A funny thing happened on the way back from lunch today. And by funny I mean utterly terrifying at the time, but funny now. Naturally.

Ok, first the setup. (I suddenly feel like I'm in some lame version of The Italian Job.) We were coming back from IHOP, which requires us to drive down the road that runs parallel with the mall. "Mall Road" is your standard 25-MPH 4-lane highway, split in the middle by a raised, concrete median. Very typical.

Now, there are a lot of intersections on this road, naturally, since it runs parallel with the mall and all of the adjacent shop plazas that go with it. So just about every 3 car lengths, there's a place to turn off to get to some store, restaurant, or whatever. What I'm saying, basically, is that you get cut-off a lot on this road due to insane mall shoppers.

Now, the event. I'm in the left lane driving back, because I know that at the end of Mall Road, I'll be making a left to get back to the office. As I round a sharp corner, I suddenly find myself speeding towards a car coming down the wrong side of the road, in my lane. Yeah, that certainly removed any post-lunch drowsiness I was experiencing at the time.

Luckily, the driver had already realized they were coming down the wrong side of the road, and they were completely stopped. So, I had no trouble stopping, thus avoiding what would have been a rather unpleasant head-on collision.

I could see that the driver was attempting to rectify the situation by turning (her left, my right) into the nearby bank. The problem was that on this road, the right lane was not congested but was instead a steady stream of cars moving too fast for that road. She couldn't make the turn safely, because no one was expecting a car to be making a turn from that angle.

I resolved the situation by waiting for an opening, and then turning my car to block both lanes. This stopped traffic completely, and allowed her to turn into the bank. Problem solved.