Darkness surrounded our thirty-eight degree October morning. School buses filled the streets with their diesel roar.

Damp, drizzly, dark and dreary. This morning was not ideal for much, but I was looking forward to a day to write. Nearing the coffee shop I reached my left turn lane.

Across from me awaited a school bus. Like me the driver was longing to turn. Traffic was heavy; we both waited to turn.

The bus blocked my immediate view, but I watched for all the cars to pass.

I looked for the headlights of all on oncoming traffic as they passed the crest of the overpass behind the bus. Once clear, I moved ahead.

Cautiously I crept my Corolla into the lane still looking for hidden traffic. Seeing none I began to accelerate. THEN, it appeared.

Headlights!

Where the vehicle came from I cannot begin to guess since I looked and did not see it a moment before.

Instantaneously I had to decide what to do.

My car was entering the lane in which the other driver drove. As slow as I was traveling my momentum carried me forward. Reverse would take too long. The choice seemed clear but at 45-50 mph and the length of a bus – I had little time.

I slammed my foot to the floor. Without slipping on the wet road the Toyota took off. I watched to my right as the car sped inches away from my car.

My four-cylinder ’94 Toyota Corolla — which had previously traveled 194,000 miles – hasn’t accelerated that quickly in as long as I can recall.

My path clear I prayed over and again: “Forgive me God for my impatience. Thank you for protecting me.” I then prayed for the other driver and eyewitnesses who were probably shook up too.

Between 1994 and 2008 every year there were between 34,000-39,000 traffic fatalities across the United States.
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

Those numbers are tragic, sad and consistent. Though the number of fatal crashes since 2005 is in decline I wonder why I was not one of them today. I was inexplicably close.

On the average more than one hundred people will die in highway fatalities today, why was I not one of them?

Why am I alive and someone else will die today?