I’m glad to say I’ve never been in a serious road accident, but I’ve had lots of advice about what to do if it’s unavoidable. This varies from “hit another car in preference to a tree – you’re more likely to survive” to a simple “unhook your thumbs from the steering wheel before the impact”. (This latter advice, from a racing driver, is because the steering wheel jumps so hard it can break your thumbs.)
I’ve always secretly believed, however, that everything would happen far too quickly for any rational thinking. But maybe not…
I was taking a passenger ride round Silverstone last week in a fabulous Aston Martin DB4 racer, when we hit a huge glut of oil. While the driver was ensconced in a proper race seat, I was on the original upholstered armchair, with no headrest. The seat-back was below my shoulders. As we went into an elegant spin, I found myself thinking that, if we went backwards into the tyre wall, I was going to end up with the mother of all whiplash – if not a broken neck. I wiggled around (it was a four-point, not a five-point, harness) and by sticking my legs in the air, managed to slide low enough in the seat to rest the back of the helmet against the top of the seat, so I was staring at the roof. We came to a halt in the gravel, some way from the tyre wall, and the driver turned and looked at me in amazement. Maybe I looked silly, but I was amazed that I’d had time to think at all. Has anyone else had a similar experience?
Slightly different scenario…
Circa 1972 I was accelerating hard on the Holland Road dual carriageway toward Holland Village in Singapore from what was at that time the Marco Polo Hotel roundabout in a road-going full race Lotus Super Seven, when a bull-nose Morris Cowley stumbled out blindly from a minor (and subsequently illegal) access road directly into my path.
Braking would have been totally ineffectual and my conscious awareness shut down for a split second…my right foot remained flat to the floor and somehow we managed to slip between the Morris and the central reservation. My next awareness was of an open road in front of me with the next junction rapidly approaching.
Braking and avoidance action would have been futile and fatal, and I will never forget the fact that I somehow escaped death due to subconscious commitment to instinct.
AlfaMartini | 09 May 07 - 17:44I’d say you were very quick thinking most of the time I think people only have time to think ‘oh dear’! On the thumbs side I know that people who drive 4×4s off road drive without putting their thumbs inside the wheel because the kick of the wheel hitting a rut can break them.
intensive driving | 09 Aug 07 - 16:05