Shannon gets home safe and sound

I have a lot of occasions to be thankful for Shannon but last night’s version stood out from the crowd.

Shannon left work and after an hour and a half she still wasn’t home (takes 45-60 minutes normally).  I was just about to call her when Shannon beat me to it.

“I’ve been stuck behind a huge wreck on I95 and I’m just about to get past it now.”  Thankfully for the truck driver, there were two off-duty Fort Lauderdale Fire Fighters on the Highway that pulled him from the wreckage of his burning big rig.

We commiserated as fellow commuters will.

“I’ve used up so much gas idling that I have to get off the freeway now and fill up.”

“OK Shan, drive safe and I’ll see you in a bit.”

10 minutes later…

“Julian I’ve just narrowly avoided a horrible accident!”

Shannon went on to explain that just after getting back on Interstate 95 two cars in front of her collided at high-speed. The only way to not run into them was to punch the accelerator to get around them. She had to swerve aggressively to the left, punch it, and watch as the cars spun around careening into each other, hoping that she’d out run them.

She did it. She went all the way from the second to right lane of 95 into the far-left breakdown lane and right up to the freeway divider wall. As Shannon squeaked by the wrecking cars she found herself steering back to the right and traveling at far too high a rate of speed. She applied the break a little. If you’re into driving you may know what comes next. Drift. The breaking lightens up the rear end of the vehicle and when combined with a little steering it induces a drift.

Imagine if you will, just avoiding a high-speed freeway accident in front of you and in your recovery mode you now find yourself in a high speed drift going down the middle of the freeway. Shannon said that after wards she realized that in that momentary drift she closed her eyes for a fraction of second while she waited for the vehicles behind her to smack into our Toyota 4-Runner. Fortunately, her instincts stayed true and she turned into the drift with a counter steer move. If she had gone the other way with that steering wheel it would have been a horrible rollover.  Shannon’s not in to driving like I am, and she hasn’t practiced drifting and counter steering as I used to on the snowy roads back in New Hampshire, but her driving instincts were good all the way around.

Those instincts may have saved her life yesterday, from the initial move to get around the wrecking cars, to punching the accelerator, to the counter steer move to extricate herself from a potentially lethal high-speed drift. The force of the avoidance and drift moves slammed her head into the side of the door jam and she has a bump on the head to remember her near-miss by. Shannon also has the typical post-accident muscle soreness to boot. You have to say that it’s amazing as well, that the 4-Runner, with its high center of gravity, never rolled. Good on ya Toyota.

All I can say is THANK YOU. For whatever real world driving skills and unseen forces that brought her home to us safe last night. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!

Just this morning mum sent me a commercial that has fun with the typical ‘women driver’ stereotype. I’ve had the good fortune to be around a lot of good women drivers – starting with my mum.  On the topic of my mum’s driving: don’t ever take her on at a traffic light – she’ll shame you.

So for a little contrast to this story I post this piece of fun in celebration of our good fortune. Good on ya Shannon, I love you!