Coming home from work after dark, I was tooling along in the right lane on one of the many toll roads here in Florida, when out of the dark, a glint reflecting from a bumper of a car doing perhaps 20mph in a 70mph zone caught my eye (no running or tail lights that I could see at all!)

While certainly not a novice driver, I never thought I could avoid an accident in the making...knowing for sure I couldn't stop and aggressive avoidance would likely spin me into the very vehicle I was trying to avert or spin me across the tollway into oncoming traffic.

I am now a believer in VDC and the emergency handling of the 7th Gen. Although the fumes of burning rubber permeated the cabin (as well as some other...lets just say "unpleasant bodily odors") and the scream of tortured rubber assaulted the ears, my Max went into what I would almost call a "drift" and held it together. Most certainly allowing for, what a few years ago I would most likely have called a sure fire accident to be averted.

I pulled over and motioned for the other driver to join me so I could either give him a ride, call AAA or drive behind with my emergency flashers on so no others would experience the same. The young lady apologized (I wasn't the only person that had a close experience with her that evening...just the first to come upon her in the dark) but she did not want to leave her only means of transport (or ride with an admittedly stinky old man) alone so I ended up following her to the nearest service plaza where she was able to get a relative to meet her.

I am now ready for my Colonoscopy sans pre-meds, but a big believer in the VDC implementation of these 7th Gens.

 

Glad to hear no one was hurt. A split second either way can make all the difference in the outcome in these situations. After you get cleaned up give yourself at least some credit also.

 

Good story! Glad everything worked out, that could have been a disaster ... for you and her.

Nice to hear you did the right thing in helping her out as well.

Also nice to hear that the VDC works when called upon.

 

+1

Glad everything turned out well.

 

Glad to hear you made it out without a scratch

 

Paying for new undies is better than paying for repairs to the car.

 

So damn true lol.

Good job in helping too ! I would have been slightly pissed, but that's just me lol

 

I am very glad we did not lose our high-mileage test driver.

Having visited many ditches and roadbanks along the way between 1949 and the time electronic systems took over in emergencies, I have been a very strong fan of Electronic Stability Control systems from day one. I NEVER turn my VDC (Vehicle Directional Control) off. Of course snow might change that, but I don't have to deal with snow down here in middle Georgia.

I remember taking vehicles to large empty parking lots on Sunday mornings back in the 1950s and 1960s to practice emergency maneuvers, and still had great difficulty keeping my cars from fishtailing, just as I always had difficulty keeping them from fistailing in actual driving emergencies. The problem was that the power steering of those days would not allow me to quickly reverse the wheel as fast as needed to avoid fishtailing.

All that changed with ESC systems, and Nissan's VDC seems to be a very fine ESC system.

 

Agreed. Having a great tool matters but it's also who uses it and how. Great job, LT!