I had a near miss today.

How near? Probably a foot or two of air between big yellow monster and another car.

I was in the middle of an intersection, attempting to turn left, waiting for a gap in the opposing flow. Sure enough, there is a nice gap, except for one car in his left lane, approaching the intersection. What luck! He is slowing down and signalling to his left! That means the way is clear for me to make a left turn now, and we would pass harmlessly on the right. The foot goes on the throttle, and big yellow monster starts to move.

Egads! The opposing driver appears to change his mind: suddenly stops its left turn signal, and actually accelerates into the intersection, where big yellow car is now crossing his lane. I see this, can hardly believe it, and instantly floor the throttle. The rear of big yellow car misses the oncoming car by only a few dozen inches.

I replay the scene in my mind several times over the next few minutes. If the cars made contact, I am sure that I would be assigned some liability. Without video or alert witnesses, I can hardly prove that the person sent misleading signals, or that he accelerated. The cops are bound to consider the active left turner at fault. And yet, what I did still seems reasonable: I merely didn’t entertain sufficient paranoia.

I hear that there really exists a group of people who supplement their income by engineering deliberate car accidents, then suing for settlements. I wonder if I (nearly) ran into one such miscreant fuck. Well, maybe not, but it still feels nice to have said that.