The scene: Saturday afternoon, driving down a 2 lane residential/trendy shop area around 2:30pm. Windows are down and the sun is shining, Mom and I are greatly enjoying the day.

We traveling about 35-40mph and coming up on an intersection. There is a line of cars travelling in the opposite direction as well. The MINI and I have the right of way, cross traffic has stop signs. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with said stop signs. On the right, I notice a car pull out not more than 30 feet from me.

Immediately I laid on the horn and began my evasive manuevers... The crazy lady pulling out decided that horns apparently mean: stop your car, hit the gas hard and jump forward a few feet, stop again and then continue pulling out into oncoming traffic. Me? I thought it meant, "pay attention you dumb biznatch" Alas, we are not all equally trained in driving manuevers.

I swerved hard to the left, and then back to right to avoid oncoming traffic. My only thoughts involved hitting at least 2 other cars and hoping that car wouldn't be totalled. I had absolutely ZERO expectation of coming thru this unscathed and even less of the MINI surviving without some nasty scratches and gouges.

Thankfully, my beautiful falkens and the wonderful MINI managed to avoid both cars by inches. Keep in mind, I'm not the kind of guy to catch a guppy and claim to be the long lost loch ness monster, when i say inches I probably mean centimeters at best.

Afterwards, I calmed my beating heart and thanked the ghost of Sir Alec (sp?)

Anyway, that's my story of active safety and one more reason of why I love MINIs.

 

Great to hear that you were able to avoid an accident. Hard to believe some of the drivers out there.

 

I was driving down (On the left lane) SW 107th avenue in Miami one day about a month or so ago, when suddenly, an idiot in a Chrysler Pacifica decides to switch lanes practically on TOP OF ME . Almost telephatically, my MCS' steering quickly reacted to avoid hitting and been swept away by the moronic pacifica driver. Fortunately there was no oncoming traffic as I had no choice but to swerve onto the opposite (Northbound) traffic lane. In despite of me blowing the horn to no end while manuvering the car (This is one BIG positive of the 3-spoke steering wheel with the horn mounted in the center hub) the idiot changed lanes like if nothing had happened. I got pissed and caught up with him in the next traffic light (In Miami NEVER do this because you may get shot) and the moron looked at me like if I was the one in the wrong!!

Moral of the story: When driving ALWAYS BE ALERT OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS!!!!!

MINIs have EXCELLENT handling and brakes and I am pleased to report that these cars have the reflexes of a $90K-$120K Porsche 911

 

Whew, I would be sweating bullets if that happened. Now I have always been taught to turn behind the driver incorrectly pulling out. Not having been there to see it all go down I assume that you had time to realize she had finally stopped and could then swerve in front of her(this is what I gathered from your discription), so I was wondering for my own sake that if you hadn't the time to notice her reaction could you have swerved to the left and behind her or onto the crossing street? I know the MINI is quite agile and if any car could have avoided in this way the MINI could, so I was just curious?

 

C4, we had they exact same thing happen to us in our EVO once, except the idiot was driving a Suburban. Fortunately, the people coming the opposite direction saw it and got over a lane so we could be in theirs. When we honked at her, she started screaming and cussing at us like we were in the wrong and had flown up behind her, when actually it was the other way around. I mean come on its a bright yellow car with a big wing! How can you miss it?! Luckily, my Bruno hasn't had any of these scares yet

 

I had an Isuzu Rodeo pull out right in front of me last week on my commute to work. It was a country road and I was running maybe 50. The intersection was in a slight curve. I STOMPED the brakes hard and the antilock brakes worked perfectly. The brain surgeon in the Rodeo decides to stop instead of using his accelerator to drive out of danger....and I was coming up on his passenger door fast. I was down to 30 and figured I'd be at 20 when we hit. I saw that he didn't have me TOTALLY blocked from making an unexpected right turn and there was no other car in the way, so I turned right, and managed to get stopped within a couple more car lengths. I turned around and fell in behind the Rodeo and went to work. Funny thing, the Rodeo was running 75-80 to get away from "the scene of the crime".

The MINI has amazing agility in an emergency situation. I honestly can't think of another car that could have allowed me to miss that Rodeo. Anything else would have been too wide, not good enough brakes, or no DSC to keep the car on track in the gravel that littered the intersection, or too poor handling to even attempt avoiding a collision in the first place.

The best way to survive a wreck is not to be in it in the first place.

MINI's are great.

Rawhyde

PS How can a person not see a CR/W MCS with a Union Jack roof flag with its xenon headlights on at 7:30 AM in clear weather?

 

Don't we all have a story like that. I was on my way to the dealer last Saturday, when a rocket scientist in the mini van decided he had to make an emergency lane change into me. No particular reason. There was no one in front of him. His exit wasn't for two mile. I know this because he got off on the same exit I did. Being old and fully insured, I tend not to get out of the way of morons. I do like to introduce them to the brake application on the Mini once they are behind me trying to ride my bumper. That, coupled with the middle fingered salute usually gets them upset enough to start making even dumber decisions than they are used to. So this hero proceeded to follow my Mini onto a tight right/left off ramp with a stop sign at the end. It was kind of funny watching his eyes grow big and panicy in my rear view mirror....

 

I very nearly got squashed by a semi this morning on the 10 freeway near downtown LA. He changed right into my lane with no warning from the right. To my left and slightly behind was an old, ugly and probably uninsured van. I had no choice but to take my chance with the van (probably hurt less than the semi). Turned the wheel and mashed the gas (I was doing about 70 in 6th). Now there was one instance where a supercharger was better than a turbo... instant power.

No collision thankfully. I really do appreciate my mini!

 

I commute on a 2 lane highway. I come home from work late at night in the dark. I live in cottage, beach country. So late at night, the on coming traffic is mostly folks with a few under their belts, sun stroked, not used to night time highway travel, and they all want to be first in line.

I have traveled this road 100k miles in 4 years, so I know it well.

The shoulders are gravel, and I've had to go there many a time. My old Dakota truck was kind of hairy doing the transition from hardtop to gravel.

My MINI makes the transition with ease. Even on curves. Just be smooth, don't get off the gas fast, or brake hard, and even with the bump off the hardtop, the car is always under control.

Now the big critters like deer are another issue. I have to brake hard, and pick my way through a bunch of them all the time.

Bottom line, PAY ATTENTION, all the time, your MINI will only respond if you give it direction.

Oh, by the way, I play on the gravel back roads, so hitting the gravel shoulder at 70 mph is not a big issue for me.