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During a summer time storm in Tenmile Canyon on my way to Copper Mountain, this time I was driving a bus. The rain was coming down hard, and visibility was not great, and there was a lot of water on the road. I was behind traffic that was going about 40 on the Interstate, and nobody was in the left lane, so I moved over to pass a few cars. I have better visibility being seated higher up in a bus, and with all that weight I had good traction. As I was over taking the slow traffic an SUV traveling in the other direction lost control and slid across the median and just barely missed the rear side of my bus as he hit the pavement and started flipping.
As it turned out, the SUV was being driven by a retired Secret Service agent, whom I assumed had been trained to drive fast and had a lot of experience, but never-the-less lost control of his vehicle and killed himself in the crash. I realized that if I had stayed in the line of traffic, and hadn't been over taking the slower drivers, that I would have been in the place on the highway where he came across, and would have probably had him come through my windshield and take me with him.
Confidence is necessary on the road, but over-confidence is not your friend, and can very well be a deadly enemy.
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