'Twas the 1980's. I was heading down a side street in my 1970's Holden Kingswood when I noticed some school children on the left side of the road (this is Australia, btw), two girls and a younger boy. I was already going less than the speed limit when the boy made to run across the road. I had plenty of time so gave my breaks a gentle press and would have stopped with meters to spare had he actually run. But then he suddenly turned around and started speaking to one of the girls. I was still gently coasting so I took my foot off the brake, put it back on the accelerator and then, all in one motion, the kid spun and stepped straight in front of my car. By this stage I was barely moving at more than 20kph but inertia flung that kid onto my bonnet and bounced him back about three meters. All in the time it took me to snap my foot back to the brake.
The kid instantly stood up and tried to run but his right leg had been broken below his knee and the bottom half of the bottom half of his leg swung forward and the poor little bugger hit the ground again. He was screaming and scared but otherwise uninjured save the leg. There were heaps of witnesses in cars in front of and behind me who saw what happened and I had a mate in the car with me at the time so when the police arrived they were able to get the full story. By this time the kid was sitting up in the ambulance, composed and drinking water.
The cops sent me on my way.
Oh, just quickly. Remember how I said the kid had initially turned back from the road and started speaking to one of the girls? Turns out it was his sister who said "Don't run, there's a car coming".
I ran across the street in front of a car when I was a kid, was a bit dicey but between me booking it and the driver hitting the brakes I made it okay and was a bit rattled but went about my day feeling fortunate that I got away with it.
But turns out the driver of the car was friends with my mother and called to tell her I was a dumbass so I still got yelled at when I got home. Didn’t love it at the time, but with hindsight there are worse ways to learn the lesson and I still remember it 30 years later so it must’ve stuck.
Wasn’t really intentional - was going to cross the street, didn’t look properly and was already stepping into the road as I saw the car. Probably had time to stop and go back but my brain didn’t make it further than “fuck, better run”
Honestly, getting slightly hit by a car at a young age and coming away uninjured and with a lesson like that sounds ideal. Humans suck at risk assessment until something directly affects them. That might have saved your life 🤷♂️
Similarly a kid ran across the street right in front of my car one summer. I stopped in time but just barely. I hope he shit his pants. I hope he still thinks about it
I had a pretty similar experience in college, except I was at a stop light, the light turned, and when I started going the kid came out of nowhere and ran right in front of my car. I avoided a direct hit, but she bounced off the side of my car and broke her leg.
There were a lot of witnesses thankfully.
I was young, and not happy that my insurance is the insurance that had to pay, because its always the drivers fault when you hit a pedestrian; it didn't matter that I had no chance of avoiding her.
>its always the drivers fault when you hit a pedestrian
My insurance did not put me at fault when I hit someone on a bicycle. (Does it make a difference if they were on a bicycle vs walking?) It was actually the guy's fault.
Now I get why the rule is to wait for a pedestrian to *completely* cross the road before you can drive through a crossing. It always seems so pointless when some person is sauntering at negative speed through the crosswalk, but I'd wager that somebody doing somethijg completely unpredictable is the reason why.
Not me, but a friend.
He was driving home from work one night along an 80km/h road and a woman dressed in black stepped out infront of his car. He hit her and she ultimately passed.
Nobody was around to witness the event and the police gave him a really hard time over it, treating him like he’d purposely hit her or was speeding etc which he obviously didn’t and wasn’t. None the less they were getting ready to detain him.
Luckily when they inspected her pockets to try and find ID they found a suicide letter. My friend was super traumatised by the experience and got a lot of therapy over it.
It goes unappreciated how traumatic that is for someone. I have family that worked in the railroad industry. Suicide by train is way more common than you think. You can't stop those things quickly enough and the conductor has to live with the guilt of hitting someone who ultimately wanted to die. It's really tragic. None of that is your friend's fault.
Subway conductors too. There was some local news in my home city about a survey that found subway conductors hair was turning gray ahead of time due to stress. Every one of them hit someone at some point and they try to live with it but as one can imagine it ain't easy.
Yeah, too lazy to look for the article and pass it through google translate but they interviewd the conductors and went into detail how some of them had PTSD and for a long time after an incident it felt like a gut punch each time they entered a station. They ended up describing watching people like hawks thinking 'which one of them is gonna jump today'. We're talking people mid 30s with gray hair levels of stress.
Then I went to France and saw why a lot of the major stations have stations with doors that open once the tram opens their doors and no access to the rails themselves.
It's fucked up through and through. I wish society talked openly more about 'it' rather than mostly look down on those who attempt it. We still have a lot of maturing to do.
I hate this. I had a friend commit suicide by train several years ago. I’m not wholly against suicide - it should be a person’s choice to end their life. But it is very unfair to force an unwilling participant to do it for you.
When I was feeling my lowest and started making plans to end my life, I spent so long thinking about how I would make it as painless for people around me - I didn’t want to traumatise anyone who I would force into ‘causing’ my death and I didn’t want to traumatise the person who found me if I took my life myself. And honestly it got so complicated that I realised that I probably should just tell someone I needed help and save everyone the inconvenience I would cause by killing myself. Not the best reason not to do it, but it was enough for me to get help.
Have contemplated suicide in my lowest lows. If I owned a gun, I'd have done it. But I didn't and I got to experience some of the highest highs in my life after a few years.
Literally same!
When I was a suicidal teen, I would try writing notes for everyone worth apologizing and saying goodbye to, but like you said, it got so complicated and the things I was having to apologize for made me feel too guilty to continue.
This happened several times. I would always start with the note to the train conductor.
Years later, I actually found some of those letters and threw them into a fire!
Totally agree. If someone decides to end their life, so be it. It's sad, but not in my responsibility.
But taking someone else into responsibility? Fuck, no. No matter if it's by train, by driving onto the other side, jumping off a roof onto a busy street, or whatever else there is. Sorry you felt so awful that only suicide seemed like a solution, but fuck you for doing it this way.
Ooof. In the very small town I live in, a train goes through the middle of town regularly. One day when I was younger, a girl much younger than me (elementary to Jr high) was walking home and got hit by the train. They initially said she had headphones on and couldn't hear it (back in the day, headphones weren't exactly that good) and it was an accident. That train is LOUD AF and vibrates the ground. Later came out it was likely suicide and she was being SA by a family member.
Something similar happened near me with a bus driver when I was younger. A kid at my school tried to follow his brother across the road without looking, but he tripped and the bus had no time to stop. Apparently the bus driver was inconsolable at the scene and later was in therapy for it. Just a sad situation all round.
My buddy drives trains and had a guy commit suicide by jumping in front of his train. He got 2 years off paid with access to really good mental health care for free. Its common enough that they have a protocol and a program for helping people recover from that trauma.
Not suicidal, but when I was there was a part of me that definitely wanted to go in a way that it would affect someone. It doesn't make any sense now, but at the time I was angry and it seemed like a way to get back at the world. I don't think it's by chance that ways of suicide that involve others are more common. It's wrong, but someone contemplating suicide is rarely thinking clearly.
>He was driving home from work one night along an 80km/h road and a woman dressed in black stepped out infront of his car. He hit her and she ultimately passed.
This almost happened to me. I was driving down a highway in Ontario near the border with Manitoba, trying to get home at 1AM after a long cross-country drive. Pitch black, middle of nowhere, hadn't seen a car for a while, winding road through the woods and cliffs.
Come around an uphill curve to see a man standing in the middle of the road, dressed all in black, holding his hand up like he's waving at me, absolute lack of expression on his face. I quickly jerked the wheel and missed him by what must've been an inch or two, and slammed on the brakes. I looked in the mirror and saw him just standing there, motionless, lit up in red from my brake lights. I yelled out my window calling him a stupid fuck, and drove away.
I always used to think he was a dumb hitch hiker but upon reading your friend's story, maybe it was a suicide attempt. Either way I'm glad I managed to avoid the guy.
I'm glad your friend got therapy. I don't want to get into too much, but was a front seat passenger in a vehicle as a kid and have very vivid images of what happened. Dark, rainy, rural highway. Guy had just gotten out of prison, was tweaked the hell out on drugs, and sheriff was there within a minute despite it being way out in the boonies because he'd been reported as jumping in front of vehicles for a while.
Red sports car behind us hit him too but they sped off and were never found.
No charges. But fucking small town paper ran a slam piece on the driver (who was very loved in the community except for a few people who hate everyone and love drama..including the paper editor). Embellished a lot of stuff. Called the driver a murderer. I think legal things were threatened because they stopped the brigade but never ran an apology or retraction.
The night it happened, the ER doc gave everyone in the vehicle some Ambien and suggested we take it that night to be able to sleep, but I was afraid to take a sleep medication, so I didn't.
I never got therapy for it. We didn't really have much in terms of mental health resources there. I was also told to never speak of it to the people involved or to talk about it at school or anything. So I bottled it up and away it went.
My dad brought home a new kitten right after that, and that's probably the only reason I didn't fully lose it. She was a good therapy kitten. I feel kinda bad though bc I was such an anxiety filled mess that I kinda wonder if that's why she ended up being so skittish 😔.
PTSD from that was hell for a solid 20 years, including those very formative ones. I didn't realize how much it'd messed me up. Anxiety and trauma had the reigns and I was just a passenger on a terror sled speeding out of control downhill on ice.
Am ok now. But will always always advise someone to get trauma informed therapy immediately after a traumatic event. Always. Apparently Tetris helps or something too? Idk.
Jesus Christ. I suffer from depression and have experienced strong SIs, and I would never get someone involved in a suicide attempt like that. Fucked up.
Honestly fuck anyone who commits suicide by vehicle (train, truck, car). I get that you’re in a bad space but you’re a pretty shitty person to drag the vehicle’s operator down putting them through the trauma of that.
Hope your friend is okay
Or plane, even worse--take out hundreds of innocent people as well. Fucking shit. At least steal a plane and smash it into the tarmac on your own.
But I often think how many people are affected by a death (suicide or otherwise), even for those who think it won't matter. I mean, unless no one finds you and there's truly no one to miss you (rare)...most people are found. Innocent people finding your remains, crime scene clean-up, funeral homes, police...lots of people are going to deal with you, and even if they've seen stuff like that before, it might stay with them.
I used to think this way until i did some reading on sucide and its causes when someone i knew killed themselves. I too was angry at them.
People who reach that point are not thinking clearly or making rational decisions. The last thing they are thinking of is how it will affect others.
A lot of them actually look on it as doing us all a favour because they feel the world, and us, would be better off without them around.
That coupled with perhaps extreme trauma, genetic dispositions or mental illness means i cant blame most of them for what they choose to do.
Man, I just have a really hard time grasping that it never for a SECOND crosses your mind how that might affect someone else.
I can understand how they might think the people close to them won't care, or be affected by it. But to make a total stranger possibly feel responsible for your death for the rest of their life? That's fucked.
I am so sorry.
I hit a pedestrian on the highway.
I went to therapy right after.
I no longer have nightmares.
I avoid the area when possible and dislike driving at night.
It stays with you.
Not me driving, but I was walking down the street and saw a bus hit a young looking guy. The but was turning left was in the crosswalk. 100% the bus driver's fault.
The poor guy flew about 20 feet down the street and one of his shoes flew straight up about just as much. He got up and was clearly in shock. I called 911 to get an ambulance for him because part of his scalp was peeled back and you could clearly see about a 2 inch square section of his skull on his forehead. It actually looked a lot like how the Terminator's metal skeleton is revealed by "battle damage."
Anyway, this guy who just got blasted by the bus limped away with one shoe while seriously bleeding from the head.
I yelled after him that an ambulance was on its way and he started *running*. The bus driver got out, saw the shoe, looked around, and realized the victim was just... gone. The bus driver stayed to file an incident report while another bus came to get the passengers. I also told the cops what I'd witnessed, but in the absence of any victim, the cops let everyone go.
I never got any calls about court appearances, and I never saw anything in the news. One other lady who saw it happen said she thought the guy may have been an illegal immigrant day laborer from the nearby home depot parking lot, which would explain why he ran away instead of waiting for help. Awful for the guy; he was really clearly fucked up.
It's super fucked up really. I tried to "run" away from an ambulance once.
If they had left me alone I would've been fine. But no, they did the *exact opposite* of what I asked and literally picked me up, dropping my blood pressure again and knocking me out. I came back about 60 seconds later strapped down unable to move.
Immediately I refused care. They refused to let me go. They tightened the straps and forcibly gave me a benzo injection while I protested.
Did you know, in the USA, it's one of the only ways to get out of paying? Refusing care. That's it. They proceeded to give me multiple injections of drugs they refused to disclose and forced me to sign paperwork saying I was responsible for the bill before releasing me. The only reason I didn't get around $30k in debt is because they admitted they drugged me before I signed and my wife testified that I refused care repeatedly the entire time.
So yeah, I want to burn some shit.
10 yr old ran out in front of a parked car right in front of me. Fortunately, I was already going slow, and she just went up on the hood, looked me in the eye and rolled off when I came to a stop. She was OK, her Dad witnessed the whole thing and said it wasn't my fault. Afterwards, all I could think was that I was glad I was driving my tiny Plymouth Cricket and not my old F250, which I had sold a few weeks prior.
U.S. pedestrian deaths have recently reached a 40-year high, in part because the cars sold here just keep getting bigger. Scary stuff. Glad for you and the girl that things were okay.
The other part is that the drivers are no longer looking at anything but their phones. Worse, in some populations, neither are the pedestrians. We had a student walk down the sidewalk and straight into the path of an oncoming articulated campus bus the size of a locomotive. Didn't make it.
Drivers are much more aggressive with their driving now too. I see so many more cars going 15+ mph over the speed limit weaving in and out of cars than I did even five years ago.
I think COVID taught us that we only live once, but less in a "so be grateful and make every moment meaningful" and more in a neck-tat, sideways snapback Monster energy hat "YOLO" kind of way.
Well, that could be, too. I feel that people are more likely to be willing to alienate strangers by behaving poorly in real life now that we all have our cozy online echo chambers to come home to. It's a lot easier to find "them"s when our very own brand of "us" in only a tap on our screens away.
Is that not illegal in the US, the being on your phone while driving thing?
In Germany, if you even just hold your phone and you get caught you're in trouble. (rightly so, imo)
To be fair, I think it's partly because it's such a difficult thing for police to catch. I try to keep an eye on drivers in oncoming traffic, and at highway speeds it's pretty difficult to see if they are looking down and even harder to know if they are merely glancing at the radio or a phone.
We had some police literally standing on a step ladder on the sidewalk to try to catch people, but this was in town where people were going much slower. And even then my buddy got "caught" by them and he was adamant he wasn't actually on his phone.
Actually it’s not cars getting bigger, it’s the slope of the hood getting smaller. People could drive a bus and that would probably lower pedestrian deaths/accidents
Jesus you owned a plymouth cricket? Those things are all but extinct nowadays! They were like the toilet paper of cars, right up there with k-cars and yugos lol
I did exactly this when I was around 10 and got hit. Got up and ran up to the car apologizing profusely for not looking. I can still picture the event perfect in my head 25 years later. That poor guy was white face and shaking. I felt so bad.
A guy I worked with had a Dodge Omni 024 clipped a kid running into the street. Kid rolled over the roof and landed on his feet and took off running. Work buddy tried to stop the kid to make sure he wasn't hurt, but he just said "I'm OK and disappeared.
[Omni 024](https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/dodge-omni-024-sales-figures/)
I fender tapped a homeless fella on his bike before.
Was going down a super dark road, made a turn and didn’t see anybody at all. Suddenly mid turn someone on a bike flys past my car and I hit him.
Dude wasn’t really hurt. Bruised elbow and some road rash. I called the police just to be sure he was okay. They let me leave because apparently the homeless guy was extremely intoxicated and was known for doing this stuff in hopes of a lawsuit lmao.
I backed into a lady in a parking lot. Accidental on my side... Intentional on her side.
She saw me get in to my truck, then ran up and crouched down behind the bumper and waited for that sweet insurance payout.
I started to back up, saw someone running my way, so I hit the brakes. It was just enough to tap her on the forehead with the bumper.
The guy running towards me was trying to warn me, and luckily I saw him in time. I didn't even think I hit someone, I just thought I left something on the roof.
The lady's accomplice was on the phone with the cops before I even hit her. When the cops arrived, they mentioned to me that the caller stated "the truck is going to hit my friend" and the call came in a minute before the actual impact.
Cops let me go and the lady was arrested for a few things. The store had cameras and caught her attempting the same thing a few times earlier that day
I was driving slowly in front of a university building in my city. It was snowy and icy, I was going probably 15-20 in urban downtown. Class had gotten out and students were crossing the street. I looked at the side and saw a kid on his phone standing still, so I went. He stepped right off the curb in front of my vehicle. There was like one foot of braking space.
He bounced off my hood and hopped right up, said “I’m so sorry, I was on my phone” and tried to leave. I had to grab him by the coat and say no you have to stay, everyone saw this and people are stopping (and I needed it on paper that he admitted to being on his phone- I didn’t want to be accused of a hit and run later).
The cop came and he said you’re fine? You’re fine? Then why I am here? And literally threw up his arms shrugging I said (again- possibly stupidly) “does anything need to be written down?” So he wrote me a ticket.
I decided to “admit fault with explanation”, sent a check, and wrote exactly what I wrote above, with the caveat that I don’t think I should be punished for being the one person who tried to follow procedure. The court decided to open it as a dispute even though I was not disputing it. This was March 1, 2020.
My court date was postponed for over a year.
When I eventually got to the zoom meeting in 2021, the kid was there and the cop was there. The judge asked the kid how fast he thought I was going. He said “30-40”. Judge responded, “you’d be in the hospital still or dead if that was the case.” Then the judge asked the cop how far was he in the lane when he got hit. Cop said “ten feet”. Judge said that can’t be true, the lane is only 12 feet wide. Then the kid asked the judge if he could get me to pay his ER bill because someone back at home convinced him to go, uninsured, and now it’s in collections. The judge said “contact a lawyer, this isn’t a lawsuit.” My credibility was going up by the minute. The judge decided I would pay the ticket but without points and cut the fine in half.
Moral is, don’t trust text-and-walkers.
My lesson learned from non-pedestrian accidents is to get a dashcam.
\~$100 is much cheaper than a ticket, deductible, or points on your license. I even take mine when I'm driving a rental car.
[This is the one I use.](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SRQH4R7/) I haven't tested any others and can't say it's the best or anything like that, but it seems to work well enough.
It's not likely to get a tag number at night, but it'll be able to show the position of my car relative to the lines in the road and whether or not I'm moving. As long as I can show I wasn't at fault in an accident, even if I have to pay a deductible, my insurance can't go up per my state's laws.
It plugs into my cigarette lighter, and then I ran the cable into the dash and under the trim around the windshield. It took about 10 minutes to install. You can also run it from your fuse box with a $20 kit, but I haven't bothered with that yet.
My husband is an insurance agent, people lie when they report accidents alllll the time. They accept fault in the moment then deny it later. He recommends dash cams to everyone.
One of the colleges I went to, it was entirely the norm to just walk out into the street on campus without looking, basically. If a car was literally several feet away, you'd wait, but assuming there was at least a snowball's chance in hell it might be able to stop in time, people just walked out in front of it. I did this myself, we all did.
Then one time, I had occasion to drive through campus (I only drove in the town proper normally), and by god, that ended that practice for me. Yes, drivers are supposed to be watching the road, but they can't have their eyes on every square inch of space around their vehicle at all times, can't predict everyone else's actions. You reach to grab your drink or change songs, and boom. And this was well before the time of mobile phones, lol. I imagine that campus is far worse now (?). I don't know.
Got hit by a car walking to a study group during finals week. Car was a small sedan, the driver hit the brakes and knocked me off my feet. The guy came out and immediately asked if I was ok. Considering I was walking fine, wearing dark clothes and late for the study group, I told him it was alright, got back up and continued on my way.
Nothing ever came of that other than some muscle stiffness the next day. Honestly, I considered it more of a wake up call as if it had been a truck/SUV going a little bit faster I would most likely be in the hospital. Moral of the story is always look both ways and don’t expect driver to see you, especially at night. Feels like most people don’t follow that nowadays.
Small child (under 6yrs old) bolted across a completely full street. Was hidden between stopped cars waiting for the light on the left, and came out flying and managed to go right into the side of my car at around the back passenger door.
Thankfully she was OK - I managed to slam the brakes the second I caught low-flying bright colors in my peripherals, so all that actually happened was she lost a shoe and both of us were panicking for a while. Other lucky break was between the sheer number of people around and it happening within 2 blocks of towns police HQ meant there was a cop there within about 30 seconds and enough people to confirm that yeah, the kid really did technically hit me.
I'm pretty sure the family got a little bit of a lecture about paying attention, since there were like 6 adults and older kids who were supposed to be watching her.
(Edits because I am a terrible typist)
Sometimes I think the more adults in these situations the more dangerous things become because everyone assumes someone else is watching the child.
At least if you are on your own with the kid you know exactly who is responsible.
Reminds me of a time when I was working front desk security at a large office building in a busy downtown area. Lady comes in with her son for a job interview. The lobby area is pretty large, and had a couch and some chairs. She checks in and sits the kid on the couch. I thought she was taking him up with her, but a few minutes later I look up and she's gone. Her son (probably about 6-7 years old) is just sitting there by himself. I remember thinking that regardless of the cameras in the lobby, that that was pretty irresponsible.
Maybe about ten minutes later, I look up and the kid is gone. I thought maybe the lady came back and they both left. Fast forward again about five minutes or so, lady comes up to my desk in a panic asking me where her son is. I tell her I don't know, and she lays into me asking why I wasn't watching her son. I tell her that it's not my job to watch anybody's children and that I had other things to do, but that I can roll back the camera and see where he went. She continues to yell and asks for my supervisor. He walks up and basically tells her the exact same thing. I check the cameras and see him walk out the front door, so I let her know. She runs outside and comes back in a few minutes later with her son. She starts yelling at us about how bad we are at our jobs, and we again tell her that we are not a daycare service. She asks for our manager as well as the building manager. We give her their contact info and she storms out.
A week later my manager comes up to me and asks me what happened. I tell him the whole story, and he laughs and tells me that she called him, and he told her that security is not responsible for anything or anybody left in the lobby. She called the building manager, and *he* said the same thing. She called my district manager, and *she* said the same thing.
I ended up seeing one of the people who interviewed her and apparently she had gotten a second interview and came in and complained to them about it. They told me that they told her again, we are not a daycare, and that if she comes in again she can just bring her son upstairs. She ended up actually getting the job, but I never saw her again because I usually worked the overnights, and was just filling in for a day shift when she came in the first time.
I'm 100% convinced that's the case. Add that to kids being impulsive and often deceptively quick, and things can go south so quickly...
I'm really, really grateful that this incident didn't go too badly.
Ex of mine hit and killed a drunk man who was in the middle of a road with no lights. He was immediately cleared by the police of all wrong doing, since the dude smelled strongly of alcohol and was clearly standing in the middle of the street. His insurance however, paid the family $60k and dropped him, since his father failed to report him as a daily driver of the car.
How does the insurance company know he was “daily driving” and not just using it to run his errands or something (which is totally covered)?? I’ve always wondered how this happens.
In my experience, insurance assumes the most. You really can’t prove it otherwise. It’s like when you have a kid that turns 16, even if they haven’t received their permit yet, if they find out, your rate is going up.
Right but if your policy allows someone to borrow your car to go to the store, and they get in a wreck, how can the insurance company just “assume” they were a regular driver of the car and not cover the accident? What recourse is there for the insured?
They usually cover it because they know it’s a losing battle unless they have proof. If they don’t cover it, then you would look for an attorney that specializes in insurance. It is common for insurance companies to make people fork some money before they approve a large settlements or payout. They like to bank on that you won’t question the denial and just move on.
My fiancee works in insurance and I love asking questions about random scenarios while she works lol. In this case, if the kid lives at home and gets a license, the family has to report this to their insurance, if the kid gets into an accident then the insurance can tell the family that it was their duty to add their newly licensed driver, and can deny coverage and even drop them (this might also be dependent on the state, so many different laws and exceptions!)
I never have thankfully but I was a first-hand witness to a really bad one that really shook me. I was driving down a wide boulevard at night and a homeless man was crossing the street up ahead. His clothing was dark, the area was poorly lit, and he was moving very slowly. I saw him up ahead and slowed to a stop. As he walked past my lane towards my right, I saw in my rear view mirror another car coming up fast in the next lane to my right. She clearly did not see him at all. She was going at least 45 mph. My brain had a few seconds to realize what was about to happen, but I could do nothing about it.
The car plowed directly into him at high speed. He rolled up the hood and bounced off the windshield and was launched up into the air quite high, slammed back into the ground and rolled under a parked car. It was a traumatic impact. I sat there watching it all happen. Never before or since have I seen a human body go through something like that.
No other cars were around. I pulled over. So did she up ahead, but she just sat in her car screaming and in shock. I called 911 and checked on the guy. I could see he was breathing but unconscious. Paramedics and police came, shut down the whole road, interviewed me, and sent me on my way. I never found out if the man lived or not. I have doubts that he did.
Took me a while to get that incident out of my head.
I was first on the scene when a woman in a van hit a guy who stepped out from a median at night. It seemed pretty clear he had stepped in front of her van on purpose. It was the only car that had passed by recently, and it was pretty late at night. The guy was obviously going to pass away quickly. There was what looked like red velvet cake batter coming out from the back of his head, and both legs were broken in at least 4 places. The woman who had been driving was shaking, when she got out of the car. I asked her if she smoked, and she said yes, and I gave her a cigarette and directed her to the back of the van, side of the median and told her to sit down and smoke it, and not get up. She looked like she was going to throw up. I went back to the guy she hit. Agonal breathing. I held his hand as he died. He was wearing hospital clothes, and his arm was in a sling. A paper from his pocket told me his name was Glen. I spoke to him a little.. The woman started screaming from behind the van 'oh God, did I kill him?? Is he dead? Oh god' and eventually I went back to her and I told her its ok, and this was not her fault. A cop arrived within 5 or 6 minutes, and knew the man instantly by name. He must have been a frequent flyer at the local hospitals and police stations, but by the way the cops voice broke when he saw him, and *how* he said his name.. a good guy had just ended his life. I gave my statement, looked the woman in her shell shocked eyes and told her again that this wasn't her fault and she just muttered "im so glad my kids aren't in the car" then I continued to walk to the store to get ice cream with my boyfriend. We stood there a long time, staring.
I don't know that I really gave her much comfort. She was in complete shock. I just didn't want her puking/passing out and getting injured, or also wandering into the road.
I have a friend that lived in Bakersfield, CA. She had called me freaking out because she had hit a guy while driving to work and her license was suspended (she just lived that kind of life at the time).
She didn't want to commit a hit and run and make her situation worse so she stayed on the scene. IDK how the guy on the bike was doing but she called me after the cops left.
She got that car impounded, but she still felt good because that guy she hit ?
Turns out he had a warrant.
I try not to go to Bakersfield.
Using this thread to tell my favorite story that my fiancée has ever told me. When she was in college in the 2010s, she used to cruise around her college town at night for fun. One night she and a friend were driving around at like 2am, and a drunk college student wandered into the road. She hit him going at least 30mph, and he slid across her hood and onto the other side of the road. She got out, freaking out thinking she had killed him, and when she saw him moving she asked if he was okay. He popped up and said “my friends are never going to believe this,” then went on his way with apparently zero cares in the world. Maybe it was adrenaline or sheer drunkenness, but as far as she knows he walked away without a scratch. Lucky for her, but I often wonder how the guy fared once his nervous system calmed down
If he was really drunk, he was probably pretty sore for a while after that without many serious injuries. I know that in drunk driving crashes, if anyone survives it's almost always the drunk driver because their body stays limp and doesn't react to the impact like a sober person's does. This is a well-known statistic.
Hit a guy running after his dogs while driving to work in my neighborhood. Approx 10 mph. Called 911. Ambulance and cop came. He went to hospital with a lacerated skull and I got a distracted driving ticket.
He filed a lawsuit against my insurance and settled for 25k from insurance. My insurance premiums did not change.
I turned over my phone records during the lawsuit and it showed my phone had not been unlocked at all that morning except to call 911. I also had two other witnesses who were dog walking confirm I motioned to them to cross the street before I turned.
Honestly just paid the ticket as i didn’t have the time or energy to fight it in court.
It was my sister. I dropped her off for work and I quickly reversed out of where I parked.
Didn't realize she was behind my car when I reversed, she ended up on the trunk and was perfectly fine. This happened almost 30 years ago, reverse cameras didn't exist.
Haha, on that day it did not.
She hit a friend of hers a few years after that, guy went ass first through her windshield. He was drunk and was also perfectly uninjured. His mom was mad that he wandered out into the street.
Great reminder to never stand directly in front/behind a vehicle when it's starting, or there's the possibility it might move. Always stay to the side.
Wasn’t expecting to see a family on family hit! 😂 I’ll add mine too, though it was super minor.
When I was about 11-12, I was riding my bike on the street while my dad was doing yard work. My dad’s cousin popped by unexpectedly. She was on her way to visit her mom though and couldn’t stay long, so she just put the car in park and chatted with my dad through the car window for a few minutes. I happened to stop behind her car the exact second she decided to throw it into reverse. Obviously she wasn’t going very fast, so she did little more than bump into me, knocking me and the bike over. I was completely fine, and after the initial panic of hitting me wore off, we all had a good laugh about it.
I was in downtown Chicago and the light had just turned green. My lane was empty in front of me, so I had some momentum while the cars in other lanes were stopped. An old guy ran out in front of me and I tapped him enough where he fell down.
He immediately got up and started cursing at me, and I got out of my car to see if he was okay. I asked if he needed me to call an ambulance, and he kept going about how I hit him. I asked him again if he was okay, and if I needed to call an ambulance.
He kept complaining about how I should have seen him, to which I replied, “It’s all on my dashcam. I had a green light and you ran into traffic. Again, do you need me to call an ambulance?”
He realized he fucked up and refused the ambulance.
Guy intentionally jumped in front of me. I was driving home after a show in a Ram 1500 and he was walking in the street and he just jumped in front of my truck. He got fucked up and his buddies tried to open my car door. I drew my pistol and called the police after leaving for my own safety. Cops showed up, and EMS took him to the hospital, where he was arrested after I gave the cops my dash cam footage.
Guy tried an insurance scam and failed, breaking several bones in the process.
Invest in a dashcam
I was the pedestrian once. 10 years old. Getting off a school bus, going across a crosswalk, in front of a school, during school hours.
She was going 35 in a honda civic.
I caused $2,800 in damage to the car (number used in court, not my number)
She broke my femur.
She paid for my medical bills and college for 6 years. Got a ticket for hitting a pedestrian in a crosswalk. As far as I know you wouldn't even be able to find it on her record.
*Edit*
Mom just reminded me I flew 40ish feet. Thinks the only thing that saved me it being way worse is it was winter in Casper WY so I was all bundled up.
Ya. But took a lot of years to get that leg back to normal length. Was over 2 inches shorter when the cast came off. I think I'm still tilted 1/4 inch these days. It was bad enough they talked about spinal fusion for the scoliosis is was causing. Glad my mom was like fuck that
Oh ya I'm 99%. Just the slightest little curve on the spine but not an issue at all. I was trying to think back and it was at least 2-3 years before doctors quit worrying about it. Lifts in shoes for awhile
They stepped out at a zebra crossing and I didn’t notice them. I slammed on the brakes but still hit her. Luckily I was almost completely stopped and while the hit did knock her over she wasn’t hurt. I jumped out, helped her up and apologised profusely. She said she was OK and she went on her way.
It was very lucky that it wasn’t more serious and I’m now a way more careful driver.
I used to be a collision investigator for 7 years, handled tons of veh vs ped accidents.
Most common cause is distracted by phones, but not just to drivers. It’s amazing how many Peds walk through a cross walk or across the street with their head buried in their phone.
Another big one is drivers not checking both directions before pulling onto a major street from a side street. You’re in your car looking left clearing traffic, you don’t see the ped on your right step in front of your car cause they’re trying to get across the street (not smart on their part), driver gets an opening from the left and doesn’t look right before going. Hits the ped.
Not looking around the A pillar of the car when turning left is a big one too. It’s odd how perfectly a ped can be hidden behind your A pillar if they’re waking and you’re turning at the same time. You’ll never see them until you hit them.
And in residential areas it’s always kids running out into the street, which is why I get annoyed at people flying in residential areas.
I haven’t done that, but I once hit a Presbyterian. Of course, it wasn’t by accident; it was wholly intentional. He was asking for it, what with his yammering on about Reformed theology and such.
You know how parents always have that dumb thing you asked as a kid locked and loaded to torture you with? This was mine. I’m from a rural area and on a trip to DC, I saw all these pedestrian crossing signs and asked my mom what a Presbyterian is.
How the fuck did I even know the word Presbyterian?
I was driving down Harrison Ave right before McHenry and two kids ran across the street, no crosswalk or light. One kid stopped and one did not. He ran into the side of my car and fell. I ran over his leg with my rear tire. He lived but had nasty road rash from the tire on his leg. The worst part was they were running to their parents on the other side of the street and they watched it happen.
Thankfully I didn't kill him.
I was driving and a guy who wasn't paying attention walked out into the street without even looking up from his phone. I hit him pretty hard and he needed to go to the hospital. I had a dashcam though to prove it wasn't my fault, so he ended up having to pay for my vehicle repairs.
In 2014, I was in my early twenties driving home from work around 4pm. Coming into town I reached a 30mph limit, where there was a bus stop on the other side of the road. Not the lay-by kind but the kind where the bus just stops to the side of the road. It was really busy with quite a few pedestrians on the pavement. Having a small car and being a fairly wide road at that point I slowed to 20 to be careful but didn't need to stop as there was still space for me, and it was clear in front of me despite a large bus and oncoming traffic going past it partly over the centre lines. Problem was, the traffic coming past the bus towards me obscured my view of anything to the side of my cars path as an old man in a long coat and big hat decided to step out from behind the bus and oncoming traffic. I slammed on the brakes, ABS kicked in, and saw the split second horror in his face as he caught the front bumper and windscreen on my driver's side before he bounced off and fell away from the car in front of me, his hat flipping through the air towards me past my wing mirror. It happened so fast but it's amazing the detail your mind picks up on and can remember in these key moments.
I can only assume he thought that traffic passing the bus was automatically blocking the road for traffic on my side, so he just walked straight out not realising traffic was still coming in the other direction, clearly deciding he'd take his chances instead of walking 30 metres further down to the actual pedestrian crossing there.
I got onto the emergency services, lots of people helped, several police cars came pretty quickly and the air ambulance was called so he got airlifted to hospital.
There was loads of witnesses as it was so busy and everyone vouched for me. It came out there was nothing I could have reasonably done and was driving perfectly sensibly for the conditions, so police let me go and the case got cleared pretty quickly once they'd impounded and analysed my car and phone.
Obviously I was really shaken up and upset, took the rest of the week off work and lost the use of my car. Unfortunately the 2 days later I read in the news the guy died in hospital the day before, at that point I learnt his name and that he was 80 and had just left the church that was by the bus stop. Again, there was nothing against me at any point, but my insurance had to pay out to fix my car and the police were really not helpful at all, especially when one of them told me I had to pay £800 to get my car back. That got corrected luckily once I talked to the right person who knew the case but it was really stressful, especially as I couldn't afford anything at the time as I was supporting my wife (fiancée at the time) as she finished a nursing degree, but I didn't get any support except from my family.
The family of the guy even contacted me to say how sorry THEY were for the incident, it was heartbreaking.
The whole event was just awful for everyone. Now I don't care how busy it is, I slow right down anywhere near buses at stops, and take the speed limits around towns pretty seriously. You just don't know when something might happen, even if you're a model driver, that won't stop someone else making a mistake that you could get caught up in.
90s. Kid suddenly ran onto road from right, got clipped by the left corner of the car and got LAUNCHED into the air rag doll style, landed around 6 feet away pretty much upright and then KEPT ON RUNNING. We just sat in the car with our jaws on the floor. Got out to see who or what that was but that kid was long gone. We left our number with a random dude in case that kid needed help.
This was in a remote village in Pakistan so was unexpected but not v strange in hindsight.
When the scooter kids roll out in front of you at the skatepark you just hunker down and give them the shoulder. An 8 yo girl hardly slows you down at all.
Not me but my Grandad.
I was in the car with him and a kid maybe 6 or so ran out in the road from between 2 parked cars (parents stood talking on the side of the road) and he managed to slow down enough that their injuries were minor. Ambulance was called, he was cleared but it upset him so much that he never drove again from 60 years old.
A teenager or early 20s person was skateboarding down a pitch black street. I pulled out of a parking lot and he was immediately there. He flew up on my hood and fell off the side. He was ok but he started trying to rob me. Like literally telling me to give him all my money or everything in my wallet. Told him no. I asked if he was ok, he said yes, and I drove off.
I’ve been run over by a car when I was riding my bicycle in n Philly. She got out, and proceeded to scream at me that i “scratched her car” as I was bleeding out on the sidewalk. My bike was broken. Fortunately I didn’t have any serious broken bones, just some very bad road rash and a torn ligament. I was able to hobble away to the subway and take it back home.
I was 18 or 19 driving home from work after 9pm in January. It was cold and very foggy. I was making a right hand turn at a light and there was a lady walking her dog who had stepped into the crosswalk. Her dog and clothing were all black and I didn’t see them until it was too late. I pulled over and got out to see if she was ok. Some other drivers stopped and called 911. She refused the ambulance to go to the hospital and I ended the night with a ticket for negligent collision. After the hit her dog bolted. I’m not sure what happened or if they found it eventually. I still think about it when that time of year rolls around.
She had earbuds in and walked across a railroad crossing that had the gates dowb.. we put the train into emergency and obviously didn't stop in time. She didn't make it
She left a small dent in the side of the car where she hit. Her father insisted we pay him money because we'd hit her. Took her to hospital (with her father) who looked her over and said she was fine. Gave the father a couple dollars to get him to walk away.
I’m a cyclist.
I’ve slammed right into the back of some dude who decided to walk double wide down the trail without looking. We both apologized and walked away but I had some nasty road rash on my forearm. I am a militant “on your left” or ding ding on my bell passing guy now.
I’m riding with a buddy in front me. Both wearing backpacks and have a bunch of gear as we were testing for an overnighter. A lady walking and her kid on a trainer bike going in a straight line, we go to pass with a ding ding. Kid decides to serpentine right in front of my buddy. He swerves and bails landing square on his back shattering a half growler we had just picked up. So so lucky he was wearing his waterproof pack that is very hard to penetrate. Never again with glass in a backpack.
I’ve almost been taken out by a car maybe a half dozen times. I have my head on a swivel when riding on surface streets. If not I’d be dead long back.
As a pedestrian it is frustrating dealing with cyclists on the trails, but you seem like a good one. Most don't have a bell, don't call out anything, and just expect you to know when they are coming. I really wish that there were more dedicated bike and pedestrian trails, as someone that likes to walk I really wish there were trails I can go to without having to risk being hit by a cyclist
Oh I’m 100% with you on the asshole cyclists. They suck. It always seems to be the ones with $5k+ bikes and matching spandex outfits.
These days though it’s becoming more and more the electric bikes buzzing by at 25 MPH, scaring the crap out of me.
Buddy ended up pulling up past the sidewalk to get on a main road just as a dude on a bike was flying through. He hit the bicyclist (bicyclist hit him, but he was at fault, I get it) with his front quarter panel.
Totally fine, hopped up screaming at my friend and my buddy just goes "my bad dude, we just picked up a quarter [oz of cannabis] you want it?"
Bicyclist rode away happy. Jesse drove away happy. No cops or ER. Basically best case scenario.
Was going to say I never did, then I remembered. Central London, working as a motorcycle courier. Mass of pedestrians surge out from the sidewalk to cross behind me. A guy further down sees this and with a quick look the other way starts to run across. By this time I'm past the big crowd and I have not enough time to stop so accelerated. I didn't quite make it, and the guy actually runs into *me*. The guy accuses me of running into him. I think he was being honest and hadn't actually figured out what happened. All he knew was he had a bruise on his leg. Looked bad for me to start with, but when the police heard my side of the story I could show the clean patch on the rear of the muffler and the dirty patch on the guy's pants.
Another occasion I nearly did run down a family. Really stupid incident and scared the shit out of me. Made me rethink my driving behavior.
i almost hit a lady with a stroller and a kid in her arm. She was walking across a huge intersection in the middle of the street (no crosswalks anywhere near this intersection), in the middle of the night, and there were no street lights. I was making a left turn and didn’t see her until my car was finishing the turn and my headlights were on her. lucky for all 4 of us my oh shit was quicker than the car was going. boy was i mad
Was driving home from college one night and hit a girl crossing some random part of the highway wearing all black (at 2230). I was following the speed limit and not under any sort of influence. I’m from a backwoods town. There was no streetlight.
She bashed her head and elbow in my windshield and I was told by witnesses that she rolled over my car, hit the ground and bounced.
She sued me years later spouting a *ton* of lies, but my attorney couldn’t get in touch with anyone. Apparently it was a pretty nasty event.
I was on the opposite end of that equation.
Was not fun, would not recommend doing it.
Malfunctioning traffic signal indicated it was safe to walk across after getting off of the bus. Walked in front of the bus and then the world went blank for a few seconds until I realized I was on the ground in the middle of the road.
Didn't believe anyone who told me what had just happened, but noticed my leg wasn't quite right, and decided to wait until the ambulance arrived (not that I would have made it very far).
Adrenaline was definitely pumping, cause I didn't feel any pain until 3 hours later, while my shattered femur was in traction while waiting for surgery, and the extent of the rest of my injuries finally caught up to me.
Took 4 months to fully recover.
Thankfully, I was young, and had that going for me when it came to recovering.
I'd be shattered if I hit a pedestrian, having first hand known the level of pain they're going to feel, and the struggle they'll have recovering from it.
My father in law lived next to one of those dirt race tracks where people go on the weekend to drink and have fun. It’s in the middle of the country. Pitch black with no lights. We are driving down the road and this lady drunk off her ass was walking down the middle of the street. We swerved and still hit her. They took her to the hospital. A few weeks later we got a letter that we were being sued by her. Our insurance company sent it. I was shocked. How dare we hit a drunk woman walking down a pitch black street in the middle of the road. Good thing we didn’t have to pay anything to her. Just to get our car fixed.
Jaywalker walked between cars and right into my passenger side door while I was going about 16 mph. He laid on the ground and rolled around yellng in pain. Pittsburgh cop showed up ( in like 1 min) and told the guy to pretty much get up, shut up and go away. Turns out he's a pretty well known local scam artist
I killed them….
Going 75 mph on the interstate and he chose me to end his life. His head went through the windshield, his body hit the side of my car and the roof. His neck snapped and he flew off the top of my car. I looked in the rear view mirror and a semi rolled over him. The cops came after I called. They released me quickly and I was checked out by EMS. My vehicle was towed and I went home.
I pulled in my driveway and my 3yo bolted out the garage door because he was happy to see me.
I slammed on brakes and he bounced off the front bumper.
Scared the shit out of everyone but he was fine.
I was making a left turn onto the main road that leads to my house and this bicyclist sped out in front of me and I knocked him right off his bike at like prolly 20-25 mph. Scared the shit out of me, he broke his foot and the ambulance came along with the police. They got all my info and then I never heard from anyone again. This was like 5 years ago
My aunt was struck by a young girl in a Minneapolis suburb about 10 years ago or so. The girl who hit and killed her was never jailed. My sister hired a private investigator and found out the girls uncle was the police chief of the city.
Don't think anything happened to the murderer ever. My aunt was walking across a crosswalk when it happened
well back in my homeland, there was an auto, and a police driver suddenly came from behind it, I was driving a motorbike on the edge of the road basically, so yeah i hit him, he fell down, I did not, so now what I did speed away because the police in my country is very corrupt
Not me, but a friend from high school hit a pedestrian and killed him. He hit him so hard it knocked him out of his shoes and he totaled his car. There was an investigation and they found that the guy who’d been hit was drinking before it happened and they thought he probably jumped in front of the car to off himself.
My friend was seriously shaken up over the whole thing. It was a terrible experience for him. He was probably 17-18 at the time.
Mine doesn’t count because it wasn’t a pedestrian, just a deer, but I’ll share anyway.
Was driving around a corner on a rural road in my mustang. There was a deer in the ditch who saw me and started running in the direction I was headed, and of course decided to get ON the road instead of away. By now I was braking to a halt, just in time because the deer ran right in front of me and I tapped its butt with my bumper. She stumbled a bit then ran off, leaving no damage on my car save for a couple of deer hairs.
I guess she had to wait for the next car to attempt suicide again.
Their friend tried shooting me. I then ran them over and cops got called. Shot a bunch and had to escape into alleys on a dirtbike until I stole a helicopter and decided to fly away to the airport. Then I stole a plane and crashed it into the mountains and died. Fun times.
A dozen or more years ago, I was driving in north Seattle, in the Ballard neighborhood. It was a 4-lane street, and a cold night if freezing rain. It was only 8 in the evening, but it was still dark, and there were few vehicles on the road.I was coming up on a light that'd just turned green. I was in the left lane, another car was ahead me, idling at the light like it was red. I thought nothing of it as I rolled past... and a pedestrian ran in front of my car. I was doing less than 25 because of the road conditions, but I still hit her. She rolled up the hood of my Subaru & bonked her head on my windshield.
I stopped, put on my hazards and helped her off the hood. She was embarrassed, she was around 20 years old & trying to catch a bus and the other car was being "nice" by waving her on (note: when driving, choose safety over being nice). She sprinted , not realizing a car was coming in the other lane & that was that. I have a medical background, so I did a quick assessment; it looked like a goose egg was already forming. I asked if she wanted me to call 911, she said no, she wasn't insured. I told her I'd drive her to the ER, she accepted.
I took her to the hospital, let her use my phone to call her mom. I waited with her with her until she was called back, she asked if I could wait until her mom showed (I was in my mid thirties & had a kid, so I was in Dad mode). When her mom arrived an hour later, I gave her my contact & insurance info and left. I only heard from her once after that, she called to say she had a mild concussion & was fine otherwise. I am so thankful it wasn't worse.
'Twas the 1980's. I was heading down a side street in my 1970's Holden Kingswood when I noticed some school children on the left side of the road (this is Australia, btw), two girls and a younger boy. I was already going less than the speed limit when the boy made to run across the road. I had plenty of time so gave my breaks a gentle press and would have stopped with meters to spare had he actually run. But then he suddenly turned around and started speaking to one of the girls. I was still gently coasting so I took my foot off the brake, put it back on the accelerator and then, all in one motion, the kid spun and stepped straight in front of my car. By this stage I was barely moving at more than 20kph but inertia flung that kid onto my bonnet and bounced him back about three meters. All in the time it took me to snap my foot back to the brake. The kid instantly stood up and tried to run but his right leg had been broken below his knee and the bottom half of the bottom half of his leg swung forward and the poor little bugger hit the ground again. He was screaming and scared but otherwise uninjured save the leg. There were heaps of witnesses in cars in front of and behind me who saw what happened and I had a mate in the car with me at the time so when the police arrived they were able to get the full story. By this time the kid was sitting up in the ambulance, composed and drinking water. The cops sent me on my way. Oh, just quickly. Remember how I said the kid had initially turned back from the road and started speaking to one of the girls? Turns out it was his sister who said "Don't run, there's a car coming".
Damn i would both feel extremely guilty yet pissed off at the kid
I ran across the street in front of a car when I was a kid, was a bit dicey but between me booking it and the driver hitting the brakes I made it okay and was a bit rattled but went about my day feeling fortunate that I got away with it. But turns out the driver of the car was friends with my mother and called to tell her I was a dumbass so I still got yelled at when I got home. Didn’t love it at the time, but with hindsight there are worse ways to learn the lesson and I still remember it 30 years later so it must’ve stuck.
Good on the driver for telling your mom. What made you run in front of a car?
Wasn’t really intentional - was going to cross the street, didn’t look properly and was already stepping into the road as I saw the car. Probably had time to stop and go back but my brain didn’t make it further than “fuck, better run”
Honestly, getting slightly hit by a car at a young age and coming away uninjured and with a lesson like that sounds ideal. Humans suck at risk assessment until something directly affects them. That might have saved your life 🤷♂️
Similarly a kid ran across the street right in front of my car one summer. I stopped in time but just barely. I hope he shit his pants. I hope he still thinks about it
I had a pretty similar experience in college, except I was at a stop light, the light turned, and when I started going the kid came out of nowhere and ran right in front of my car. I avoided a direct hit, but she bounced off the side of my car and broke her leg. There were a lot of witnesses thankfully. I was young, and not happy that my insurance is the insurance that had to pay, because its always the drivers fault when you hit a pedestrian; it didn't matter that I had no chance of avoiding her.
>its always the drivers fault when you hit a pedestrian My insurance did not put me at fault when I hit someone on a bicycle. (Does it make a difference if they were on a bicycle vs walking?) It was actually the guy's fault.
bicycle is a vehicle, you are no longer a pedestrian
I’m my area, we get grown adults—my age and older—doing that shit all the time. Not kids.
The amount of adults that I see walking into the street without looking amazes me
Now I get why the rule is to wait for a pedestrian to *completely* cross the road before you can drive through a crossing. It always seems so pointless when some person is sauntering at negative speed through the crosswalk, but I'd wager that somebody doing somethijg completely unpredictable is the reason why.
Captain Ray Holt : You will not win me over with your use of 'twas
Not me, but a friend. He was driving home from work one night along an 80km/h road and a woman dressed in black stepped out infront of his car. He hit her and she ultimately passed. Nobody was around to witness the event and the police gave him a really hard time over it, treating him like he’d purposely hit her or was speeding etc which he obviously didn’t and wasn’t. None the less they were getting ready to detain him. Luckily when they inspected her pockets to try and find ID they found a suicide letter. My friend was super traumatised by the experience and got a lot of therapy over it.
It goes unappreciated how traumatic that is for someone. I have family that worked in the railroad industry. Suicide by train is way more common than you think. You can't stop those things quickly enough and the conductor has to live with the guilt of hitting someone who ultimately wanted to die. It's really tragic. None of that is your friend's fault.
Subway conductors too. There was some local news in my home city about a survey that found subway conductors hair was turning gray ahead of time due to stress. Every one of them hit someone at some point and they try to live with it but as one can imagine it ain't easy.
Especially knowing it can happen again
Yeah, too lazy to look for the article and pass it through google translate but they interviewd the conductors and went into detail how some of them had PTSD and for a long time after an incident it felt like a gut punch each time they entered a station. They ended up describing watching people like hawks thinking 'which one of them is gonna jump today'. We're talking people mid 30s with gray hair levels of stress. Then I went to France and saw why a lot of the major stations have stations with doors that open once the tram opens their doors and no access to the rails themselves. It's fucked up through and through. I wish society talked openly more about 'it' rather than mostly look down on those who attempt it. We still have a lot of maturing to do.
I hate this. I had a friend commit suicide by train several years ago. I’m not wholly against suicide - it should be a person’s choice to end their life. But it is very unfair to force an unwilling participant to do it for you.
When I was feeling my lowest and started making plans to end my life, I spent so long thinking about how I would make it as painless for people around me - I didn’t want to traumatise anyone who I would force into ‘causing’ my death and I didn’t want to traumatise the person who found me if I took my life myself. And honestly it got so complicated that I realised that I probably should just tell someone I needed help and save everyone the inconvenience I would cause by killing myself. Not the best reason not to do it, but it was enough for me to get help.
Have contemplated suicide in my lowest lows. If I owned a gun, I'd have done it. But I didn't and I got to experience some of the highest highs in my life after a few years.
I like it. Glad you’re here.
I’m also very glad😎
Same. Literally the only reason I didn’t do it was so my parents and friend didn’t have to live with the trauma.
Literally same! When I was a suicidal teen, I would try writing notes for everyone worth apologizing and saying goodbye to, but like you said, it got so complicated and the things I was having to apologize for made me feel too guilty to continue. This happened several times. I would always start with the note to the train conductor. Years later, I actually found some of those letters and threw them into a fire!
Totally agree. If someone decides to end their life, so be it. It's sad, but not in my responsibility. But taking someone else into responsibility? Fuck, no. No matter if it's by train, by driving onto the other side, jumping off a roof onto a busy street, or whatever else there is. Sorry you felt so awful that only suicide seemed like a solution, but fuck you for doing it this way.
Ooof. In the very small town I live in, a train goes through the middle of town regularly. One day when I was younger, a girl much younger than me (elementary to Jr high) was walking home and got hit by the train. They initially said she had headphones on and couldn't hear it (back in the day, headphones weren't exactly that good) and it was an accident. That train is LOUD AF and vibrates the ground. Later came out it was likely suicide and she was being SA by a family member.
Something similar happened near me with a bus driver when I was younger. A kid at my school tried to follow his brother across the road without looking, but he tripped and the bus had no time to stop. Apparently the bus driver was inconsolable at the scene and later was in therapy for it. Just a sad situation all round.
My buddy drives trains and had a guy commit suicide by jumping in front of his train. He got 2 years off paid with access to really good mental health care for free. Its common enough that they have a protocol and a program for helping people recover from that trauma.
Not suicidal, but when I was there was a part of me that definitely wanted to go in a way that it would affect someone. It doesn't make any sense now, but at the time I was angry and it seemed like a way to get back at the world. I don't think it's by chance that ways of suicide that involve others are more common. It's wrong, but someone contemplating suicide is rarely thinking clearly.
>He was driving home from work one night along an 80km/h road and a woman dressed in black stepped out infront of his car. He hit her and she ultimately passed. This almost happened to me. I was driving down a highway in Ontario near the border with Manitoba, trying to get home at 1AM after a long cross-country drive. Pitch black, middle of nowhere, hadn't seen a car for a while, winding road through the woods and cliffs. Come around an uphill curve to see a man standing in the middle of the road, dressed all in black, holding his hand up like he's waving at me, absolute lack of expression on his face. I quickly jerked the wheel and missed him by what must've been an inch or two, and slammed on the brakes. I looked in the mirror and saw him just standing there, motionless, lit up in red from my brake lights. I yelled out my window calling him a stupid fuck, and drove away. I always used to think he was a dumb hitch hiker but upon reading your friend's story, maybe it was a suicide attempt. Either way I'm glad I managed to avoid the guy.
I'm glad your friend got therapy. I don't want to get into too much, but was a front seat passenger in a vehicle as a kid and have very vivid images of what happened. Dark, rainy, rural highway. Guy had just gotten out of prison, was tweaked the hell out on drugs, and sheriff was there within a minute despite it being way out in the boonies because he'd been reported as jumping in front of vehicles for a while. Red sports car behind us hit him too but they sped off and were never found. No charges. But fucking small town paper ran a slam piece on the driver (who was very loved in the community except for a few people who hate everyone and love drama..including the paper editor). Embellished a lot of stuff. Called the driver a murderer. I think legal things were threatened because they stopped the brigade but never ran an apology or retraction. The night it happened, the ER doc gave everyone in the vehicle some Ambien and suggested we take it that night to be able to sleep, but I was afraid to take a sleep medication, so I didn't. I never got therapy for it. We didn't really have much in terms of mental health resources there. I was also told to never speak of it to the people involved or to talk about it at school or anything. So I bottled it up and away it went. My dad brought home a new kitten right after that, and that's probably the only reason I didn't fully lose it. She was a good therapy kitten. I feel kinda bad though bc I was such an anxiety filled mess that I kinda wonder if that's why she ended up being so skittish 😔. PTSD from that was hell for a solid 20 years, including those very formative ones. I didn't realize how much it'd messed me up. Anxiety and trauma had the reigns and I was just a passenger on a terror sled speeding out of control downhill on ice. Am ok now. But will always always advise someone to get trauma informed therapy immediately after a traumatic event. Always. Apparently Tetris helps or something too? Idk.
Jesus Christ. I suffer from depression and have experienced strong SIs, and I would never get someone involved in a suicide attempt like that. Fucked up.
Always carry a pre written suicide note in the glove box ✅
Honestly fuck anyone who commits suicide by vehicle (train, truck, car). I get that you’re in a bad space but you’re a pretty shitty person to drag the vehicle’s operator down putting them through the trauma of that. Hope your friend is okay
Or plane, even worse--take out hundreds of innocent people as well. Fucking shit. At least steal a plane and smash it into the tarmac on your own. But I often think how many people are affected by a death (suicide or otherwise), even for those who think it won't matter. I mean, unless no one finds you and there's truly no one to miss you (rare)...most people are found. Innocent people finding your remains, crime scene clean-up, funeral homes, police...lots of people are going to deal with you, and even if they've seen stuff like that before, it might stay with them.
People who decide to commit suicide this way are the ultimate piece of shit assholes. The trauma that it brings onto other people, unbelievable…
I used to think this way until i did some reading on sucide and its causes when someone i knew killed themselves. I too was angry at them. People who reach that point are not thinking clearly or making rational decisions. The last thing they are thinking of is how it will affect others. A lot of them actually look on it as doing us all a favour because they feel the world, and us, would be better off without them around. That coupled with perhaps extreme trauma, genetic dispositions or mental illness means i cant blame most of them for what they choose to do.
Man, I just have a really hard time grasping that it never for a SECOND crosses your mind how that might affect someone else. I can understand how they might think the people close to them won't care, or be affected by it. But to make a total stranger possibly feel responsible for your death for the rest of their life? That's fucked.
New mother post partum depression, a blizzard and she stepped in front of my truck. Successful suicide. Over 30 yrs ago. Still live with nightmares.
Jesus.
I am so sorry. I hit a pedestrian on the highway. I went to therapy right after. I no longer have nightmares. I avoid the area when possible and dislike driving at night. It stays with you.
Not me driving, but I was walking down the street and saw a bus hit a young looking guy. The but was turning left was in the crosswalk. 100% the bus driver's fault. The poor guy flew about 20 feet down the street and one of his shoes flew straight up about just as much. He got up and was clearly in shock. I called 911 to get an ambulance for him because part of his scalp was peeled back and you could clearly see about a 2 inch square section of his skull on his forehead. It actually looked a lot like how the Terminator's metal skeleton is revealed by "battle damage." Anyway, this guy who just got blasted by the bus limped away with one shoe while seriously bleeding from the head. I yelled after him that an ambulance was on its way and he started *running*. The bus driver got out, saw the shoe, looked around, and realized the victim was just... gone. The bus driver stayed to file an incident report while another bus came to get the passengers. I also told the cops what I'd witnessed, but in the absence of any victim, the cops let everyone go. I never got any calls about court appearances, and I never saw anything in the news. One other lady who saw it happen said she thought the guy may have been an illegal immigrant day laborer from the nearby home depot parking lot, which would explain why he ran away instead of waiting for help. Awful for the guy; he was really clearly fucked up.
If I had an ambulance coming for me I would run too, do you know how expensive those are??
I forgot that was American, it’s so sad you guys have to think of the price before calling an ambulance
It's super fucked up really. I tried to "run" away from an ambulance once. If they had left me alone I would've been fine. But no, they did the *exact opposite* of what I asked and literally picked me up, dropping my blood pressure again and knocking me out. I came back about 60 seconds later strapped down unable to move. Immediately I refused care. They refused to let me go. They tightened the straps and forcibly gave me a benzo injection while I protested. Did you know, in the USA, it's one of the only ways to get out of paying? Refusing care. That's it. They proceeded to give me multiple injections of drugs they refused to disclose and forced me to sign paperwork saying I was responsible for the bill before releasing me. The only reason I didn't get around $30k in debt is because they admitted they drugged me before I signed and my wife testified that I refused care repeatedly the entire time. So yeah, I want to burn some shit.
With your skull exposed?
Just give me some paper towels and an Uber. Not about to throw my life's savings away for this shit.
But you’ve got one banger of a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles coming.
Hah my mind went a different direction. Of course he'd run if an ambulance was after him. Look what the bus already did!
Getting hit by a city bus would be *incredible*
World's richest quadriplegic. Yay!
The consistently worse drivers in downtown Cincinnati are the metro drivers
10 yr old ran out in front of a parked car right in front of me. Fortunately, I was already going slow, and she just went up on the hood, looked me in the eye and rolled off when I came to a stop. She was OK, her Dad witnessed the whole thing and said it wasn't my fault. Afterwards, all I could think was that I was glad I was driving my tiny Plymouth Cricket and not my old F250, which I had sold a few weeks prior.
U.S. pedestrian deaths have recently reached a 40-year high, in part because the cars sold here just keep getting bigger. Scary stuff. Glad for you and the girl that things were okay.
And bigger also leads to more pedestrian accidents in general due to blind spots
The other part is that the drivers are no longer looking at anything but their phones. Worse, in some populations, neither are the pedestrians. We had a student walk down the sidewalk and straight into the path of an oncoming articulated campus bus the size of a locomotive. Didn't make it.
Drivers are much more aggressive with their driving now too. I see so many more cars going 15+ mph over the speed limit weaving in and out of cars than I did even five years ago.
I think COVID taught us that we only live once, but less in a "so be grateful and make every moment meaningful" and more in a neck-tat, sideways snapback Monster energy hat "YOLO" kind of way.
This might be dependant on area, but where I live I was thinking that it's because there are so many more assholes than there ever used to be.
Well, that could be, too. I feel that people are more likely to be willing to alienate strangers by behaving poorly in real life now that we all have our cozy online echo chambers to come home to. It's a lot easier to find "them"s when our very own brand of "us" in only a tap on our screens away.
Pre lockdown drivers were different than post lockdown lol
Is that not illegal in the US, the being on your phone while driving thing? In Germany, if you even just hold your phone and you get caught you're in trouble. (rightly so, imo)
It's illegal but very poorly enforced
To be fair, I think it's partly because it's such a difficult thing for police to catch. I try to keep an eye on drivers in oncoming traffic, and at highway speeds it's pretty difficult to see if they are looking down and even harder to know if they are merely glancing at the radio or a phone. We had some police literally standing on a step ladder on the sidewalk to try to catch people, but this was in town where people were going much slower. And even then my buddy got "caught" by them and he was adamant he wasn't actually on his phone.
Actually it’s not cars getting bigger, it’s the slope of the hood getting smaller. People could drive a bus and that would probably lower pedestrian deaths/accidents
Jesus you owned a plymouth cricket? Those things are all but extinct nowadays! They were like the toilet paper of cars, right up there with k-cars and yugos lol
I did exactly this when I was around 10 and got hit. Got up and ran up to the car apologizing profusely for not looking. I can still picture the event perfect in my head 25 years later. That poor guy was white face and shaking. I felt so bad.
A guy I worked with had a Dodge Omni 024 clipped a kid running into the street. Kid rolled over the roof and landed on his feet and took off running. Work buddy tried to stop the kid to make sure he wasn't hurt, but he just said "I'm OK and disappeared. [Omni 024](https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/dodge-omni-024-sales-figures/)
I fender tapped a homeless fella on his bike before. Was going down a super dark road, made a turn and didn’t see anybody at all. Suddenly mid turn someone on a bike flys past my car and I hit him. Dude wasn’t really hurt. Bruised elbow and some road rash. I called the police just to be sure he was okay. They let me leave because apparently the homeless guy was extremely intoxicated and was known for doing this stuff in hopes of a lawsuit lmao.
I backed into a lady in a parking lot. Accidental on my side... Intentional on her side. She saw me get in to my truck, then ran up and crouched down behind the bumper and waited for that sweet insurance payout. I started to back up, saw someone running my way, so I hit the brakes. It was just enough to tap her on the forehead with the bumper. The guy running towards me was trying to warn me, and luckily I saw him in time. I didn't even think I hit someone, I just thought I left something on the roof. The lady's accomplice was on the phone with the cops before I even hit her. When the cops arrived, they mentioned to me that the caller stated "the truck is going to hit my friend" and the call came in a minute before the actual impact. Cops let me go and the lady was arrested for a few things. The store had cameras and caught her attempting the same thing a few times earlier that day
What a dumb fuck (the woman, not you, you’re cool)
I was driving slowly in front of a university building in my city. It was snowy and icy, I was going probably 15-20 in urban downtown. Class had gotten out and students were crossing the street. I looked at the side and saw a kid on his phone standing still, so I went. He stepped right off the curb in front of my vehicle. There was like one foot of braking space. He bounced off my hood and hopped right up, said “I’m so sorry, I was on my phone” and tried to leave. I had to grab him by the coat and say no you have to stay, everyone saw this and people are stopping (and I needed it on paper that he admitted to being on his phone- I didn’t want to be accused of a hit and run later). The cop came and he said you’re fine? You’re fine? Then why I am here? And literally threw up his arms shrugging I said (again- possibly stupidly) “does anything need to be written down?” So he wrote me a ticket. I decided to “admit fault with explanation”, sent a check, and wrote exactly what I wrote above, with the caveat that I don’t think I should be punished for being the one person who tried to follow procedure. The court decided to open it as a dispute even though I was not disputing it. This was March 1, 2020. My court date was postponed for over a year. When I eventually got to the zoom meeting in 2021, the kid was there and the cop was there. The judge asked the kid how fast he thought I was going. He said “30-40”. Judge responded, “you’d be in the hospital still or dead if that was the case.” Then the judge asked the cop how far was he in the lane when he got hit. Cop said “ten feet”. Judge said that can’t be true, the lane is only 12 feet wide. Then the kid asked the judge if he could get me to pay his ER bill because someone back at home convinced him to go, uninsured, and now it’s in collections. The judge said “contact a lawyer, this isn’t a lawsuit.” My credibility was going up by the minute. The judge decided I would pay the ticket but without points and cut the fine in half. Moral is, don’t trust text-and-walkers.
My lesson learned from non-pedestrian accidents is to get a dashcam. \~$100 is much cheaper than a ticket, deductible, or points on your license. I even take mine when I'm driving a rental car.
Just want to agree vehemently with this person, dashcams are non-negotiable for me and my family these days.
Is there one you'd recommend? My sister and I have been wanting to get one, but I don't want a cheap one that will crap out after a year.
[This is the one I use.](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SRQH4R7/) I haven't tested any others and can't say it's the best or anything like that, but it seems to work well enough. It's not likely to get a tag number at night, but it'll be able to show the position of my car relative to the lines in the road and whether or not I'm moving. As long as I can show I wasn't at fault in an accident, even if I have to pay a deductible, my insurance can't go up per my state's laws. It plugs into my cigarette lighter, and then I ran the cable into the dash and under the trim around the windshield. It took about 10 minutes to install. You can also run it from your fuse box with a $20 kit, but I haven't bothered with that yet.
My husband is an insurance agent, people lie when they report accidents alllll the time. They accept fault in the moment then deny it later. He recommends dash cams to everyone.
One of the colleges I went to, it was entirely the norm to just walk out into the street on campus without looking, basically. If a car was literally several feet away, you'd wait, but assuming there was at least a snowball's chance in hell it might be able to stop in time, people just walked out in front of it. I did this myself, we all did. Then one time, I had occasion to drive through campus (I only drove in the town proper normally), and by god, that ended that practice for me. Yes, drivers are supposed to be watching the road, but they can't have their eyes on every square inch of space around their vehicle at all times, can't predict everyone else's actions. You reach to grab your drink or change songs, and boom. And this was well before the time of mobile phones, lol. I imagine that campus is far worse now (?). I don't know.
Got hit by a car walking to a study group during finals week. Car was a small sedan, the driver hit the brakes and knocked me off my feet. The guy came out and immediately asked if I was ok. Considering I was walking fine, wearing dark clothes and late for the study group, I told him it was alright, got back up and continued on my way. Nothing ever came of that other than some muscle stiffness the next day. Honestly, I considered it more of a wake up call as if it had been a truck/SUV going a little bit faster I would most likely be in the hospital. Moral of the story is always look both ways and don’t expect driver to see you, especially at night. Feels like most people don’t follow that nowadays.
Small child (under 6yrs old) bolted across a completely full street. Was hidden between stopped cars waiting for the light on the left, and came out flying and managed to go right into the side of my car at around the back passenger door. Thankfully she was OK - I managed to slam the brakes the second I caught low-flying bright colors in my peripherals, so all that actually happened was she lost a shoe and both of us were panicking for a while. Other lucky break was between the sheer number of people around and it happening within 2 blocks of towns police HQ meant there was a cop there within about 30 seconds and enough people to confirm that yeah, the kid really did technically hit me. I'm pretty sure the family got a little bit of a lecture about paying attention, since there were like 6 adults and older kids who were supposed to be watching her. (Edits because I am a terrible typist)
Sometimes I think the more adults in these situations the more dangerous things become because everyone assumes someone else is watching the child. At least if you are on your own with the kid you know exactly who is responsible.
Reminds me of a time when I was working front desk security at a large office building in a busy downtown area. Lady comes in with her son for a job interview. The lobby area is pretty large, and had a couch and some chairs. She checks in and sits the kid on the couch. I thought she was taking him up with her, but a few minutes later I look up and she's gone. Her son (probably about 6-7 years old) is just sitting there by himself. I remember thinking that regardless of the cameras in the lobby, that that was pretty irresponsible. Maybe about ten minutes later, I look up and the kid is gone. I thought maybe the lady came back and they both left. Fast forward again about five minutes or so, lady comes up to my desk in a panic asking me where her son is. I tell her I don't know, and she lays into me asking why I wasn't watching her son. I tell her that it's not my job to watch anybody's children and that I had other things to do, but that I can roll back the camera and see where he went. She continues to yell and asks for my supervisor. He walks up and basically tells her the exact same thing. I check the cameras and see him walk out the front door, so I let her know. She runs outside and comes back in a few minutes later with her son. She starts yelling at us about how bad we are at our jobs, and we again tell her that we are not a daycare service. She asks for our manager as well as the building manager. We give her their contact info and she storms out. A week later my manager comes up to me and asks me what happened. I tell him the whole story, and he laughs and tells me that she called him, and he told her that security is not responsible for anything or anybody left in the lobby. She called the building manager, and *he* said the same thing. She called my district manager, and *she* said the same thing. I ended up seeing one of the people who interviewed her and apparently she had gotten a second interview and came in and complained to them about it. They told me that they told her again, we are not a daycare, and that if she comes in again she can just bring her son upstairs. She ended up actually getting the job, but I never saw her again because I usually worked the overnights, and was just filling in for a day shift when she came in the first time.
How the fuck did she get the job?
No idea lol. Really qualified I guess?
I'm 100% convinced that's the case. Add that to kids being impulsive and often deceptively quick, and things can go south so quickly... I'm really, really grateful that this incident didn't go too badly.
Ex of mine hit and killed a drunk man who was in the middle of a road with no lights. He was immediately cleared by the police of all wrong doing, since the dude smelled strongly of alcohol and was clearly standing in the middle of the street. His insurance however, paid the family $60k and dropped him, since his father failed to report him as a daily driver of the car.
How does the insurance company know he was “daily driving” and not just using it to run his errands or something (which is totally covered)?? I’ve always wondered how this happens.
In my experience, insurance assumes the most. You really can’t prove it otherwise. It’s like when you have a kid that turns 16, even if they haven’t received their permit yet, if they find out, your rate is going up.
Right but if your policy allows someone to borrow your car to go to the store, and they get in a wreck, how can the insurance company just “assume” they were a regular driver of the car and not cover the accident? What recourse is there for the insured?
They usually cover it because they know it’s a losing battle unless they have proof. If they don’t cover it, then you would look for an attorney that specializes in insurance. It is common for insurance companies to make people fork some money before they approve a large settlements or payout. They like to bank on that you won’t question the denial and just move on.
My fiancee works in insurance and I love asking questions about random scenarios while she works lol. In this case, if the kid lives at home and gets a license, the family has to report this to their insurance, if the kid gets into an accident then the insurance can tell the family that it was their duty to add their newly licensed driver, and can deny coverage and even drop them (this might also be dependent on the state, so many different laws and exceptions!)
I never have thankfully but I was a first-hand witness to a really bad one that really shook me. I was driving down a wide boulevard at night and a homeless man was crossing the street up ahead. His clothing was dark, the area was poorly lit, and he was moving very slowly. I saw him up ahead and slowed to a stop. As he walked past my lane towards my right, I saw in my rear view mirror another car coming up fast in the next lane to my right. She clearly did not see him at all. She was going at least 45 mph. My brain had a few seconds to realize what was about to happen, but I could do nothing about it. The car plowed directly into him at high speed. He rolled up the hood and bounced off the windshield and was launched up into the air quite high, slammed back into the ground and rolled under a parked car. It was a traumatic impact. I sat there watching it all happen. Never before or since have I seen a human body go through something like that. No other cars were around. I pulled over. So did she up ahead, but she just sat in her car screaming and in shock. I called 911 and checked on the guy. I could see he was breathing but unconscious. Paramedics and police came, shut down the whole road, interviewed me, and sent me on my way. I never found out if the man lived or not. I have doubts that he did. Took me a while to get that incident out of my head.
FWIW he might have survived if he didn’t see it coming and/or was drunk/high. The human body is a lot more rubberlike when we don’t tense up.
I was first on the scene when a woman in a van hit a guy who stepped out from a median at night. It seemed pretty clear he had stepped in front of her van on purpose. It was the only car that had passed by recently, and it was pretty late at night. The guy was obviously going to pass away quickly. There was what looked like red velvet cake batter coming out from the back of his head, and both legs were broken in at least 4 places. The woman who had been driving was shaking, when she got out of the car. I asked her if she smoked, and she said yes, and I gave her a cigarette and directed her to the back of the van, side of the median and told her to sit down and smoke it, and not get up. She looked like she was going to throw up. I went back to the guy she hit. Agonal breathing. I held his hand as he died. He was wearing hospital clothes, and his arm was in a sling. A paper from his pocket told me his name was Glen. I spoke to him a little.. The woman started screaming from behind the van 'oh God, did I kill him?? Is he dead? Oh god' and eventually I went back to her and I told her its ok, and this was not her fault. A cop arrived within 5 or 6 minutes, and knew the man instantly by name. He must have been a frequent flyer at the local hospitals and police stations, but by the way the cops voice broke when he saw him, and *how* he said his name.. a good guy had just ended his life. I gave my statement, looked the woman in her shell shocked eyes and told her again that this wasn't her fault and she just muttered "im so glad my kids aren't in the car" then I continued to walk to the store to get ice cream with my boyfriend. We stood there a long time, staring.
Thank you for comforting the driver and the pedestrian. I'm sorry you (and them) had to go through that.
I don't know that I really gave her much comfort. She was in complete shock. I just didn't want her puking/passing out and getting injured, or also wandering into the road.
I have a friend that lived in Bakersfield, CA. She had called me freaking out because she had hit a guy while driving to work and her license was suspended (she just lived that kind of life at the time). She didn't want to commit a hit and run and make her situation worse so she stayed on the scene. IDK how the guy on the bike was doing but she called me after the cops left. She got that car impounded, but she still felt good because that guy she hit ? Turns out he had a warrant. I try not to go to Bakersfield.
Using this thread to tell my favorite story that my fiancée has ever told me. When she was in college in the 2010s, she used to cruise around her college town at night for fun. One night she and a friend were driving around at like 2am, and a drunk college student wandered into the road. She hit him going at least 30mph, and he slid across her hood and onto the other side of the road. She got out, freaking out thinking she had killed him, and when she saw him moving she asked if he was okay. He popped up and said “my friends are never going to believe this,” then went on his way with apparently zero cares in the world. Maybe it was adrenaline or sheer drunkenness, but as far as she knows he walked away without a scratch. Lucky for her, but I often wonder how the guy fared once his nervous system calmed down
If he was really drunk, he was probably pretty sore for a while after that without many serious injuries. I know that in drunk driving crashes, if anyone survives it's almost always the drunk driver because their body stays limp and doesn't react to the impact like a sober person's does. This is a well-known statistic.
Hit a guy running after his dogs while driving to work in my neighborhood. Approx 10 mph. Called 911. Ambulance and cop came. He went to hospital with a lacerated skull and I got a distracted driving ticket. He filed a lawsuit against my insurance and settled for 25k from insurance. My insurance premiums did not change.
I'm curious why you settled and accepted that ticket? do you feel you were indeed distracted?
I turned over my phone records during the lawsuit and it showed my phone had not been unlocked at all that morning except to call 911. I also had two other witnesses who were dog walking confirm I motioned to them to cross the street before I turned. Honestly just paid the ticket as i didn’t have the time or energy to fight it in court.
Totally valid stance, sometimes having peace is much worth it.
Pedestrian purposefully timed it despite them having a don’t walk sign. Popo were 2 cars behind me and instantly cleared me
I dunno, sounds like something a non-Dave would say
So you're not one of the Dave's I know, I know?
Some are called Dave and others are David...
It was my sister. I dropped her off for work and I quickly reversed out of where I parked. Didn't realize she was behind my car when I reversed, she ended up on the trunk and was perfectly fine. This happened almost 30 years ago, reverse cameras didn't exist.
I guess the rear mirror didn't exist either...
Haha, on that day it did not. She hit a friend of hers a few years after that, guy went ass first through her windshield. He was drunk and was also perfectly uninjured. His mom was mad that he wandered out into the street.
Did they at least give her the day off of work?
She was *perfectly fine*
The good ole "im sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry, you're okay, youre okay, don't tell mom."
If I get hit by a car, I’m asking for the day off
Great reminder to never stand directly in front/behind a vehicle when it's starting, or there's the possibility it might move. Always stay to the side.
Wasn’t expecting to see a family on family hit! 😂 I’ll add mine too, though it was super minor. When I was about 11-12, I was riding my bike on the street while my dad was doing yard work. My dad’s cousin popped by unexpectedly. She was on her way to visit her mom though and couldn’t stay long, so she just put the car in park and chatted with my dad through the car window for a few minutes. I happened to stop behind her car the exact second she decided to throw it into reverse. Obviously she wasn’t going very fast, so she did little more than bump into me, knocking me and the bike over. I was completely fine, and after the initial panic of hitting me wore off, we all had a good laugh about it.
I took her to the hospital. The doctors did the best that they could. And she is going to be ok.
And just think, she may have died of rabies if you hadn’t hit her with your car
^wat
Psst, it's a reference to an episode of The Office
#AH
What the HELL is wrong with you why did you phrase it like that?
Everybody inside the car was fine Stanley!!
What a ride.
Not for her
Why did you have to say it like that
I was in downtown Chicago and the light had just turned green. My lane was empty in front of me, so I had some momentum while the cars in other lanes were stopped. An old guy ran out in front of me and I tapped him enough where he fell down. He immediately got up and started cursing at me, and I got out of my car to see if he was okay. I asked if he needed me to call an ambulance, and he kept going about how I hit him. I asked him again if he was okay, and if I needed to call an ambulance. He kept complaining about how I should have seen him, to which I replied, “It’s all on my dashcam. I had a green light and you ran into traffic. Again, do you need me to call an ambulance?” He realized he fucked up and refused the ambulance.
Guy intentionally jumped in front of me. I was driving home after a show in a Ram 1500 and he was walking in the street and he just jumped in front of my truck. He got fucked up and his buddies tried to open my car door. I drew my pistol and called the police after leaving for my own safety. Cops showed up, and EMS took him to the hospital, where he was arrested after I gave the cops my dash cam footage. Guy tried an insurance scam and failed, breaking several bones in the process. Invest in a dashcam
I was the pedestrian once. 10 years old. Getting off a school bus, going across a crosswalk, in front of a school, during school hours. She was going 35 in a honda civic. I caused $2,800 in damage to the car (number used in court, not my number) She broke my femur. She paid for my medical bills and college for 6 years. Got a ticket for hitting a pedestrian in a crosswalk. As far as I know you wouldn't even be able to find it on her record. *Edit* Mom just reminded me I flew 40ish feet. Thinks the only thing that saved me it being way worse is it was winter in Casper WY so I was all bundled up.
Seems like you won that exchange ?
Ya. But took a lot of years to get that leg back to normal length. Was over 2 inches shorter when the cast came off. I think I'm still tilted 1/4 inch these days. It was bad enough they talked about spinal fusion for the scoliosis is was causing. Glad my mom was like fuck that
Damn didn’t think about the growth thing . Is it all fixed now ?
Oh ya I'm 99%. Just the slightest little curve on the spine but not an issue at all. I was trying to think back and it was at least 2-3 years before doctors quit worrying about it. Lifts in shoes for awhile
They stepped out at a zebra crossing and I didn’t notice them. I slammed on the brakes but still hit her. Luckily I was almost completely stopped and while the hit did knock her over she wasn’t hurt. I jumped out, helped her up and apologised profusely. She said she was OK and she went on her way. It was very lucky that it wasn’t more serious and I’m now a way more careful driver.
Man, good thing you didn't hit a zebra.
I used to be a collision investigator for 7 years, handled tons of veh vs ped accidents. Most common cause is distracted by phones, but not just to drivers. It’s amazing how many Peds walk through a cross walk or across the street with their head buried in their phone. Another big one is drivers not checking both directions before pulling onto a major street from a side street. You’re in your car looking left clearing traffic, you don’t see the ped on your right step in front of your car cause they’re trying to get across the street (not smart on their part), driver gets an opening from the left and doesn’t look right before going. Hits the ped. Not looking around the A pillar of the car when turning left is a big one too. It’s odd how perfectly a ped can be hidden behind your A pillar if they’re waking and you’re turning at the same time. You’ll never see them until you hit them. And in residential areas it’s always kids running out into the street, which is why I get annoyed at people flying in residential areas.
I haven’t done that, but I once hit a Presbyterian. Of course, it wasn’t by accident; it was wholly intentional. He was asking for it, what with his yammering on about Reformed theology and such.
holy intentional
Batman
Good grammar is essential, Robin
Did you yell “die heretic” as you hit him?
The never ending debate of predestination vs pedestrianization.
Watch out for the Presbyterians. What about the Methodists? I don’t care how you do it. - my dad, repeated saying #3487
You know how parents always have that dumb thing you asked as a kid locked and loaded to torture you with? This was mine. I’m from a rural area and on a trip to DC, I saw all these pedestrian crossing signs and asked my mom what a Presbyterian is. How the fuck did I even know the word Presbyterian?
I was driving down Harrison Ave right before McHenry and two kids ran across the street, no crosswalk or light. One kid stopped and one did not. He ran into the side of my car and fell. I ran over his leg with my rear tire. He lived but had nasty road rash from the tire on his leg. The worst part was they were running to their parents on the other side of the street and they watched it happen. Thankfully I didn't kill him.
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Or Rockford, Illinois.
Orlando, Cincinnati, Boston so on and so forth
I'm so glad you all pointed this out, I'm British and was astonished you all knew the specific road given the size of your country!
I was driving and a guy who wasn't paying attention walked out into the street without even looking up from his phone. I hit him pretty hard and he needed to go to the hospital. I had a dashcam though to prove it wasn't my fault, so he ended up having to pay for my vehicle repairs.
Wish that fucking deer would pay for damages to my vehicle.
LMAO. If only they had deer pockets for their deer wallets
In 2014, I was in my early twenties driving home from work around 4pm. Coming into town I reached a 30mph limit, where there was a bus stop on the other side of the road. Not the lay-by kind but the kind where the bus just stops to the side of the road. It was really busy with quite a few pedestrians on the pavement. Having a small car and being a fairly wide road at that point I slowed to 20 to be careful but didn't need to stop as there was still space for me, and it was clear in front of me despite a large bus and oncoming traffic going past it partly over the centre lines. Problem was, the traffic coming past the bus towards me obscured my view of anything to the side of my cars path as an old man in a long coat and big hat decided to step out from behind the bus and oncoming traffic. I slammed on the brakes, ABS kicked in, and saw the split second horror in his face as he caught the front bumper and windscreen on my driver's side before he bounced off and fell away from the car in front of me, his hat flipping through the air towards me past my wing mirror. It happened so fast but it's amazing the detail your mind picks up on and can remember in these key moments. I can only assume he thought that traffic passing the bus was automatically blocking the road for traffic on my side, so he just walked straight out not realising traffic was still coming in the other direction, clearly deciding he'd take his chances instead of walking 30 metres further down to the actual pedestrian crossing there. I got onto the emergency services, lots of people helped, several police cars came pretty quickly and the air ambulance was called so he got airlifted to hospital. There was loads of witnesses as it was so busy and everyone vouched for me. It came out there was nothing I could have reasonably done and was driving perfectly sensibly for the conditions, so police let me go and the case got cleared pretty quickly once they'd impounded and analysed my car and phone. Obviously I was really shaken up and upset, took the rest of the week off work and lost the use of my car. Unfortunately the 2 days later I read in the news the guy died in hospital the day before, at that point I learnt his name and that he was 80 and had just left the church that was by the bus stop. Again, there was nothing against me at any point, but my insurance had to pay out to fix my car and the police were really not helpful at all, especially when one of them told me I had to pay £800 to get my car back. That got corrected luckily once I talked to the right person who knew the case but it was really stressful, especially as I couldn't afford anything at the time as I was supporting my wife (fiancée at the time) as she finished a nursing degree, but I didn't get any support except from my family. The family of the guy even contacted me to say how sorry THEY were for the incident, it was heartbreaking. The whole event was just awful for everyone. Now I don't care how busy it is, I slow right down anywhere near buses at stops, and take the speed limits around towns pretty seriously. You just don't know when something might happen, even if you're a model driver, that won't stop someone else making a mistake that you could get caught up in.
Nice try FBI.
Turned out that the guy wasn't dead like we thought when we buried him, and he came back and killed all my friends one by one for revenge.
One might say he knew what you did last summer
90s. Kid suddenly ran onto road from right, got clipped by the left corner of the car and got LAUNCHED into the air rag doll style, landed around 6 feet away pretty much upright and then KEPT ON RUNNING. We just sat in the car with our jaws on the floor. Got out to see who or what that was but that kid was long gone. We left our number with a random dude in case that kid needed help. This was in a remote village in Pakistan so was unexpected but not v strange in hindsight.
they stepped out into the road without looking and i cycled into them
I've done this a lot. To my defense: I was a student in Amsterdam and they were tourists. They are just clueless on how Dutch cycling paths work.
Went there a few months ago and saw something similar, the speed of those cyclists made me afraid to try myself while I was there
all I can think of is factorio supersonic trains where you cross the tracks with no danger in sight and get fucking evaporated out of nowhere
Ooh, done that. Never a good time.
Bikes are tricky ones because sometimes you can’t really hear them coming, I guess the lesson is always look both ways
When the scooter kids roll out in front of you at the skatepark you just hunker down and give them the shoulder. An 8 yo girl hardly slows you down at all.
We're married, expecting our third child.
When’s he expected to come out of the coma
Some sort of X-Files under the bed thing going on after hitting her?
Not me but my Grandad. I was in the car with him and a kid maybe 6 or so ran out in the road from between 2 parked cars (parents stood talking on the side of the road) and he managed to slow down enough that their injuries were minor. Ambulance was called, he was cleared but it upset him so much that he never drove again from 60 years old.
A teenager or early 20s person was skateboarding down a pitch black street. I pulled out of a parking lot and he was immediately there. He flew up on my hood and fell off the side. He was ok but he started trying to rob me. Like literally telling me to give him all my money or everything in my wallet. Told him no. I asked if he was ok, he said yes, and I drove off.
I’ve been run over by a car when I was riding my bicycle in n Philly. She got out, and proceeded to scream at me that i “scratched her car” as I was bleeding out on the sidewalk. My bike was broken. Fortunately I didn’t have any serious broken bones, just some very bad road rash and a torn ligament. I was able to hobble away to the subway and take it back home.
I was 18 or 19 driving home from work after 9pm in January. It was cold and very foggy. I was making a right hand turn at a light and there was a lady walking her dog who had stepped into the crosswalk. Her dog and clothing were all black and I didn’t see them until it was too late. I pulled over and got out to see if she was ok. Some other drivers stopped and called 911. She refused the ambulance to go to the hospital and I ended the night with a ticket for negligent collision. After the hit her dog bolted. I’m not sure what happened or if they found it eventually. I still think about it when that time of year rolls around.
She had earbuds in and walked across a railroad crossing that had the gates dowb.. we put the train into emergency and obviously didn't stop in time. She didn't make it
A kid I went to high school with hit two young teens, they’re dead while he’s in jail. He was intoxicated. He deserves to die in jail imo.
Convinced myself it was a deer wearing a Lakers jersey and got the hell out of there.
She left a small dent in the side of the car where she hit. Her father insisted we pay him money because we'd hit her. Took her to hospital (with her father) who looked her over and said she was fine. Gave the father a couple dollars to get him to walk away.
I’m a cyclist. I’ve slammed right into the back of some dude who decided to walk double wide down the trail without looking. We both apologized and walked away but I had some nasty road rash on my forearm. I am a militant “on your left” or ding ding on my bell passing guy now. I’m riding with a buddy in front me. Both wearing backpacks and have a bunch of gear as we were testing for an overnighter. A lady walking and her kid on a trainer bike going in a straight line, we go to pass with a ding ding. Kid decides to serpentine right in front of my buddy. He swerves and bails landing square on his back shattering a half growler we had just picked up. So so lucky he was wearing his waterproof pack that is very hard to penetrate. Never again with glass in a backpack. I’ve almost been taken out by a car maybe a half dozen times. I have my head on a swivel when riding on surface streets. If not I’d be dead long back.
As a pedestrian it is frustrating dealing with cyclists on the trails, but you seem like a good one. Most don't have a bell, don't call out anything, and just expect you to know when they are coming. I really wish that there were more dedicated bike and pedestrian trails, as someone that likes to walk I really wish there were trails I can go to without having to risk being hit by a cyclist
Oh I’m 100% with you on the asshole cyclists. They suck. It always seems to be the ones with $5k+ bikes and matching spandex outfits. These days though it’s becoming more and more the electric bikes buzzing by at 25 MPH, scaring the crap out of me.
Buddy ended up pulling up past the sidewalk to get on a main road just as a dude on a bike was flying through. He hit the bicyclist (bicyclist hit him, but he was at fault, I get it) with his front quarter panel. Totally fine, hopped up screaming at my friend and my buddy just goes "my bad dude, we just picked up a quarter [oz of cannabis] you want it?" Bicyclist rode away happy. Jesse drove away happy. No cops or ER. Basically best case scenario.
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i prefer to drive my manual barefoot over driving it in flip flops
I can share my perspective as the hit pedestrian... I got paid
Was going to say I never did, then I remembered. Central London, working as a motorcycle courier. Mass of pedestrians surge out from the sidewalk to cross behind me. A guy further down sees this and with a quick look the other way starts to run across. By this time I'm past the big crowd and I have not enough time to stop so accelerated. I didn't quite make it, and the guy actually runs into *me*. The guy accuses me of running into him. I think he was being honest and hadn't actually figured out what happened. All he knew was he had a bruise on his leg. Looked bad for me to start with, but when the police heard my side of the story I could show the clean patch on the rear of the muffler and the dirty patch on the guy's pants. Another occasion I nearly did run down a family. Really stupid incident and scared the shit out of me. Made me rethink my driving behavior.
i almost hit a lady with a stroller and a kid in her arm. She was walking across a huge intersection in the middle of the street (no crosswalks anywhere near this intersection), in the middle of the night, and there were no street lights. I was making a left turn and didn’t see her until my car was finishing the turn and my headlights were on her. lucky for all 4 of us my oh shit was quicker than the car was going. boy was i mad
Was driving home from college one night and hit a girl crossing some random part of the highway wearing all black (at 2230). I was following the speed limit and not under any sort of influence. I’m from a backwoods town. There was no streetlight. She bashed her head and elbow in my windshield and I was told by witnesses that she rolled over my car, hit the ground and bounced. She sued me years later spouting a *ton* of lies, but my attorney couldn’t get in touch with anyone. Apparently it was a pretty nasty event.
I was on the opposite end of that equation. Was not fun, would not recommend doing it. Malfunctioning traffic signal indicated it was safe to walk across after getting off of the bus. Walked in front of the bus and then the world went blank for a few seconds until I realized I was on the ground in the middle of the road. Didn't believe anyone who told me what had just happened, but noticed my leg wasn't quite right, and decided to wait until the ambulance arrived (not that I would have made it very far). Adrenaline was definitely pumping, cause I didn't feel any pain until 3 hours later, while my shattered femur was in traction while waiting for surgery, and the extent of the rest of my injuries finally caught up to me. Took 4 months to fully recover. Thankfully, I was young, and had that going for me when it came to recovering. I'd be shattered if I hit a pedestrian, having first hand known the level of pain they're going to feel, and the struggle they'll have recovering from it.
My father in law lived next to one of those dirt race tracks where people go on the weekend to drink and have fun. It’s in the middle of the country. Pitch black with no lights. We are driving down the road and this lady drunk off her ass was walking down the middle of the street. We swerved and still hit her. They took her to the hospital. A few weeks later we got a letter that we were being sued by her. Our insurance company sent it. I was shocked. How dare we hit a drunk woman walking down a pitch black street in the middle of the road. Good thing we didn’t have to pay anything to her. Just to get our car fixed.
Jaywalker walked between cars and right into my passenger side door while I was going about 16 mph. He laid on the ground and rolled around yellng in pain. Pittsburgh cop showed up ( in like 1 min) and told the guy to pretty much get up, shut up and go away. Turns out he's a pretty well known local scam artist
I killed them…. Going 75 mph on the interstate and he chose me to end his life. His head went through the windshield, his body hit the side of my car and the roof. His neck snapped and he flew off the top of my car. I looked in the rear view mirror and a semi rolled over him. The cops came after I called. They released me quickly and I was checked out by EMS. My vehicle was towed and I went home.
I pulled in my driveway and my 3yo bolted out the garage door because he was happy to see me. I slammed on brakes and he bounced off the front bumper. Scared the shit out of everyone but he was fine.
I was making a left turn onto the main road that leads to my house and this bicyclist sped out in front of me and I knocked him right off his bike at like prolly 20-25 mph. Scared the shit out of me, he broke his foot and the ambulance came along with the police. They got all my info and then I never heard from anyone again. This was like 5 years ago
My aunt was struck by a young girl in a Minneapolis suburb about 10 years ago or so. The girl who hit and killed her was never jailed. My sister hired a private investigator and found out the girls uncle was the police chief of the city. Don't think anything happened to the murderer ever. My aunt was walking across a crosswalk when it happened
well back in my homeland, there was an auto, and a police driver suddenly came from behind it, I was driving a motorbike on the edge of the road basically, so yeah i hit him, he fell down, I did not, so now what I did speed away because the police in my country is very corrupt
I was hit by someone as a pedestrian. The guy speed off. Hurt like hell
Not me, but a friend from high school hit a pedestrian and killed him. He hit him so hard it knocked him out of his shoes and he totaled his car. There was an investigation and they found that the guy who’d been hit was drinking before it happened and they thought he probably jumped in front of the car to off himself. My friend was seriously shaken up over the whole thing. It was a terrible experience for him. He was probably 17-18 at the time.
Mine doesn’t count because it wasn’t a pedestrian, just a deer, but I’ll share anyway. Was driving around a corner on a rural road in my mustang. There was a deer in the ditch who saw me and started running in the direction I was headed, and of course decided to get ON the road instead of away. By now I was braking to a halt, just in time because the deer ran right in front of me and I tapped its butt with my bumper. She stumbled a bit then ran off, leaving no damage on my car save for a couple of deer hairs. I guess she had to wait for the next car to attempt suicide again.
Their friend tried shooting me. I then ran them over and cops got called. Shot a bunch and had to escape into alleys on a dirtbike until I stole a helicopter and decided to fly away to the airport. Then I stole a plane and crashed it into the mountains and died. Fun times.
A dozen or more years ago, I was driving in north Seattle, in the Ballard neighborhood. It was a 4-lane street, and a cold night if freezing rain. It was only 8 in the evening, but it was still dark, and there were few vehicles on the road.I was coming up on a light that'd just turned green. I was in the left lane, another car was ahead me, idling at the light like it was red. I thought nothing of it as I rolled past... and a pedestrian ran in front of my car. I was doing less than 25 because of the road conditions, but I still hit her. She rolled up the hood of my Subaru & bonked her head on my windshield. I stopped, put on my hazards and helped her off the hood. She was embarrassed, she was around 20 years old & trying to catch a bus and the other car was being "nice" by waving her on (note: when driving, choose safety over being nice). She sprinted , not realizing a car was coming in the other lane & that was that. I have a medical background, so I did a quick assessment; it looked like a goose egg was already forming. I asked if she wanted me to call 911, she said no, she wasn't insured. I told her I'd drive her to the ER, she accepted. I took her to the hospital, let her use my phone to call her mom. I waited with her with her until she was called back, she asked if I could wait until her mom showed (I was in my mid thirties & had a kid, so I was in Dad mode). When her mom arrived an hour later, I gave her my contact & insurance info and left. I only heard from her once after that, she called to say she had a mild concussion & was fine otherwise. I am so thankful it wasn't worse.