Have been reading through this sub for a bit and figured I'd share this little odd occurrence that happened a while ago that probably saved my life.
I'll include as much detail as possible, its a vivid memory we both recall very well.
Happened several years ago. I was driving down a rural back road with my brother, doing about 90kmh. It's a road I've traveled millions of times. At this one section, there's a railway crossing, with lights, bells and gates. It's a crossing with very poor visibility, hence the lights and gates at a rural crossing.
On this particular day I'm driving my old diesel pickup. A loud old shitbox, music playing and having a convo with my brother. Coming up to the crossing, out of nowhere mid conversation I just interrupt and blurt out "hey I wonder if we'd be able to stop before the crossing if I just hammered the brakes right now" and without a second thought, I just do it. Truck screeches to a stop a several meters from the tracks right as a train screams by. The crossing never activated, no lights, no bell, no gate.
(I've been stopped at this particular crossing in the past. Crossing is supposed to activate well in advance and trains do freeway speeds through the area.)
We looked at eachother, wide eyed and both of our jaws basically sitting on the floor. My brother goes "Holy shit dude, what the fuck made you stop?!" Neither of us heard or saw anything. To this day we still don't know what prompted me to spontaneously spit out those words and jam the brakes, bet I'm certain we'd either both be dead or severely screwed up had I kept going.
