My brother's voice came through the phone, quick and clear. "What happened? Are you okay?" My legs were jelly as I stepped carefully out of my car, my voice tight and rushed, the way it gets when I'm too surprised to cry. "I'm okay . . . it wasn't an accident, I guess." There was no collision, after all. I had swerved to avoid a car coming into my lane, and my tire caught a dip on the shoulder, whipping my car around 180 degrees to stop perfectly parallel with the freeway on a shoulder barely wider than my car. As I listened to Phil's brotherly guidance, I watched rush-hour traffic zip past my sad little Sunfire. I looked at the steep, wooded hillside behind me and the next freeway below. I looked again at my car, perched perfectly on the narrow shoulder as though I had parked it there for a nice evening of watching oncoming traffic. The situation was impossible. The highway patrol officer supported this observation. "Happens all the time," he said. "People get their tire caught n the dip. They usually roll down the hill, though. You were lucky." Read next feature >