The Day a Wrong-Way Driver Almost Killed Me

Seconds matter during an encounter on a dark highway.

Exactly one year ago today, I was driving to school at 5 am like I do every morning. I am a teacher and I like to get to work early to get things done before everyone arrives. It was still dark at that time.

Most of the 15-mile commute is on the highway. I was about five miles from work on a part of the divided highway that bends slightly and is not heavily trafficked. The four-lane highway was split down the center by a grassy median with two lanes going in each direction.

There was a car going slower than the speed limit in the right lane in front of me, so I switched to the left lane to pass it.

After I was passed it, I remained in the left lane until I was enough ahead of it to comfortably move back over to the right. It was no big deal; there was hardly any traffic out at that time.

Before I could get over, I looked straight ahead and could swear there was a pair of headlights in my lane.

Was my mind playing tricks?

The rest happened in a blur.

There was a car in my lane heading straight for me. I was going 70 miles per hour. It, too, was probably going the same speed.

I don’t remember even thinking about it. Literally, between the time I saw the lights to the time I reacted, no more than 1.5 seconds could have gone by.

I immediately jerked my wheel to the right going almost sideways into the right lane. I could only hope the car that I had just passed saw me and slammed on its brakes.

The car going the wrong way in my lane missed me by inches as it sped by me. It performed absolutely no evasive maneuvers whatsoever.

My car was in danger of going out of control, so I turned the wheel back to the left and started going straight again while applying the brakes and fishtailing to a stop. I looked in my rear-view mirror and the car behind me had also, thankfully, come to a stop.

The car going the wrong way in my lane was so far gone I couldn’t even see its taillights anymore.

As I sat there trying to gain my composure, I decided to drive forward slowly thinking that it is not safe to be stopped on a highway in the middle of the dark.

I got off on the next exit. I did not have the stomach for driving on the highway anymore that morning. I took the back roads to work and pulled into an empty parking lot in front of the school building.

I was the only one there. That wasn’t that unusual. I am often the first person at work.

As I sat in that parking lot and decompressed several thoughts went through my brain.

First, had that actually happened? Everything occurred so fast, I was starting to wonder if my mind had played tricks on me and I dodged lights that were actually in the other lane. But, I do remember seeing the car as it missed me by inches. I think it was a gold color.

No, it happened.

The second thought I will admit to momentarily having was did I survive it? Was I really dead on the side of the road and this was just my mind going on with its routine ignoring the fact that I had died?

As I stepped out of my car, I felt the crispness of the cool morning and saw a light turn on in the building. The janitor must be here. I was convinced I had survived it and had just gotten really lucky.

As I walked to the building, I stopped and look back at my car. How had I reacted so quickly and steered clear of the collision? I probably had one second to react.

Anything could have gone wrong. I could have clipped the wrong-way driver’s vehicle. I could have rolled my car when I turned so sharply. The car behind me could have hit me.

But, none of that happened.

As I looked back at my car, I was reminded of where I got it. After my mother died ten years ago, I inherited her car. It had always been a good car and I took care of it. Sentimentally, it meant a lot to me.

As the morning went on and people started arriving at school, there was talk of a major accident on the same part of the highway I had been on.

A wrong-way driver had ran head-on into an oncoming pick-up truck. The person in the bigger truck was seriously injured but fortunately survived. The wrong-way driver did not.

The accident occurred within a minute of my encounter. It was not known why the driver was going the wrong way.

It was, of course, the same driver. Avoiding the accident for myself lead to the man in the pick-up being hit down the road. Every action in life seems to interact with a consequence.

When I drove home from school that day, I was a little nervous and stayed in the right lane as much as possible. I thought about my wife and daughter and how much their lives would have changed had there been a different outcome.

As I gripped the steering wheel, I couldn’t help but think of my mother driving this very car with her hands gripping the same steering wheel. Did she somehow reach across time and steer me clear of danger?

Who knows why I survived and was able to miss the oncoming car without losing complete control of my own car? I guess anything is possible.