Saw something today that almost made me hurl... :(

[ApacheXMD]

I was driving over to Costco to get some gas. It was a big 4 lane road (2 lanes in each direction separated by a grassy median) and there was an elederly man walking across the opposite road toward the median. He was about 2 feet from the grass and a Civic Si straight runs into him.

The car wasn't moving very fast, maybe 20mph, but it was fast enough to lift the man from his feet, spin him around, and smash the leftside of the windshield. It looked fake. Like a rag doll. The poor man landed face first into the grass..



people need to realize that cars are dangerous!!! be FSCKING CAREFUL when you operate one!!

sh!t

-patchy

 

[pulpp]

yup we are more fragile than we like to think, i hope he fully recovers

 

[Pretender]

I'm tired of this crap. I'm betting A) the man wasn't crossing at a crosswalk, B) the man didn't even look for traffic. This kind of crap happens in New York all the time, yes the car should be watching, but sometimes I wonder if these idiots crossing the street are trying to commit suicide.

 

[Chaotic42]

Poor guy.

I'm from the school that thinks that driver's licence tests should be *much*
tougher. That way inept drivers will have less of a chance of squeaking by. Did
the Civic stop?

 

[damocles]

Poor guy

Moving at 20MPH any decent defensive driver should have avoided him.

 

[ApacheXMD]

Pretender: You're right. there was no crosswalk. and the dude driving absolutely wasn't watching where he was going. there were no other cars for a hundred feet in front of him when he hit the pedestrian.

the elderly man crossing was wrong to do so, but i sorta understand why. He was walking with a cane so he probably has a bit of trouble getting around.. and it was one of those big roads where crossswalks are few and far in between.

There wasn't any reason for the civic to hit the guy. He was cross very slowly, so it's not like he surprised the driver. He just straight-up ran into him.

Chaotic42: yes the driver did stop fortunately.

-patchy

 

[Bignate603]

Any word how he is? If he was walking towards the median and almost there he should have been seen easily. It sounds like somebody was fooling with their radio or something while driving.

 

[Bignate603]

He's actually fairly lucky that he was hit by a Civic instead of a larger car, an SUV going twenty would have done much more damage because he probably wouldn't have gone up over it. He would have probably gone down under it...

 

[NFS4]

Not to sound harsh or anything, but from your story, it seems as though the elderly man was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was not paying attention.

You mention that the median was a grassy area and he was walking towards it. I don't know of many grassy "crosswalk" areas. That's a big mistake to try to cross a two lane road with speeding cars.

Now I'm not saying that the guy in the car was guilty as charged, but I'd like to see your reaction time when you see a appear in front of your car. Also couple that to the fact that you just don't expect to see someone walking across a two-lane, busy road with no cross-walk. It's the same way I wouldn't expect to see some guy running across I-85 while I've got my cruise control on. It shocks a person at first to see it, then they react. Now I sometimes look down to change my radio or adjust the A/C, but it's usually only for a second or two.

I know that when I got into my first and only accident (wasn't my fault), a car pulled out from a side street across a 3 lane highway right in front of my car. I saw him coming out the corner of my eye, I slammed on brakes, and I STILL hit him (was doing 45MPH, the speed limit). Smacked his car right in the driver's door.


<< Did the Civic stop? >>


I sure hope so.


<< people need to realize that cars are dangerous!!! be FSCKING CAREFUL when you operate one!! >>


Also, don't cross a highway in front of speeding cars! There are people close by in Greensboro that have been hit and KILLED for walking across a 4 lane highway (2 lanes each way with a 10 foot fence in between). Idiots walk across two lanes, climb the fence, jump down and get smacked.

 

[Shuxclams]

I thought this was going to be a &quot;UNKOWN RUSSIAN SOLDIER&quot; thread........ now thats disturbing..:disgust:









SHUX

 

[perry]

The thing is, that old guy will probably sue the driver of the Civic, and no jury in the world will find against an old guy with a cane. Just ruined that Civic owner's life for the next couple of years.

My high school sat against a pretty busy highway. 2 - 3 lanes in each direction, speed limit was 55, average speed was like 60-65. A stoplight every mile or so, so people were zooming by at a pretty good clip. Lazy (more like stupid, it didn't save an inch of walking) students didn't feel like taking the sidewalk on the other side of the school, down another street, and then crossing the highway at the crosswalk (at a stop light), so they would hop/cut the barbwire fence behind the school and cross the highway. Up until my senior year at least 2 students a year were hit and killed crossing. Then they put up a steel post fence all along the highway at the tree line so dummies couldn't get out of the school grounds and cross.

 

[Dually]

<< I was driving over to Costco to get some gas. It was a big 4 lane road (2 lanes in each direction separated by a grassy median) and there was an elederly man walking across the opposite road toward the median. He was about 2 feet from the grass and a Civic Si straight runs into him.

The car wasn't moving very fast, maybe 20mph, but it was fast enough to lift the man from his feet, spin him around, and smash the leftside of the windshield. It looked fake. Like a rag doll. The poor man landed face first into the grass..



people need to realize that cars are dangerous!!! be FSCKING CAREFUL when you operate one!!


sh!t

-patchy >>



Or perhaps one shouldn't illegally jaywalk. The old man gets a darwin award.

 

[ChrichtonsGirl]

Ugh.

I'm not trying to take over your thread here, but your story reminded me of something I saw that I've been trying to forget for months. I was driving on the Interstate (going about 80, as was everyone else), approaching my offramp and about a dozen cars ahead of me (for anyone familiar with the area, it was the I-90 heading northwest towards Madison from the Janesville/Stoughton area at the 151/Sun Prairie north offramp), I saw a camper plow into the back of a braking trailer truck that was hauling lumber. The lumber was hanging off the back of the truck by a good 5' and was the exact same height as the windshield of the camper. It went completely through the cab of the camper, pinning the occupants - well, I say pinned, but it was a fatal accident as far as I could tell.

Please, please - wear your seatbelts, drive defensively, watch out for pedestrians and just pay attention to the road in front of you, behind you and to the sides. Not all accidents are preventable, but too many die or are injured in ones that are.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Apparently in Germany if you're hit by a car while crossing anywhere but in a specific type of crosswalk, it's your fault and the driver bears no responsibility.

I gotta say though, it's kinda hard to imagine the old guy &quot;popping up&quot; in front of the driver's view. Going 20 miles an hour he'd have had to suddenly appear in front of him at less than 50 feet for there to be no reaction time, even if the driver wasn't paying attention totally.

 

[Gunbuster]

If you drive the same route every day, you tend to get on autopilot sometimes
I know thats a bad thing but peds need to understand, if you are walking anyplace out of the norm you stand a good chance to get wacked.

 

[kami]

<< I thought this was going to be a &quot;UNKOWN RUSSIAN SOLDIER&quot; thread........ now thats disturbing..:disgust:

>>



First thing I thought of too *tries to get that image out of my head*

 

[NFS4]

<< If you drive the same route every day, you tend to get on autopilot sometimes
I know thats a bad thing but peds need to understand, if you are walking anyplace out of the norm you stand a good chance to get wacked. >>


Exactly!

 

[Anghang]

dang!...it's always more of a shocker to see an accident happen than the aftermath...hope the old man is ok...i recall one time i was driving back home at like 2:30am or so...and had to slow down a lot because this guy was waving all cars to go to the other lane..as i passed by there was an overturned car with a lady half way out of the driver side window, i assumed she was stuck....i heard sirens in the distance as i passed by...dang...hope she's ok as well...

 

[IJump]

I got hit by a car once. and let me tell you, it sucks. I was lucky that the lady had just started moving. I would hate to get hit any faster than that.

 

[damocles]

True, the old guy is at fault.

But if you are driving at 20mph, then you should be alert enough to avoid hitting someone that is basically ambling across the road.

He didn't just pop out of nowhere, he was almost at the grass.

A couple of years back i narrowly avoided hitting a young girl on a bicycle that swerved off the path in front of me ( i was going about 25mph)
It was close to my home and i knew the girl It would have been a tragedy if i hit her. Even in areas you drive often , it pays not to drive on 'auto pilot'

 

[ApacheXMD]

yeah the old guy shouldn't have crossed where he did, but he definately should not have gotten hit if the civic driver was paying attention just a little bit.
if it was any other normal healthy person, he would have made it to the median easily. The road was clear except for the oncoming civic which, as i mentioned before, was moving relatively slowly. You would think he could see someone crossing the street.

i want to reiteratw what a horrible sight it was.. the civic was moving so slowly yet the guy was still thrown up like a doll.

Don't get me wrong, the pedestrian and the driver were both at fault.. but i believe drivers carry the bigger burden of responsibility. You're surrounded by a ton of steel and even at slow speeds, you exert a huge amount of momentum and kinetic energy. Just a reminder for pedestrians and drivers alike.. keep your eyes open please!

-patchy

 

[Lord Evermore]

We should all carry shaped C4 charges packed on our bodies with pressure switches to detonate them towards anything that hits us with a certain amount of force. That'll teach drivers to pay attention. :-D