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I was returning from lunch today going about 50mph on a 45 or 50 mph road. It is a semi divided highway, two lanes on each side. I was in the left lane on my side.
I was approaching a traffic light that turned yellow about 125ft before I got to it. Obviously, on a road such as this at this speed, slowing to a stop was not an option; the yellow timer wouldn't turn to red until I was way past the light.
OK, that's not the avoidance manuever if you were wondering 'so what???' As I was going through the light, some jacka** in a Tahoe coming from the opposite direction decides 'hey the light is yellow, time for me to make my U Turn.' By the time I was 25ft to the light, he had his hood into my (left) lane. I quickly steered right, and then corrected to the left so as not to drive off of the road.
I didn't touch the brakes (or barely if I did). I could definitely feel two things:
1. the ABS kicking in slightly to correct the drive path, and,
2. the left side of the car feeling 'light' like the majority of the weight was on the passenger's side as I made my left turn to keep from driving off of the road.
It never felt like it was going to flip, just that the majority of the car's weight was on the passenger's side. I would say majority to the tune of 80% or better.
All in all, I feel that the car tracked very true to what I was telling it to do, and I was never close to hitting the Tahoe, or even touching the right white shoulder line.
I also feel that this was about as close to replicating the consumer reports high speed accident avoidance course as I would like to try. I feel that had I been in another suv (say maybe, I don't know, a Montero), I would be on my side right now....
Just thought you'd like to know...
I was approaching a traffic light that turned yellow about 125ft before I got to it. Obviously, on a road such as this at this speed, slowing to a stop was not an option; the yellow timer wouldn't turn to red until I was way past the light.
OK, that's not the avoidance manuever if you were wondering 'so what???' As I was going through the light, some jacka** in a Tahoe coming from the opposite direction decides 'hey the light is yellow, time for me to make my U Turn.' By the time I was 25ft to the light, he had his hood into my (left) lane. I quickly steered right, and then corrected to the left so as not to drive off of the road.
I didn't touch the brakes (or barely if I did). I could definitely feel two things:
1. the ABS kicking in slightly to correct the drive path, and,
2. the left side of the car feeling 'light' like the majority of the weight was on the passenger's side as I made my left turn to keep from driving off of the road.
It never felt like it was going to flip, just that the majority of the car's weight was on the passenger's side. I would say majority to the tune of 80% or better.
All in all, I feel that the car tracked very true to what I was telling it to do, and I was never close to hitting the Tahoe, or even touching the right white shoulder line.
I also feel that this was about as close to replicating the consumer reports high speed accident avoidance course as I would like to try. I feel that had I been in another suv (say maybe, I don't know, a Montero), I would be on my side right now....
Just thought you'd like to know...
If you didn't touch the brakes, I don't see how that's possible cuz AFAIK there is no stability control type feature on the 'X that would activate ABS. I think it only works when you slam on the brakes, but I may be wrong. I also had a near miss today. I was driving along in the center lane of a 3 lane road, while all traffic in the left lane was backed up and at a stand still. All of a sudden this car going the other way decides to make a left turn in front of me between a gap in the stopped cars in the left lane. I veered right to avoid a collision as they were halfway into my lane (no time to even hit the brakes cuz the line of cars prevented me from seeing him until he popped out in front of me) and fortunately they saw me and stopped or we would have collided in the right lane. I thought the MDX handled it pretty well.
