The road I drive on once I enter my neighborhood intersects with a few other roads until I get to my house. These other roads have stop signs and I have the right of way. There was a lady sitting at one of these stop signs to my right. See diagram below.
As I approached her, she was starting to inch out. When I realized she wasn't going to bother looking my way (more or less stop), I hit the brakes and turned the wheel to the right. To the best of my recollection, below is how we ended up.
It happened very quickly, but I probably kicked the wheel to the right because I assumed she would've continued through the intersection. But she either saw me as I was braking and for some reason decided to stop. Or she crossed the intersection and backed up afterwards. All I know is that prior to my reaction she made no effort to look in my direction or to stop her car.
After all the action, I looked up and made eye contact with the innocent bystander who was doing yard work. Then I looked back and was surprised to see that she was still at the scene. She was saying something, so I rolled my window down. She said something that sounded like an apology. I said, "It's alright," very begrudgingly with some kind of hand motion. I backed up and sped off.
Now I've been in several similar situations in other cars where I had to turn and slam the brakes. And in those cases I always felt like the car was out of my control. But this car handled exceptionally. Looking at the diagram, it appears I almost did a 180 degree spin. Given the wet roads and the close proximity of everything, I think if I was in any other car I would've hit her.
Granted, the Mini isn't the safest car to be in when there IS an accident. But today it helped me avoid one altogether.
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