Near head-on (ish)

[w1bbles]

I've not crashed since I was a spotty 22 year old with a Mk2 Golf GTi 16v and very little talent. I had a very near miss yesterday that gave me cause for thought. I was driving home from a day out about 150 miles away and was on the home straight; off the dual carriageway and onto a twisty A road for 30 mins in dry weather with perfect visibility. I was driving the RS6 at reasonable pace but not silly. My two sons were in the car; both of them drive. I always work on the basis that I need to be able to stop within my line of sight regardless of my speed but this near miss has made me think again. I was doing about 50 on a relatively open blind curve to the left and I had slowed down to my line of sight when a nutter appeared in a Merc of some description with the majority of his car on my side of the road. He was heading almost straight at me at significant speed. I think it was significant speed for a couple of reasons - the first was just gut feel judging his motion, and the second was what happened afterwards.

I've just had new discs and pads at vast expense, plus some work on the brake pistons front and rear. Thank goodness. The car stopped unbelievably quickly and I managed to judge the stone wall side of the road by about an inch. We went back afterwards and checked the distances vs. the tyre marks.

I have no idea what was happening on the right hand side but we were all braced for impact and nothing happened as he/she must have managed to flick their car out of the way. I turned round at the next safe field entrance and tried to catch up with the Merc as they had not stopped and didn't wait to see if were ok; for all they knew we were upside down in a ditch because I couldn't see them in my mirrors when we emergency stopped. After the U turn I drove swiftly but not madly as we were all just thankful to be alive and after 5 miles of trying to catch up it was clear that we'd have to really try to close the gap (I couldn't see them BTW) and I chalked it up to experience.

The reason for posting it here is this: should one generally work on the basis that the worst hazard round a blind bend is a stationary object, or something travelling at 60+ mph on the wrong side of the road? For the next few weeks I will be thinking the latter rather than 30+ years of thinking the former.

Thanks.

[w1bbles]

You’re correct. But in the analysis I don’t think I was going too fast for visibility. It was the car coming at me that made me question myself.

[w1bbles]

Thanks all. I drove 40 miles this evening and was definitely a bit edgy about people coming head-on at me. On reflection I really don’t think I was driving too fast so all in all a good lesson about the unexpected. The weird thing about the C5 RS6 is that I generally think I’m going faster than I am because the seating position is low compared to my daily Defender and the suspension appears to be made from concrete. It’s on coil overs to replace the DRC so you feel every bump. So 40 in this feels like 60 in my Defender, oddly. I still reckon I was doing less than 50 but judging by the twitchiness of the head on Merc, they were doing significant more.