Yeah I have done similar evasive maneuvers a bunch of times. Also people run stop signs constantly, a competent defensively driving human may have just not started driving forward yet when they saw the other car driving towards the stop sign with some speed. I’m not sure of the exact timing in the story but I’ve waited at a stop sign when I saw another car driving towards the intersection many, many times, and a small percent of the time they don’t stop.

Which isn’t to say that the average driver wouldn’t have hit it, it’s just not obviously superhuman.