WHY, in Heaven’s name, would he veer in the wrong side of the road??? What’s the matter with him, can’t he steer? What a goof.
Maybe the steering rack “broke” too...
Before I say anything else, I want to say that I’m glad no one was injured...
1. RE: Going into the oncoming traffic lanes -
There was a traffic jam up ahead and he went into the other lane to avoid a definite accident. [It’s in the article]
2. As for the button not pushing in for Neutral - I remember my Mom’s stick shift had a button on the top you had to push in to move it. [1982(?) Mazda] He could’ve been trying to disengage the 4WD as well, but that wasn’t necessarily the only thing that would have a “button”. Also see #3 in this post...
3. Regarding all the posts saying this man is a liar -
I think half this confusion is probably due to the REPORTER not getting the story right in the retelling, frankly. Funny how with all the mistakes we’ve seen time and again from those in the media regarding all sorts of subjects that no-one would consider this...
4. Considering that so many things in a car are computer controlled, it IS possible for anything relying on the computer to get messed up if a circuit shorts out, etc... Don’t know if that’s a factor here, just something worth remembering, IMHO.
It said there was slow or stopped traffic in front of him. Presumably he had some clear space on the other side. He probably just had to veer *through* the other side of the road to get to some clear off-road space. Probably the side he was on had some obstacle to go off the road on that side -- e.g. steep drop-off, guardrail, etc.
Because the right side of the road was full of cars waiting for a light to change - the wrong side of the road was not. Given a choice between running up the back of a line of cars at traffic lights at 50mph, or crossing to the empty side of the road, I know what I'd choose.
This is pretty much where I live. I'm less than a five minute drive from where he stopped. He'd just come off the freeway because it had ended - they'd kept him on it as long as they could and the police were trying to get him to a rural highway that's about a mile away down a fairly major road. But there was too much traffic here.