Wow Brian what a ride. You were lucky you had the ESP on when you blew the rear tire at 70+ mph. Without it you should have ended up sideways on your roof. I cannot believe the other drivers would be passing you. If anyone blew a tire in front of me they would own the road. Personally, I would have put my right signal on and just moved over.
ESP saved my life once too. I was traveling 70 mph on a two lane road at night. The xenon headlights lit up a big black fury animal just right of the center line. It wasn't moving so I figured I would pass it on the left using it as an autocross cone and just missing it. Then two glowing eyes looked up at me. I did an emergency lane change left then right at 70 MPH! The ESP light came on and stayed on for about 20 seconds as I continued down the road. I really believe that without the ESP system I would have rolled the SLK into the corn field and they wouldn't have found me until harvest time.
Regards, John