You wrote " I missed his front end by less than an inch", and that agrees with your diagram. You made it past his front end. He did not pull out soon enough for you to hit him.

But your description of events and the diagram do not agree with your words "if the kid had gone half a second later, I would have t-boned him".

I am just suggesting that the word "later" would agree with your description and diagram if you changed it to "sooner".

 

Big_Bird, glad to hear you made it through unscathed. I am from your neck of the woods and know how bad the drivers are here. They are all focused on one thing: getting to their destination faster than anyone else around them. Other cars aren't fellow drivers, but instead obstacles that must be avoided. Everyone seems to have forgotten the basic rules of the road:

Stop at stop signs - Only proceed when everything is clear. You must actually stop and look to verify this.
Use a turn signal every time - To alert drivers around you of your intentions when changing lanes or taking an exit, your turn signal is not a wedge to force yourself into other lanes.
Keep right except to pass - Left lanes are for passing only. The slow people in the left lane are even moreso to blame than the people that have to use the other lanes to go around them.

These things may be common sense(to us xB drivers), but they are also the law in NJ. If these yahoos don't respect the other drivers of the road, at least try to respect the law.

Sorry for the rant, but bad drivers like the one that almost mashed Big_Bird's box really get me steamed!

Also Big_Bird - I mountainbike at Wawayanda in West Milford at least once a month. And while not good, the West Milford drivers seem (at least a little) better than the people here in Parsippany.

 

Glad you made it, but I'm curious how turning off OD had any affect?

 

shifts it into 3rd faster then mashing the pedal, its an easy way to accelerate faster.

the diagram really does help, sounds like you have some stars to thank!

 

holy ____ lets argue about this.

Dude glad you're ok, ____ing people cant drive these days.

 

Yeah, it's like instant downshift when needed. Helps slow the box much faster like Mr. Fuzzy said.

 

Yeah sorry I jumped on you like that. Didn't mean too, just came out that way.

You may be right, but during the incident my perception is off.

 

Yeah basically it's like down shifting. Really helps when braking. And it really helps to slow the box down.

i use it all the time to help save my brakes.

 

Thanks man, same to you, hope you get a new ride soon.

 

eh still looking...waiting for insurance co to finish what they gotta do.

 

Big Bird, You may not want to use the downshifting thing "all" the time. It could cause damage to the trans eventually. Brakes are cheaper than new transmissions.

 

man that must have been scary as poop.

I had the same thing happen to me in my first car. (hand-me-down) A '96 Isuzu Rodeo. Some dude in a Honda civic was coming straight out from a stop sign when I had the right of way. I had like a second and actually swerved around him going about 35-40 mph. I thought the Rodeo was going to roll but it didn't. It stayed level (thank god)

Glad to see your okay. BTW, you avatar still scares me.