Almost hit a Tesla X yesterday, just before Mother’s Day. My family in tow, I was trying to make a left turn into middlefield from Watkins in Menlo Park. I stopped for something else and saw a red flash from the far lane across. If I hadn’t stopped, we’d have been in an accident in which the tesla hit us from the right.

I clearly did not see the tesla x. It’s apparently very visible to my passengers who admired its brand new glistening red paint job. But seriously, I did not see the car. I looked. There is a small smear on my right lens. But I have two eyes, why didn’t the other one see it. I stopped and looked and looked twice with the left-right-left. The minivan has given me the habit of extra caution.

I didn’t see it!! I can’t stand he fact that this has happened! How do I avoid it next time?

I drove back to check out the scene of non-accident. The one possible scenario is that the tesla turned right onto Middlefield from James ave. Which is one tenth of mile away. This stretch of Middlefield road has speed limit of 35 mph.

Say I am retarded and looked away for 3 seconds.

2 * (.1 miles)/(3 second * 3 seconds) = 35.76 m/s/s = 3.65g

Google result shows tesla x getting to 60mph in about 2.28 seconds or an acceleration of 11.8m/s/s.

So root-cause analysis, this non-accident wasn’t caused by excessively fast cars even if I misjudged the time by another second to a total of four seconds that I looked to my left, that’s still 20 m/s/s acceleration, more than twice what today’s tesla is capable of.

This leaves me with a dreadfully chilling conclusion:

I didn’t see it coming!

I took my non-tesla-x minivan for the acelletation test and achieved 12 second time from idle between James and Watkins. At speed limit of 35 mph, the distance takes 10.28s.

Personally, I’d guess at fastest the tesla x was driving 50mph when it flashed in front of my eyes. 3 seconds would take it 67 meters away–0.042 miles.

Hrmn!! Actually, that’s getting closer. So if the tesla x had been driving 50mph and I didn’t see it at half way from James to Watkins, looked away for 3 seconds, then I would have saw that red flash and almost hit it.

There are vines and walls to my right. Btw this makes my passengers story dubious as that seat has even more obstructed view of my right side than my driver seat. So I guess I’m more leaning towards believing that I just didn’t see it because it was still hidden behind the vine when I looked right. Because I didn’t advance far enough onto Middlefield street to see it coming. Then I inched forward to look to my left (also obstructed by vegetation), that took 3 seconds. I decided I can make it across wrt cars coming from the left, accelerated, and almost hit the Tesla X which is now in front of me.

I didn’t see it coming.

As believable as that story is. I really do remember looking left-right-left twice, each time after advancing more into Middlefield. Most likely failure was probably after the second right peek, I reacted too slowly to the approaching tesla, looked left, saw it was clear and decide to cross.

I didn’t see it coming…

I don’t even remember why I even stopped?

I just don’t remember seeing the front of that tesla x! It even had day time running lights on! How could I not see it???!!

The masonry wall lining the other side of the street is also red, but much faded. It could not have hidden the red tesla x.

I just didn’t see it coming!!

I hope this blog entry isn’t written unknowingly from limbo. I had four other souls on my car… and the Tesla had at least the driver, the auto-pilot and perhaps passengers. That collision, t-bone, broadside, side-impact, is least fun for me, exposing two mothers and three daughters to the direct hit. My car is 4600 lbs at most and tesla X is up to 5400lbs. 17% mass advantage. It is a seriously losing situation for me in all possible scenarios as he has right of way, I would be more at fault even if he’s speeding.

Sigh, and I really didn’t see it coming. 😦

P.s. rereading I guess it sums to that either myself or the other driver made driving mistakes and it wasn’t because of tesla X’s volume, color, acceleration or auto-pilot.