I was in a queue of traffic this afternoon in the Vitara. Waiting for a busy roundabout, I was about 10 cars back and we were moving a car's length at a time, occasionally.
It was a dual carriageway, innercity and 30mph. Two lanes in each direction. In the queue next to me on my offside was an artic....about the same pace. We were all stopped and had been for a while when the car in front of me moved slowly. I started off slowly, we weren't going anywhere...and stamped on the brake in a mini-second as as saw a flash of colour suddenly appear in front of me from in front of the artic. It was a young woman pushing a trolley, only I couldn't see the trolley at that point because it was lower than my bonnet line !
After some shouting and gesticulating at me she gained the nearside kerb and pushed on in the direction from whence I had come....A lucky miss and some re-assurance to me that I still have good reactions.
But....She should never have been there. The road is lined on both sides by 6 feet or so of grass verge, then a metre high steel barrier fence and then the footpath. A plain discouragement for pedestrians to cross the road along that stretch. The central reservation is also grass, and not recently mowed !
At both ends of this 100 yard section there is a facility for pedestrians to cross. One, at the roundabout is the usual give way and further back, where she was heading is a light controlled ped. crossing. So, she would have walked down the grass on the offside, crossed 2 lanes, struggled across the centre grass, pushed through the traffic on my side and then walked the rest of the way on the nearside grass......why not use the footway ?
A number of untermenschen in that area, I guess her mind was full of thoughts of what flavour Pot Noodle the family was having for dinner.
You've got to despair over someone who'd rather struggle over a mini assault course with a trolly rather than just use the nice smooth paving and the safe Pelican crossing
Here endeth the rant...heart back to normal rate !.
Ted
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The scariest thing about that Ted, is that she'd just walked in front of the bumper of the artic pushing a pushchair, I presume.
She wouldn't have been seen at all in that position by the lorry driver and the consequences don't bear thinking about.
It's only in newer lorries that mirrors are fitted above the windscreen to cover that position, and in the circumstances you describe a pedestrian would have been the last person to expect to see.
Pat
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Glad no harm was done, Ted - the paperwork can be such a chore.
};---)
Facetiousness aside, it's alarming how many parents use the pushchair as a traffic probe. I remember in my buggy-pushing days getting quite adept at stopping the infant cart with its wheels parallel to the kerb, so I had a good view while I scanned the traffic for a gap. If you stop it perpendicular and stand behind it, you feel (probably mistakenly) that you're too far back from the kerb to see clearly, which may be why so many push their progeny out into the carriageway.
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Actually I find it less of a probe, more of blatant attempt to blackmail a car into stopping using the childs life as a threat.
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Just what I thought, Pat...although the driver may have seen her coming at him from the right.
I've noticed, too, over many years on the road , about the ' probe ' theory.
' I'll just push me pram out and if it doesn't get hit then I can get across '. Turnips !!
Ted
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You delayed Darwin there Ted, well spotted, they haven't got the sense of a stray dog.
Mind you some nut case kids up your way too, had some half wit's climb across the frame between truck and trailer just as i turned left at some lights, what goes in the water up there, it's usually drunks that do that with bone crunching results.
I can still see the idiotic smirk on the female masquerading as a parent in an unpleasant part of Bristol, she shoved a pushchair complete with this poor little sprat straight in front of my loaded transporter to stop me to cross the road.
Hadn't got the sense to wonder, what if that car tilted forward 15ft above fell off with the violence of the stop, it's happened before to others.
Pat's quite right it's generally 06 plate trucks onwards that have good forward down mirrors, though do we all check every single mirror every time we start off if we're in a line of traffic somewhere only a numpty would attempt to cross.
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>> I couldn't see the trolley at that point because it was lower than my bonnet
>> line !
And that's just a Vitara. Imagine driving a Land Cruiser through such an incident.
No, the woman should not have been there, however stupid, feral humans often do such idiotic things, and you still don't want to live with the consequences of running one over. This tale is a good advert for the point I've often made about large SUVs in urban environments, they are simply unsuitable and utterly unnecessary, and pose an increased hazard to other road users and pedestrians.
No doubt the usual mutterings will appear about Volvo XC60s and their marshmallow front ends, with many stars for pedestrian protection. But the point is clearly here for all to see that it's probably better to have a vehicle from which you can actually see pedestrians rather than one which will hopefully only maim them if you run them over.
Glad it turned out OK, Ted.
*Dons tin hat*
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I sometimes mix it with the Audis on the motorway, but always creep about in towns.
Best not to kill a child, even if the parent has been reckless by pushing it into your path.
If you are doing 20mph and the worst happens, it's unlikely to be deemed your fault.
If you are doing 30mph, it might be deemed your fault.
If you are doing 30mph+, it will be deemed your fault.
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>> Best not to kill a child, even if the parent has been reckless by pushing it into your path.
>> If you are doing 20mph and the worst happens, it's unlikely to be deemed your fault.
>> If you are doing 30mph, it might be deemed your fault.
>> If you are doing 30mph+, it will be deemed your fault.
If you do 40+ mph, chances are you'd have passed the reckless parent before they had a chance to push it into your path.
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>> No, the woman should not have been there, however stupid, feral humans often do such idiotic things, and you still don't want to live with the consequences of running one over.
Why though, should we molly coddle them? Reasonable measures have been taken - It's already hard to gain access to the carriageway. If they still choose to, and i didn't see them, yes i'm going to be distraught, probably suffer a lot of personal hardship as a result too - which is also fine, we really shouldn't run each other over, even if i couldn't reasonably see & react to her in time.
Why should the world be sterile? Personally i'm in favour of reintroduction of (hungry) bears. We could do with some predators & dangers to waken some people up (and consume the ones that can't be woken).
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"Personally i'm in favour of reintroduction of (hungry) bears."
Yes I agree. A million years of evolution into a hunter/gatherer and where do I find myself? Pushing a trolley around Tesco to feed the family. Give me a spear and a dinosaur any day.
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Give me a spear and a dinosaur any day.
mmmm, Kebabosaurus. And there'd always be leftovers.
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>> Why should the world be sterile?
Elf n' Safety m'lad, elf n' safety.
:)
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>>large SUVs in urban environments, they are simply unsuitable and utterly unnecessary, and pose an increased hazard to other road users and pedestrians.<<
With the exception of 'utterly unnecessary' according to your statement there shouldn't be any lorries on the road in towns or built up areas.
Isn't it time we started to think about educating pedestrians again?
Shouldn't we be bringing in compulsory road awareness couses for cyclist?
Perhaps some form of compulsory annual training for car drivers?
We all want to pass the buck and the blame onto other road users, but forget about re-educating the cause of these problems.
Pat
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>> With the exception of 'utterly unnecessary' according to your statement there shouldn't be any lorries
>> on the road in towns or built up areas.
Groan. Lorries are necessary, Land Cruisers are not. Surely anyone can see that?
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The point being that we should be blaming the person at fault, in this case the pedestrian, not trying to legislate around the cause.
...or using it to get on a personal soap box.
Pat
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A few months ago, I was approaching a mini-roundabout, which has a pedestrian crossing, perhaps 10 feet before the entrance to the roundabout itself.
There is a fence with bushes/trees on the left hand side of the road, meaning that you can't see around the corner of the pavement.
As I was approaching, some guy suddenly belted from around the corner, and across the crossing, pushing a pushchair in front of him. He was clearly in a mad rush, and there was less than a second from him appearing from behind the bushes, before he was on the crossing.
Luckily I was moving quite slowly, due to the fact that I was approaching a roundabout with low visibility, but I still had to step on the brakes a good bit to avoid hitting them.
Perhaps he thinks that pedestrians crossings are some magical part of the road, where you can't be hit by a car, even if you give the driver no chance to see you first. Throw in the talisman of a pushchair, and he probably felt invincible.
Last edited by: SteelSpark on Mon 1 Aug 11 at 10:54
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>> Perhaps he thinks that pedestrians crossings are some magical part of the road, where you can't be hit
>> by a car, even if you give the driver no chance to see you first. Throw in the talisman of a pushchair, and
>> he probably felt invincible
Some years ago the combination of three people's bad decisions led to a small child being killed in quite similar circumstances:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/2962067.stm
I know the location well - a staggered pelican crossing on an urban 40mph dual carriageway bisecting the route from a sink estate to a large supermarket. It appears the parent had been pushing the child in a buggy across the road on their way to go shopping, and was waiting on the central island for the second green man to illuminate, when a car driver who knew the parent stopped in lane 2 at the green traffic light and gestured for them to cross the road in front of the car. Sadly a van was approaching at speed from behind the car - the van moved across to lane 1 but didn't slow down, and collided with the buggy on the crossing, its view of the pedestrians having been shielded by the stationary car. If the parent or either of the drivers involved had chosen a different action it wouldn't have happened.
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Can be a shock Ted good job you was on the ball being observant.
My little mate Harry was killed by a car when he was five years old in front of me.
Harry run across the road without looking and was hit by a car in a 50km zone.
You can't be carefull enough as a driver. I would never forgive myself running over a child.
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A few years ago I was sitting in my wife's Ford Ka which was parallel parked in the road outside our apartment. I needed to reverse to get out of the parking space. I noticed a young mother with a toddler on the pavement behind me chatting to someone. I checked for traffic, put the car into reverse and was about to start moving backwards. It was then that I noticed the toddler was no longer to be seen near the mother. Instinctively I put the car back into neutral, got out and found the toddler sitting directly behind the bumper of the Ka exactly in the place I was about to reverse into.
I still break into a cold sweat when I think about what might have happened and it's one reason I hate cars with poor rearwards visibility (like the Ka) and no parking sensors.
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>> directly behind the bumper of the Ka exactly in the place I was about to reverse into.
>> one reason I hate cars with poor rearwards visibility (like the Ka) and no parking sensors
Try reversing a 7.5 tonner down an alleyway between two shops on a busy street. Even with a lit-up, moving, 12ft high x 7ft wide box on wheels, loudly going BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, pedestrians will still walk directly behind it. The only solution is to count them into the blind spot and count them back out again :(
I dread to think how GB, Pat, HM et al manage with the real big'uns.
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Mon 1 Aug 11 at 20:14
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I've knocked a kiddie over. He ran out between a couple of parked cars, fortunately I'd just turned a corner and was travelling slow. I literally just pushed him over and he got up and ran away. A couple of women started berating me, but another driver saw what happened and came to my defence stating that I'd braked far sooner than he could have imagined either of them would have managed. I did report it to the BIBs, but nothing further ever came of it.
Dave. I found that if floored the throttle whilst reverse was selected, revs were limited to a couple of thousand. Scared the hell out of anyone nipping behind. ;>)
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Drivers of big wagons have a big responsiblity.
I have been a passeger in a few big trucks and I admire the skill what is required.
Underrated profession in my opinion.
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>> Drivers of big wagons have a big responsiblity.
>> Underrated profession in my opinion.
>>
+1
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Sshh, don't tell 'em Pike...
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Almost hit a kiddie ! - Pat
