I was involved in a near miss today on I280 northbound traveling from Page Mill rd and exiting on 92. I was driving in the right lane near alpine exit, a large SUV in the second lane from right slowed down to match my speed, and then merged into my lane, slowing down even more. I hit the brake hard and slowed enough for him to veer, very slowly, across my lane into to an exit just a few feat in front of me. The problem was not that this happened. The problem is that the SUV took very measured steps to be in front of me and slow. It was fully in my lane for a good 5 seconds before crossing into an exit lane at the last moment. The problem was not that it looked like he was trying to get me to rear ended him at 65 mph(speed differential was probably 30mph), instead the main problem is that he was accompanied by an identical large SUV that was directly behind me and tailing me at just a few feet.

As luck would have it, I was driving my Nissan Leaf with my daughter. Since I did not have a full charge, I set cruise control at 65 mph, a very slow, but legal, speed for this stretch of I280. My gasoline-free plugin electric car probably weigh only 1/10 of the two SUV that surrounded us. My tiny tires probably has 1/4th the surface area as their combined tire surface. Any kind of collision would not have been pleasant for us by any measure. My slow rate of travel enabled me to slow down and avoid colliding with the erratic driver in front of me. The quick electric motor response probably saved me from being rear ended by the identical SUV behind me.

Fear stirs in me as I think of what happened. Perhaps yet another local organization decided that my blog calling for software engineers union is…antagonizing in some way? It would be pretty convenient if instead I became preoccupied with a severe injury in myself or my daughter…:-(