I have never had one of those moments where I could say that Driving on track/auto-xing kept me from getting into a bad accident, but I had one yesterday.
I was coming back from work on Sunday with my 9 1/2 month old daughter in the back of the Integra in her car seat on the right side of the car. I work off Fayetteville Road in Durham on the other side of 40 from streets of south point. The exit is setup so that when you are getting on 40 there are 2 left turn lanes to get on the entrance ramp there is also a lane that is coming on from the right that must yield to the right side turn lane. I generally very aware of that lane that is merging cause I have seen people blow through the yield all the time, and have joked in the past that I am going to get hit from the right one day. When I have the daughter in the car I generally do things a little different to avoid any situations that could get me in an accident. Normally when I am on this exit and I have the daughter with me I get in the far left turn lane to avoid the people merging form the right that are coming from the mall. When I was getting on this exit there were like 15 people in far left lane but no one in the "near" left and so I decided to take the risk. When the light turned green I started to get on the on ramp when I noticed a string of cars coming from the mall that would have to yield. I saw a Red minivan and white minivan, the red van could get in front of me without problem, and the white van would have to yield to me. I look at the white minivan I saw the lady who was driving look at me, I pretty sure I saw her let off the gas and start slowing down so I assumed she was going to yield, so I looked over my left should because I needed to merge left. BTW did I mention it was pouring rain? Well the lady in the white minivan did not yield and I just happen to see her in my peripheral vision. I immediately jumped on the brakes and the clutch; the abs did not come on however the back of the car swung out the right I had to go to fill lock to catch it. I was looking strait at the truck that was beside me. My brain then remembered what to do I started apply gas and slowly unwinding the wheel and was able do a "mad drift" around the exit and somehow not hit any of the cars on the left or the right, and luckily the car behind me was not very close behind me when this all started.
In retrospect I think there are 4 things that could have happened the last 2 could have been really bad.
1st. I could have the truck in the left lane, which probably would have made the accident my fault even though the lady in the white minivan blew through the yield.
2nd. I could have backed into the minivan which probably would have not been too bad of a result since she was right next to me.
3rd. The car behind me could have t-boned me in my driver door which might have been bad for me, but the daughter probably would have been fine.
4th. I could have missed the minivan and slide off the road backwards to the right into the guardrail/woods that is down the hill about 500 feet, probably would have been bad for both of us.
Luckily none of that happened and everything worked out. I am sure all those times when the car has stepped out when on track/auto-xing helped me avoid this accident. When I was driving home I had thoughts of slowing down and following the minivan home and reading her the right act especially since my daughter was in the car, but I thought better of it as everyone makes mistakes, nothing bad happened, heck the daughter was asleep through all of this.
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