Positive Counterfactuals

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A counterfactual is what could have happened but didn’t. On my way to work, I saw a cop pull a car over on the highway. It reminded me of when I was married to cop who worked in a dangerous county, and I learned to be grateful for living in a place where police sit on the side of the road and wait to catch somebody speeding, because if you live in a dangerous area, cops are too busy actually fighting crime to waste their time with speeders.

I got to the office and put my coffee in the side pouch of my backpack. When I put on my backpack, my stomach sank as I heard a splashing sound beside me. I hadn’t closed the travel mug properly, but by some miracle, the white pants I was wearing were still spotless.

Thinking of how much worse things could have been can make me feel grateful for the life I have. Dopers aren’t a particularly positive bunch, but I figured it was worth posting and just seeing how this thread goes. What are some examples of situations you find yourself in that could have been much worse?

2

I’ve sorta told this story before. Back last fall I bought a low mileage very new used car. But it couldn’t be delivered for a couple weeks so I was still driving my old one. Which I intended to sell back to the dealership for a pre-arranged price once I had my new one. Call it a “delayed trade-in.”

It’s Friday afternoon. My new car should be delivered to my house on Monday. I’m on the freeway in thick but fast afternoon traffic when 70mph suddenly turns into stopped. I stop before whacking the guy in front of me, but it was close. The guy behind me plows into my previously pristine trade-in.

That was the bad news. Now the good news.

  1. Nobody was hurt.
  2. Nobody was angry.
  3. His car was a dealer loaner he was driving while his almost new car was in the shop for some teething issue, so his own newish car was undamaged.
  4. The dealer’s loaner was a total loss, but not his problem to fix.
  5. My old car was promptly totaled by my insurance company for significantly more than I’d have traded it in for on Monday. So no fighting with the other insurance company(ies) about who’s paying for my wrecked car.
  6. Best of all, my new car wasn’t even there and so was undamaged. Had the same thing happened on Monday afternoon to my brand new car I’d have been crying.
  7. My new car was delivered timely on Monday so I only needed 2 ubers all weekend to make up for the loss of the old one on Friday.

I’ve been in a few crashes over 50 years on the road, but this one is by far the best experience I’ve ever had. Most profitable too. :wink:

3

Back when all of the gyms and parks closed in NJ during the Pandemic, I ended up doing all of my running on city streets.

I always run on the left shoulder, facing traffic, so I can get out of the way of oncoming danger.

One day I saw a guy pulling out of a side street at the corner I was approaching, turning to his right–coming towards me. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I think he swung his turn super wide and went into the oncoming traffic.

Suddenly I heard squealing tires behind me and turned in the nick of time to see a car coming straight at me at an angle across the road. Apparently the guy was so far over in his turn that he forced the oncoming driver to go into the opposite lane…directly toward me.

I leapt over the woman’s hood like a gazelle and stood there in stunned amazement at what I had seen. Both drivers had also stopped in place. They both got out, and the lady looked furious and was getting ready to give the old man a solid piece of her mind.

I looked at them both and shouted “I’M ALIVE!!!”
Then I looked at both cars and said “Nobody hit anything and everyone’s OK. That’s awesome!”

I then went on my way. I really hope the two of them recognized just what kind of a life-changing moment there could have been for all of us (me especially).

ETA: Not sure if that’s what the OP is about, but it’s still an uplifting story.

4

This happened quite a few years ago, maybe as long as 15 years. It’s definitely one of those “things could have gone so very, very badly and didn’t” stories.

I was driving on a highway in the city. Below is an aerial view of that section of road, labeled McAllister Freeway (former Mayor). In the picture, I was in the right lane driving north-ish, which would be from lower left to upper right. Six lanes in either direction on a curved road with no shoulders, only concrete sides. There is a concrete barrier down the center of this section of the highway. To make it more interesting, some structures on each side of the road hang over the road a bit. The feeling is very constricted, hemmed-in with no place to go, no place to pull over. A luge track comes to mind.

As I said, one day I was driving in heavy traffic. All three lanes were almost bumper-to-bumper, moving probably at 50 mph. Then along came some idiot in a sports car weaving in and out of traffic, being a show-off jerk. Suddenly the sports car clipped the back end of another car and both cars spun around out of control for a few very long seconds-- maybe 8-10 seconds? At least one of the cars turned completely around – 360 degrees. Miraculously, neither one of these cars hit any other cars.

But here’s the part I see as truly miraculous, and I think about it every time I drive that stretch of road, which I do often: as soon as the sports car made contact with the other car, causing a loud BANG, every other car in the vicinity immediately slowed to a crawl and stayed in its own lane. It was hive mind in action. Or a flock of birds. So much common sense and intelligent non-reactivity concentrated in one place at a moment when it really mattered. We just drove slowly and carefully, watching the two cars that had collided. Neither of them came completely to a stop either. It was surreal.

This could have been a 20-car pileup easily. Ambulances and other rescue vehicles would have had a devil of a time even getting to anyone. They probably would have had to close the entire section of highway and approach from the southbound side, hauling survivors and bodies over the median barrier. Maybe even using helicopters.

But instead, the two cars that had collided somehow got themselves pointed back in the proper direction in their proper lanes, and the rest of us just proceeded along, gradually increasing speed and going about our day. And drawing some very grateful breaths.

5

Wow, these responses are ironic. One of my most thought-about positive counterfactuals is one I think about when sitting in traffic. When there’s been an accident and my day has been inconvenienced by sitting in the ensuing stopped/crawling traffic, I like to think to myself, “At least I wasn’t the one in the accident.” It’s kinda cool that I could take that thought still further. Like being in an accident and getting significantly more money for my vehicle than I would have gotten if I had traded it in just a few days later like I had planned – what a wonderful stroke of luck!

And yes, @minor7flat5, that story was exactly the sort of thing I’m looking for.

6

I once caught a piece of luggage that was falling from an overhead bin before it could smack some lady in the head. Definitely a positive counterfactual for her, as it could have resulted in anything from a bit of embarrassment to a concussion.

(And definitely not trying to spin myself as the hero. I saw the luggage start to come out as someone was opening the bin, I was already standing there in place to catch it, and it cost me nothing to prevent it from hitting her. However the lady underneath did not see it, and was right in its path. If I wasn’t there, maybe someone else would have caught it, or maybe not…)

7

I may or may not have told this story before. Back in my foolish youth, I rode a motorcycle and really loved it, particularly since I lived in a small-ish town with lots of beautiful country roads on the outskirts. But this particular story takes place in the city.

I was riding along one day when some jerk in a white van goes by at high speed. He’s in a real hurry to get somewhere and is rapidly changing lanes like a complete lunatic. Those vans are not meant for racing and are not very stable, but I guess the lunatic didn’t know that. Very shortly after he passed me, he made another sudden lane change, and the van just simply flipped right over onto its roof, right in front of me. And then it kept going until it hit a wooden power pole, which snapped and treated me to a bunch of sparking power lines falling to the street not more than ten feet in front of me as I sat on my stopped bike, staring in a sort of stunned wonderment.

Lots of cars were stopping and drivers getting out – I don’t know if they wanted to help or to beat the guy up for the way he was driving, but I saw I wasn’t needed, so I swerved past the still-sparking power lines and went on my way. I was probably in my late 20s at the time, a pretty young age to die.

8

Lots of driving stories here.

When I was young and even more foolish than I am today, I was driving to work one day. I guess I was going about 70 in the left lane of a 4-lane highway. Someone passed me on the right, then moved left in front of me and slowed down. Ha, I’ll show him! Like a jerk, I came up right to his bumper and tailgated him for a few minutes. Then it was time for me to get ready for my exit, so I turned the wheel and started to move into the lane to my right. Just at that second, the guy I was tailgating suddenly hit his brakes. I’m not sure if he was brake-checking me or if it was just a coincidence, but I hit my brakes HARD to avoid a collision, and since my wheels were turned at the time, I totally lost control of the car. I skidded across all the highway lanes and ended up in the right lane, stunned and shaken. Miraculously, I did not hit any other car, although this was during commute traffic. That was the last time I ever tailgated anyone just to express an emotion. The result could have been a whole lot worse than it was.

9

1977 or '78, a new mother was going to bed, and put her infant son in his crib. It was a warm day, and so she left the windows open in his room.

Later that night, she got up to use the bathroom, and noticed a cold draft from that room. The temperature had dropped precipitously overnight, to the point that the baby was turning blue. But she was able to warm him back up.

My life was saved by my mother’s overactive bladder.