Originally Posted by
billyymc
The speed at which this unfolded prevented that kind of turn off. The driver appeared to either do this on purpose or made a last minute decision to turn off. Either way she was next to us and then just sped up a bit and whipped a right turn without warning....she didn't just veer from a position in front where we could react in that way. She was well past where a driver would normally move over to make that turn off.
It's pretty rare that a car does something so suddenly that I need to lock up my brakes. I'm usually about 1000% more maneuverable than a car is (at least when I'm by myself) and can do what's needed to pretty easily get out of the way without even using brakes most of the time. If I ever need to lock up my brakes in response to something a car does, it's tantamount to a serious misjudgment on my part of the situation as it unfolded, or just generally not paying attention. It takes a car a pretty long time to maneuver most of the time, at least at relatively low speeds.
However, that does look like a tricky intersection, and in a group, you're following so close it's easy to bump. Plus everyone has his own idea as to how to avoid crashing as the event unfolds, so it's pretty chaotic. I just have a hard time imagining why the lead guy had to brake so suddenly, but I wasn't there (fortunately). Glad no one was hurt.