The first time this incident happened to me I was going to post something here but kept forgetting. But last night it happened again and so I feel the need to tell my story.

My wife and I were hanging out in the city last night. We dined at a restaurant and I somehow dropped my credit card on the floor as we were leaving. The manager was nice enough to call us and let us know, so we drove back to pick it up. It was about 11pm and the crazy drivers were out in full force. I was approaching an intersection and there were three cars ahead of us slowing down because someone was making a left. As I was going through the intersection in 1st, my peripheral vision caught some maniac barreling down the street to my right, and he had no intentions of stopping even though he had a red light. I couldn't stop in time as we were already halfway in the intersection so I instinctively mashed the pedal and braced myself for the collision. I promise you, if my car was still stock my wife would have received the full impact of a piece of crap Honda going 50 MPH.

We were speechless for about a minute as the full weight of what nearly happened set upon us. I just muttered something about an anatomical part and kept driving. But after we got home I remembered that a couple of months ago the same thing happened near our house, that time it was a Chevy Tahoe that blew through a red light and nearly slammed into my side of the car. If it wasn't for my tune (and admittedly it could have been any tune, but I happen to have Jan's) I really couldn't say what would have happened.

 

Great story - glad to see you were on top of it. But give yourself some credit too. To be sucessful, one needs more than just the right tools for the job.

Just gotta love these cars though......

 

Did you receive the remote tune from Jan or did you get the tune done at his garage? By the way, it appears God has more plans for you and your wife!!!

 

Nice of you to give RMW the credit, but it was you having situational awareness that saved you. Defensive driving FTW!

 

Thanks everyone, those are all very nice words. I admit if I were one of those people, talking on my phone or texting, I wouldn't have had a prayer no matter what kind of car I was driving. But even if I had the quickest reflexes in the world, if my car had bogged down in 1st like it did sans RMW I wouldn't have avoided that collision.

@ufomini - I drove down to So Cal and had Jan tune my car in person. It was the same week he found the mappings for the 1st gear boost / torque limiters and he was hoping he could apply them to my car but it ended up taking a few more weeks before he was able to successfully remove the limiters. That's mainly the reason why I wanted to give props to the tune, mashing the pedal in 1st gear stock would have been an exercise in futility.

But you guys are awesome, thanks.

 

More power is always better than less....

 

Awesome!

 

Glad to hear that you pay attention while driving (no texting nor cell)

Like others said, you gotta give yourself some props also

 

Wow, as my husband says, that is a reason why it's important to have more power. For situations like that! Glad to hear that you and your wife (and your MINI) were left unscathed.