At 8:15 this morning, with the sun rising low in my back, I was driving on the national road from Iraklio towards Rethimno. I do this every Monday and Tuesday. This stretch of the national road is the only part where there are 2 lanes in each direction, with a concrete wall dividing the 2 directions. I always get off at the Gázi exit, although I could get off one exit earlier, at Geófyra, but I don’t like the road there very much. So I take a little detour, which gives me a more enjoyable drive. Once past the Geófyra exit, I noticed that several truck drivers were signalling to each other. I didn’t know what it was about. Then.

I found out 2 minutes later. I was just overtaking another truck, driving on the left lane obviously, when I spotted from the corner of my right eye that the truck slowed down and pulled completely to the right. He also shortly used his horn. It was at this moment, when, due to the trucks manoeuvre, I was already past him, that I saw this car coming right at me! It was maybe 50 meters away and approaching fast. Where did that come from? I pulled the wheel to the right in one swing, nearly lost control when trying to pull the car straight again, just to see a bewildered female, gesticulating like crazy, go past me at full speed. It all went so fast I hardly realized what had happened. This was the first ghost driver I had encountered in my whole life!

I looked at the car in my rear mirror, saw the driver waving her arms, in a gesture to make other drivers go out of the way, while continuing at full speed. She must have been in a state of complete panic. She wasn’t using her headlights or her horn, just sat there gesticulating to other drivers.

I hope she has at least as good a guardian angel as I have.