moment of humble thanks

*boredom disclaimer: if you've already read about my near-accident on nesic, then you've already read the bulk of this post.*

if i were a guy, i would be posting this as a 'that time when i was awesome, in case you missed out on it' follow-up, but chicks don't do that kind of shit. instead i'm just imparting a tale about my ass, how it got saved, and how much i appreciate my tires, my suspension, my car, the o'neil driving school, ice racing, racing america, all those hours watching le mans/F1/WRC/top gear/speed channel, and the state of being alive in general:

driving to work on 495 at 7.30 am, things were pretty packed. in the left lane, a long line of us were doing about 75-80. the camry about 1.5 car lengths in front of me hit its brakes, and for the first second i just lifted. then he went into a total lockup - squealing, lots of smoke - and i started threshold braking. he came around so i would have t-boned his passenger side, then whipped into a full 180 across our lane. i was about to head off into the grass, but he got into a full spin and flew off into the median just as the dodge ram behind me went off to avoid rear-ending me. luckily i escaped being sandwiched in the middle by staying on the road. now the camry's tail was half-in the lane and he was still sliding; i was still riding the threshold. a simple "lift, turn, accelerate" around him and i was out of there - all 3 cars around me were involved in some serious off-roading, and i just drove off, never even breaching the middle lane. this whole thing probably took about 4 seconds, but if i hadn't learned accident avoidance, my sentra would be an accordion right now. thank you, o'neil school training.