Throwaway Road Trip

It was at dusk, the point in the afternoon when you're still wearing your sunglasses but probably shouldn't, that the real risk of long-hauling our throwaway Rav4 sprouted ugly pig wings and squealed into the sky.


As is often the case when I'm driving (yes, I'm good at this, just accept it), it's someone else's fault. Unnamed female motorist, late-model Honda Accord, instantly recognizable as a negligent motorist by the advanced state of wear-and-tear on an almost new car, is making a left turn, in front of oncoming traffic, on a four-lane divided highway, FROM THE RIGHT SHOULDER. When I tell you that no one deserves one of these, I mean everyone. Unfair. Sporty, but unfair.

The Process of Doom Avoidance
One hundred yards goes away fast at 80 mph, and there was a distinct shortage of options. Do I go for 100-percent braking and hope to come up short? Good tires (oversized Dunlop Rover RVXTs), dry pavement, but that doesn't guarantee the trucklet's brakes, and it doesn't save me from taking a semi-tractor in the shorts five seconds later. Had I been driving that semi or one of my old Ford trucks, I could have chosen Option Two: No brakes, aim for the center of mass on the Honda and give the driver what her bad move deserved. Truckers and law enforcement personnel will invariably tell you that that's the best (though nastiest) way to survive an inevitable collision. The Rav4 is a Rav4, though, all 3000 lbs. of Corolla-based unibody, and it would have folded up like cheap tent. Option Three was to swerve and shoot for the back of the Accord, coming as close as possible without shaking hands, keeping the swerve shallow. In my STi, this would have been the only option because it moves like a knife through butter, but we were risking destabilizing the slightly top-heavy trucklet if I couldn't get ahead of the excessive body roll that was sure to follow.


(Hmm, this is our first panic maneuver together. Are you going to kill me?)


The maneuver grew to something of a hybrid as my reflexes took over. Find the ideal line. No touch! Stab the brakes to scrub speed early. Stabilize. Take a smooth track. Aim for the Accord's rear door at 200 ft. One hundred feet and the Accord's bumper was almost out of the way, trucklet carving an admirable line toward the gap on the shoulder. As I slid past the back of the Honda (idiot) driver and the Accord in the driver's seat, I might have unreeled the wheel a tad, using the gap between my door and the Accord's bumper to correct the Rav4's violent list to starboard. I came close enough to that bumper to see all the scratches in the forest-green four-door. Silent curses. Past the Honda in a blink, I caught the extra movement of the Rav4's body by keeping it near the shoulder, rather than immediately coming back to the right lane on the freeway.

Keep It Down—I Just Vacuumed
My girlfriend had lulled herself to sleep with one of the nauseating mixes of pop-and-candy electronica that choke her iPod, so our brief jaunt to Near Death, California was a complete surprise. It was at about the height of the trucklet's body movement that Kelly started to squeak, "EEEEEAAAAK!" and went into dash-clawing apoplexy, if but for a moment. Then she told me she was going to be sick. "It's your music," I replied. Britney Spears will gag a horse.