Look both ways when crossing roads. Seriously. Mr Cru and I were out on Friday night and witnessed a horrific accident on our way home. A young guy styepped out to cross the road just as the lights had changed and a car hit him. There was an almighty bang and he was sent flying through the air. We called an ambulance and then waited around to give statements to the police (with the driver, who stopped).
I was on hold trying to get through to the ambulance service for several minutes (eeek) but fortunately a passer-by was a doctor and took control of the scene telling the guy not to move his head while we directed traffic around him. Finally the ambulance arrived and loaded the guy onto a stretcher amid shreiks of agony. One of the policemen said to me later as we were giving statements that he didn't really rate the guy's chances of making it based on what he'd seen. So that could be it - one minute you're walking down the street on a friday night, the next you're in agony staring at a bit of concrete while a paramedic asks your name and then you're dead.
Between three and four thousand people a year die in road accidents in the UK. Since Friday I've been crossing the road like it's no man's land and I've really noticed how many people wander out into the road chatting on their phone or to their friends, without really looking round at all. I think because we live around cars all the time, people blank out or forget how dangerous they are.
Holy crap. People make fun of me because I'm really wary crossing the road, and I will not cross before the light turns green, even if I stand there looking like a pillock for ten minutes when there's no traffic.
ReplyDeleteI don't feel so silly now. :o/
The main campus at my university straddles a busy road. I witnessed an accident one year and was helping, and two women who worked in a building by the road commented that despite two pedestrian crossings, there's two people hit in the first week every year.
ReplyDeleteThere's now two sets of traffic lights for pedestrian corssings - but people still run across the road willy-nilly. Oh, and the accident I saw? Someone on a scooter got clocked by a driver coming out of a car park.
I live in Wellington, New Zealand and people tend to just walk out into extremely busy intersections en masse - some of which have lights that do not function properly at all.
BTDTWTTS, former ambulance tech.
ReplyDeleteI-pods and mobile phones, great distractors. I've seen a student being trailed to be mugged because she had NO awareness, buds in pod on brain in another place.
That and its now ALWAYS the drivers fault, so step out with impunity!
The campus where I work also suffers from arrogant academics, who forget away from their tiny niche they are human, well almost human!