Instinct

For being an otherwise physically uncoordinated, athletically disinclined, mental klutz, I seem to have a sharp instinct for survival – or at least for avoidance of disastrous incidents while driving.

One such notable incident occurred early in my relationship with Mrs. Farrago. We were in my old Jeep Cherokee, a reliable relic with an underpowered 4-cylinder engine that didn’t know when to quit. We were headed home on the Kennedy Expressway when we encountered a Saturday afternoon traffic jam. As I have become my father, I decided to seek an alternate route around the traffic.

We were approaching – very slowly – the Cumberland Avenue exit, and I decided to use that to get to the surface streets. I swung out in to the long exit lane leading to southbound Cumberland Avenue. I was up to about 35 or 40 mph when suddenly, not more than two car lengths ahead, another SUV swung out from the exit lane to northbound Cumberland into my lane. RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!

Mrs. Farrago braced for impact. I didn’t even have time to honk my horn, which is a sworn duty of every driver in Chicago.

But, without even thinking, I cranked the steering wheel to the right (there’s a wide emergency lane in that area), and I jammed the accelerator to the floor! At that age, the Jeep did little more than let out a disgruntled moan, but it got us out of the collision. And then I cranked the wheel to the left and straightened us out.

Why did I do that? Why hit the accelerator rather than the brake? Afterward, I knew it was intentional – reaction aside – and not an instance of pressing the wrong pedal. I had turned the wheel far enough to avoid a crash, but not so far that I could roll the Cherokee. As we drove away, it all just felt to me like I had done exactly the right thing.

Then, just Monday night the snow had been falling heavily for about an hour and a half. On my way home from work I had “played” in the snow with my Xterra in 4-wheel-drive, cutting the wheel harder on turns than I normally would, giving it more gas, hitting the brakes harder to activate the anti-lock braking system, just to feel how the vehicle reacts in those conditions. That was in an empty parking lot, and on side streets where there were no other cars nearby.

I was done playing. I was practically in the home-stretch to my apartment. I was on a residential street divided by a median, the speed limit on which is 30 mph. About an inch of unplowed snow had accumulated on this street and light traffic had turned it into a hard-packed sheet of slickeriness. Ahead of me, around a blind, gentle curve, someone had poorly negotiated a left turn in the slick conditions and slid past the break in the median and off to the right side of the lane. The driver of the car behind him braked to avoid hitting this person who was then trying to back up and complete the missed left turn!

Admittedly, I was going too fast…about 25 mph. I saw the situation in front of me and I hit the brakes a little too late. The anti-lock braking system engaged, vibrating noisily under my foot and, though I was slowing, it wasn’t enough to stop me in time before I would hit the car in front of me.

This next moment came with the clarity of thought and consideration and weighing of potential consequences that normally comes after an afternoon of contemplation. I simply turned the wheel slightly left and aimed for the median, between a tree there and the rear end of the car I had only milliseconds before been bearing down upon. As I neared the curb, my only fear was that, rather than jump it, my Xterra would have merely been deflected by the curb and back into the roadway and an inevitable crash. All these thoughts in a matter of two seconds!

But my tires ate up the curb and I went onto the median. Deep snow there, deposited by snowplows in earlier snowstorms, stopped me quickly, softly, and I ended up just about directly beside the car I otherwise would have hit! My engine died, as the Xterra has a manual transmission and I had my foot on the brake until well after I had come to a stop. I don’t know if the driver of the car I had managed to avoid crashing into even realized what had happened, but if he or she did, there must have been a loud sigh of relief in that car when I was seen lodged in several feet of snow beside him/her!


The Scene: This is where the Xterra came to rest after missing everything dangerous. Note the small tree to the left.


A closer look at how deep the snow was. And in the background, the Xterra peers sheepishly from behind a sign.

Regardless, the sigh of relief in my car was enough to satisfy us both! Certain I was now stuck, I restarted the engine, put the transmission into reverse, and I felt the 4-wheel-drive move me effortlessly back into the roadway.

I wish I could think as clearly and rationally and decisively in calm moments as I seem to have done in moments of true danger. But then again, seeing as how I’m alive and my car is undamaged (except for the leftovers of this), maybe that’s thinking enough.