How Did I Get So Lucky?

The other day was the first day in a while that the roads weren't icy, slushy or wet.

I take back roads to work that have pronounced curves.

Because the weather was fine and the roads were dry, I was able to relax and drive at a faster speed than I had been driving for a while.

I stopped at a four-way stop and a police officer also stopped, to my left. He made a left turn and I went straight, so I was behind him.

He turned his lights on and drove extremely slowly. Far below the already slow, back road speed limit.

I followed slowly, wondering what he was doing. He wasn't pulling me over - he was in front of me.

We got to a particularly sharp curve, where you can't see the condition of the road in front of you until you're on it, and there it was. A huge patch of ice covering the road.

A car had slammed head-on into a pole on the side of the road by the ice.

The driver must've been thinking what I was thinking. All was well, so it was OK to drive a little faster, and then he was unable to stop in time to keep from losing control when he hit the ice patch at full speed.

I was immediately aware that I had been profoundly protected. Had I left the house a minute earlier or later, I would've missed the police officer who, unbeknownst to me at the time, was keeping me from enduring the same fate as the driver who'd hit the pole.

How did I get so lucky?