly appeared in front of us. Because the impact bounced the car back into its own lane… I’m not sure about the debris, but I know we managed to avoid the car.

(As a side note, I got a hint as to how hard I slammed on the brakes later that night. It had been many years since my surgically-repaired knee just ached, but there it was again…)

We stopped quickly enough that I could have pulled in behind the pickup truck, but I went past and parked in front of it instead. Looking back at the road… wow. A lot of metal and plastic and one wheel sitting by itself. Part of me wanted to take pictures of the aftermath and part of me (the part that won out) was happy to avoid any additional reminders of what had just happened. As it was, I got to see the car up close after they’d pulled it up onto a trailer and that’s when I realized where the wheel in the road came from.

Looking down the slope next to the road… wow. Those ATVs were spread out a lot more than I would have expected by the time they came to rest in their various states of “Yeah, that ain’t gonna move under its own power anytime soon.”

The car that crossed the center line was totaled. The ATVs were totaled. The drivers were physically okay (the car’s driver got checked out in the back of an ambulance), but I imagine their nerves were also probably totaled. The truck may have bent an axle when the trailer suddenly pulled so hard off to the side, too. (The bottom of the rear driver’s side tire was tilted slightly outward.) Me? I ended up in the back of a police car.

Thankfully, it was only because I was making a statement to the state trooper so that we could get back in our fully-functional car and continue the trip to Teresa’s parents’ house. She had a number of scratch marks on her legs from the dogs’ feet when I slammed on the brakes, but that was about the extent of the damage to the four of us.

(As another side note, her nephew got to her parents’ house a little later. He had taken the same route we did, so he asked if we saw the mess on the side of the road that was holding up traffic. Ummmm… yes. Yes, we did.)

It wasn’t until this afternoon when Teresa pointed out that if the pickup truck hadn’t been pulling the trailer with the ATVs… the car driving toward us would have continued to move further into our lane and we might have had a head-on collision. That trailer may have saved our lives. I’ve never cared much about ATVs, but it turns out that car accidents can be a good way to develop a real appreciation for what they can do.

So that’s it. The worst thing that happened to the four of us was me forgetting to pack up my cell phone at Teresa’s parents’ house in the morning and we had to drive back there after church. I was annoyed with myself, but considering what could have happened during the first leg of our trip… a great example of first-world problems.

We were very, very lucky. All of us in all three vehicles. Cars, trailers and ATVs can be replaced. People (and dogs)? Not so much. So at your next opportunity, I recommend giving a hug to someone you love, whether that be a person, a pet… okay, you can hug your car, too. Just make sure that it’s not moving at 60 miles per hour with other cars driving toward you when you do.