POLITICS
America Approaches a Dangerous Intersection
Will there be an accident or a near miss?
The other day, I had to turn left onto a relatively busy road. A tree blocked my view of the oncoming traffic, so I couldn’t be completely sure whether the coast was clear to go. It was one of those situations, which happen too often in driving, where the best I could do was to wait until there was an apparent break in the traffic, then go for it and hope for the best.
So I waited until I couldn’t see anybody and gambled that there wasn’t a car barrelling down the hill at me. But as soon as I hit the gas and cleared the tree’s branches, I realized I’d been wrong. A black minivan was right there, far too close for comfort. There was no going back; I gunned it, the other driver hit the brakes, and I swerved into the southbound lane just in time. I’d scared the other driver and earned myself an angry honk of their horn, but we’d avoided an accident.
As I drove off toward my mundane errand, heart pounding, I knew I’d just lived through a moment that could have been transformative but, by random chance, wasn’t. Had I waited another second before pulling out into the road, had the other driver been less attentive, had it been a wet and slippery day rather than a dry one, or had any number of other variables been…
