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Thursday, November 10, 2005

To avoid making last week a complete bitching fest (though not succeeding very much), with the exception of R, some people on the street, and the police, no one else knew that I almost got hit by a car.

No joke. Even in a city where 95% of drivers actually yield to pedestrians, you still can't be too careful. But even with care, you can't prevent other people from making mistakes.

I was coming home one evening, got off the bus, and was ready to cross the 1 street to get to my block. Another guy got off the bus with me, and we had gotten to the median. We waited, looked, saw one car verrry slowly approaching. Looked like he was going to stop, and he was far enough so that even if he didn't stop, had he continued at the same pace, we would've made it to the other side.

Next thing I knew, the guy with me had walked 2 paces in front of me, and at that very moment, the driver's side of the station wagon was in front of my face. It had hit the guy, the guy rolled over several times, and ended up in the crosswalk of the intersecting street.

At times like those you can pay attention to only one thing. Only occurred to me seconds afterwards to get out of the street in case other cars approached.

I finally understand why it is difficult for eye witnesses to recall details. You're still reeling from the shock that you just can't think rationally. It's a good thing the station wagon actually stopped, and the driver actually got out to check on the guy he had just hit. Otherwise, I don't think anyone would've caught his license plate number.

What the hell was the driver thinking?! It was obvious to me that instead of slowing down, he accelerated.

Had I walked just that much faster, I would've been hit, too.

Either the police was patrolling the neighborhood already, or that someone had quick access to 911, but within 2 minutes the police came. Questioned me, questioned other witnesses. What surprised me was how detailed were some of his questions, and how, even though the accident had just happened, I still had to pause to think about some of the details.

How do you tell how fast the car was going? It was obviously very slow; otherwise I wouldn't have risked my life to cross. But I'm pretty sure it sped up.

Where exactly was the guy hit? Right in front of my face, that's where. No more than two feet from me. It should've been right in the crosswalk because that was where we were. The car had to come at least that far.

There was a witness who actually came up to me and said he thought the guy got hit outside of the crosswalk. Since neither of us were jaywalking outside of the crosswalk lines, I fail to see how that could've happened.

In the end, the guy who got hit was ok. He laid on the ground for a long time, though. Hard to tell if he was physically hurt, but in retrospect he was likely suffering from shock. The police had him in the back of the cruiser and had planned to take him to the station when I left. The guy told me he only had some scrapes and bruises, and thanked me for my concern for him. He had tears in his eyes. R had come and walked me home.

The police never called me afterwards. I didn't expect them to, since I gave a detailed statement, and the guy probably isn't pressing any charges.

What I would really like to know, though, is the driver's own account of what had happened, and if the driver was penalized.

What a terrible week that was.