I do believe my daughter and I came very close to dying today!

I still can’t believe it.

My older daughter and I did some last errands today before returning my brother’s van.  A trip to the dump, the post office, quick trip to the next town, a bit of gas, then dropping it off at my brother’s.

Finished at the dump, we got back on the main highway.  There was a truck with a semi trailer coming at some distance, so when I turned, I gunned the van to get to highway speed as quickly as possible, to give the truck plenty of room.  It didn’t take me long at all to get to the speed limit.

Unfortunately, the truck was going faster than the speed limit.  I could see him catching up to me, so I started increasing my speed slightly, hoping he would back off.

He didn’t.

Even as I increased my speed more, he was soon tailgating me.

This rather concerned me, because I know those trucks need a lot of room in front of them, because of how much more distance they need to come to a full stop in an emergency.  I thought he might try and pass me, once the oncoming traffic was clear, but he didn’t.  He just stayed on my bumper.

I am not one to speed if I can avoid it, but I wasn’t going to have a truck that size riding my ass.  So I increased my speed some more and finally opened the space between us.

I didn’t have far to go, though, before I had to make a left turn off the highway.

Keeping an eye on my rear view mirror, I made a point of beginning to signal my turn well in advance, and before I started slowing down for my turn.

As I started slowing down, I could see him come barreling up to me.  He was not slowing down at all!  Not only that, but he started to pull over onto the shoulder, to pass me on the right.

I knew there would be no room for him to pass me on the right, so I quickly lane changed into the opposite lane.  Before I could even take my turn (at an unsafe speed, since I was never able to slow down as much as I should have), he passed us on the right, so close the entire vehicle was buffeted.  My daughter, who was better able to see him at that point, barely had time to realize what was going on when he went by, and she could see how close he came to hitting us.

He never slowed down at all.  Not even the slightest.

Thank God there wasn’t any oncoming traffic, which allowed me to change into the opposite lane.

I still can’t believe the guy did this.  There was no way he would have cleared us, if I had not driven into the other lane.  He would have hit us.  No doubt about it.

What was he even thinking??

The Re-farmer