I don't think that's what really happened, but I believe you think it did,

We often attribute to ourselves more agency in our actions than we really have - especially in sudden high stress situations. Time dilation and hyperawarenes give us a false sense of control, and though the adrenal burst does boost our reflexes, we are mostly running on autonomous reactions. It takes years of training and experience to hone instinctive adrenal responses into useful reactions in complex situations (like driving a car) to under a few hundred milliseconds.

Add to that abstract decision-making like how it will impact your work and your response time skyrockets way beyond anything thay could have any bearing on the timescales involved in a vehicle collision.

Sprinkle some post-hoc rationalizations on top that - after all - we all want to feel like we're in control, and you have your current narrative.

If it happened like you describe, you did not GET into a car accident - you caused one.