It is probably entirely thanks to the timing of one phone call that I am alive and able to blog the tale.
There is a particular intersection that I am quite partial to: leaving the BART parking lot, the access road meets El Camino Real at a “T”. Normally, I like to drive quickly out of this intersection and take a very sharp turn onto El Camino Real, resulting in a sideways slide across 1 – 1.5 lanes that reminds me of why I love my Subaru. Recently, we’ve been suffering through a rather severe weather event, which meant the roads were rather wet, and when the roads are wet, the sliding is made all the more fun. On Friday, I happened to arrive at the intersection right as the light was turning red, requiring that I stop and making me the first car for when the light turned green. Being the first car, is optimal because it means that I can really gun it and do a fast, hard, wide slide because there’s no one else that I have to watch out for.
There I was, all psyched and ready to gun it for a huge, fast slide when I got a cellphone call from my dad. Having a manual transmission makes it very hard to accelerate quickly, take a turn and talk on the phone all at once, due to lack of hands. Answering a phone call from my dad is more important than a slide opportunity so I decided to abort my slide attempt.
When the light turned green, I set out slowly and, a quarter of the way across the intersection, someone crossed right in front of me, running the red light at 40-50mph. If I had gone full bore into the intersection, I would have been just fast enough to get T-boned right on the driver’s side. That phone call probably saved me from serious injury or death and that makes it a very happy coincidence in my book.