Well, I had an interesting experience the other day. I was driving up ((I-)) 95 with a friend when I heard this spray sound. I couldn't figure out what it was, except to guess that the dump truck I was behind had hit a bump and some dirt had gotten out. The dump truck, once we got off the on ramp, was in the second lane, and I was in the lane furthest to the right. About a minute goes by when I hear from my friend "Look out!" and I see a chunk of concrete about softball sized to two softballs sized bouncing flying through the air. I was doing 70-75 at this point, and the dump truck was about 50-75 feet ahead of me. It hit the road once, and was aimed right at me. Naturally, I slammed on my breaks in an attempt to miss it. No such luck. It first hit my hood, bounced/slid up, before nailing one of my windshield wipes, and flying God knows where. That all happened in a very, very small period of time. Since the rock was bouncing off the road, when I hit my brakes I also pulled left, trying to get around it. Once it hit me, I pulled right, in an attempt to get off the road, in case it had done any damage. For those of you who don't know physics, a moving car doing 70 miles an hour cannot turn on a dime, especially not with its brakes locked up. So I ended up moving along 95 in the same direction as traffic, only perpindicular to it. Aka, I could look out my passanger's side windows, and see the other traffic moving at me. Somehow I ended up stopped, off the road, still perpindicular to it (actually a few degrees past 90). The truck driver didn't see anything, I don't know how, as my car was filled with smoke from my tires/brakes, and I know the road was also. So, I spent the next 10 minutes screaming curses words at that guy and throwing crap around. Later, I tried to figue out why I was so mad. My conclusions, and the reason for this post, follow.
First off, I was pissed because I love me car. Probably too much, but now it had a dent the size of my fist (not just dent, the paint and some of the metal was just gone), a scratch tracing the path of the rock up my hood, and a wiper bent at 45 degrees from normal.
Then I realized I was pissed off because I'd been afraid. As is human nature we don't like to feel fear. It, physically, changes our bodies to a state we're not familiar with, and makes us feel out of control. Rock flying at your car at 70 miles an hour will do that to you.
So, the other thing that I hate, besides being out of control, is reactions. I believe that if you have to react, its too late. You should act ahead of time, and if a reaction is necessary, someone screwed up. So, I decided that thi as my fault, and analyzed the situation. Was I following too close? No, had the dump truck stopped I would have had plenty of time. Should I not have slammed on my brakes? No, because if I'd hesitated one second on the brakes that rock would have hit my windshield dead on in the center, and there is no doubt in my mind something that big going that fast would have gone straight through. Should I not have tried to change direction of travel? Again, no, because of the traffic that was on the road at the time.
After much debate, and speaking with my insurance company (accursed $500 deductibles), I decided I did nothing wrong, this is one of life's little "Haha, got you!" moments. But, now that I have one could-have-been-really-bad accident (if there had been the usual amount of semis on the road at that time, who normally travel in the right hand lane, I would not be here right now) in my blood, I'm hoping that the practice will allow me to act next time, not react. Also, I'm beginning to think that perhaps fear is not entirely bad, but might have provided me with the reactions I needed to make, so it might not be that bad of an emotion after all.
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