All right. What is it with white pick up trucks? Seems like every white pickup truck I see on the highway has some sort of issue. Frequently, they have bumper stickers reading: “Bush 2004!”, “Liberals DIE!”, “Kill All Terrorists!”, “Missing Your Cat? Look Under My Tires” — and, of course, “Jesus Loves You!” Always an interesting congruence of sentiments.

So this morning I was driving to work. I prefer to drive in the middle lane of a 3-lane highway; I don’t drive fast enough for the fast lane, and I hate dealing with the merging traffic of the right hand lane. The center lane is usually fine for my tastes and needs. I noted a white pickup truck in the right hand lane, right next to me (and yes, it had a “Jesus Loves You” sticker on it). The driver was drifting just a bit to the left, but that’s not unusual; lots of people drift either to the left or the right on the highway. I was using cruise control and comfortable at 71 MPH, and I didn’t think that the pickup was going to try changing lanes, so I stayed the course.

I was wrong. The white pickup really did want to change lanes. And he wanted to do it Right Now.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the truck start to drift over the line and into my line, without regard for my presence there. He was doing it pretty fast, too; a side impact at this speed would be unpleasant at best, so I immediately swerved to my left. I glanced only barely to the right, and saw that I was just about to hit another car in the fast lane, so I swerved back to the right: by now the white pickup truck had moved back into his own lane.

That’s when the car started to skid.

I’ve heard the official word on this: when you start to skid, you’re supposed to turn in the direction of the skid. As Bill Cosby observed, though, this makes as much sense as saying that when someone hits you in the face, you’re supposed to lean into the punch — at least when you’re in the middle of the skid. When you’re in the middle of the skid to the right your brain doesn’t say, “I’m going to turn in the direction of the skid”. No, your brain says, “Hell with that! I’m turning left and hitting the breaks!”

What winds up happening when you do that is that you end up skidding to the left.

I didn’t learn yet, though. I saw I was skidding to the left, so I slammed on the brakes again and turned to the right, which ended up with me skidding to the right again.

This, I think, is when I panicked.

I glanced over to the right hand lane and saw that there was no one there for another quarter mile. And at this point the conventional wisdom kicked in, and I let my car drift in the direction of the skid for just a moment, long enough for the tires to get a grip on the road again, and then I swerved back into the fast lane. Then I pulled onto the shoulder, right next to the divider, and slowed to a stop. For a few seconds, all I could do was just shake. I think it was a miracle that I didn’t get into a horrific wreck, and that no one else did either.

After a few moments, I pulled away from the shoulder, made sure things were clear behind me, and pulled back into the fast lane. Then I went back to the middle lane, and got all the way to work. The adrenalin rush never left me, though, and I’m still shaking just a bit as I type this.

Traffic in the right hand lane had slowed significantly at this point because the highway was about to merge with Business 80. Strangely enough, I actually passed the same white pickup truck again.

The man in the driver’s seat had the nerve to flip me off.

I think that something on my face must have showed my surprise at his absolute gall. Then I couldn’t help myself; I laughed at him then drove on ahead.

Those turn indicators on your car are there for a reason, I wished I could have told him. If you’re going to change lanes, then use them to let other drivers know it. Then you might have the right to flip off someone that you’re about to smash into.

Anyway, I’m here at work, safe and sound. And the experience, I’m sure, only shaved a few days off of my life.