The Mind

Had a close call on the road last Saturday and later was analyzing it. First of all what happened was as I was cruising along when the tempo in front of me stopped, hence I moved to the left of the road and realized that a bullock cart was crossing the road at an angle and I didn't really have enough space to stop. With the tempo on my right, the pavement on my left and the bull in front of me there was no where to go. With no other option I just got as close as I could to the pavement, braked as much as possible, leaned in (or bent bike or something) and just squeezed through between pavement and bull.
The adrenaline rush was crazy, like when you know you were just so close. But once all that subsided and I had my wits back, it struck me that in that split second I hadn't really thought but just acted. Actually I did think just didn't review and the system kicked into a 'just do it' mode.
Now that would mean that its the primitive being who surfaced, - the being with out the ability to think the organized way of human beings – who was just trying to survive without a real thought to it.
OR
Could it be that my speed of thought is that fast, where the difference between thought and action is so negligible and you can't differentiate between them?
Or do we have some kind of in built patterns and depending on the situation the mind just switches to that pattern. It’s all there like an if-else clause and the mind just chooses the right one. What happens if it chooses the wrong one? How does it know which is right?