Sad personal stereo outcome.

I hope you get over the shock soon. I believe it's equally, if not more, dangerous to talk on a mobile phone while crossing the road.

Steve

OK Steve, I give in. Whats the yo-yo story?

Maybe Steve was a Coca-Cola Spinner Winner in a past life.......remember them.....???

Sorry to perpetuate the change of tact on this serious thread........

I'd agree about the mobile phone while crossing too, never mind driving with them - which everybody still does apparently!!

Simple - I'm bloody good with a yo-yo!

Steve

Hi Folks,

Maybe yo-yo ing should be banned whilst crossing the road too!? I once saw a little movie that some Nasa astronauts shot, one of them was using a yo-yo upside down whilst in orbit and christened it an 'oy-oy'!

I'm still trembling a bit after the accident, but only when I think about it so I'm trying to distract myself. I'm supposed to be working but I've just received the Alkaline Trio 'Crimson' from Amazon this morning and its bl00dy good!

The guy is in a really bad way, apparently. Just goes to show that some people do indeed 'get hit by a bus tomorrow'.

Keep safe!

Rich.

Sad story Rich....

I've had an extremely close encounter when crossing the road around the west side of Covent Garden while listening to my iPod.

I was walking down the round and started crossing what I believed was a one way street. There were parked cars on both sides facing me It was only a thin road too so I suppose my mind just filled in the blanks...

Half way across a black cab flashed in front of me. I had no warning at all. I don't even know if the cab tooted, he/she certainly didn't slow down. I remember this great gush of wind in my face as I took my next step seemingly just behind the cab.

I was on my way to the pub so a pretty stiff drink fitted in well.

In no way do I blame my iPod. I blame myself. My mother always said - look both ways. Some simple advice but it could save your life.

On a related note....

I am continually surprised with the number of people that walk into the road with the assumption that I have seen then and will stop for them.

At the end of the day;

1. cars are bigger than people
2. when a car hits you it will hurt. Maybe a lot. Maybe not at all because you are dead.

Please, please, never assume that the driver has seen you.

Jay

My (80 yr old) mother has a very bad habit of wandering across car parks etc with never a glance to left or right. She just says "Oh they'll see me and stop." Never having been a driver, she just doesn't appreciate that the vehicle may be controlled by a person who is unsighted, in a hurry, arrogant, impatient, incompetent, just plain stupid or any combination of the above.

A recent near miss on a pedestrian crossing may have had some effect, my words certainly haven't.

During the summer months I cycle to work and I have more near misses with other cyclists and pedestrians than I do with cars. Especially with pedestrians I note they often step out into the road without looking both ways properly (a quick glance maybe), but I think use more sound than vision to check.

I persaonlly never walk or cycle around using headphones because I want to know what is going on around me.

Anyway I hope the pedestrian and driver are ok, and any bystanders have managed to get over it.

quote:

Originally posted by Two-Sheds:
I persaonlly never walk or cycle around using headphones because I want to know what is going on around me.

Sensible move - too many cyclists (and pedestrians for that matter) take cavalier risks with their lives, and it's not fair on the people who crash into them as a result.

No offence, but this guy surely must have read the manual for his walkman, where they implicitly state that "using headphones at a level that obscures other sounds such as road noise is dangerous"? I feel sorry for the bus driver personally. He'll live with that for life.

Hi Folks,

Thanks for your contributions to this thread - I'm glad to see that you're all taking road safety seriously, and expressing concern for those that don't.

I am very sad to report that the lad I saw hit on Wednesday died yesterday as a result of the massive head trauma he received.

My sincere condolences to any of his family or friends who may be reading. He was 19 years old.

The Police accident investigation people want to talk to me, and of course I'll be giving them my full co-operation.

I'm really concerned for how the bus driver is feeling - as a witness I can attest that he did his utmost to avoid this dreadful outcome, but if I was in his place I'd probably be beating myself up over what more I could have done.

I only hope this incident will act as a wake up call to all those who have a tendency to take risks with their personal safety.

Terrible.

Best regards and keep safe,

Rich.

quote:

Originally posted by Jay:
I was walking down the round and started crossing what I believed was a one way street. There were parked cars on both sides facing me It was only a thin road too so I suppose my mind just filled in the blanks...

Jay,

I've seen cars driving the wrong way down one-way streets.

There are some crap drivers around here!

cheers, Martin

quote:

Originally posted by Martin Payne:

Jay,

I've seen cars driving the wrong way down one-way streets.

There are some crap drivers around here!

cheers, Martin

I've been down the street again since and it was all my fault. Dammit!

quote:

Originally posted by NaimThatTune:
I am very sad to report that the lad I saw hit on Wednesday died yesterday as a result of the massive head trauma he received.

My sincere condolences to any of his family or friends who may be reading. He was 19 years old.

...

I'm really concerned for how the bus driver is feeling

God - that's really bad

I'm also sorry you and the bus driver had to be involved in that - the bus driver'll probably feel like hell for ages.

Hi Dom,

Thanks for your concern - I've had a number of sleepless nights over this and were I in the bus driver's position I'd probably be much worse, beating myself up over what more I could have done.

Today the Police accident investigators came to my house and we spent about 2 1/2 hours going over a period of time that was no more than 5 seconds long. I had to recall to the best of my ability exactly where the bus was when I first saw it, where the pedestrian was, at what speed and direction everything was moving, exactly what the sequence of events was and so on with as much precision as I could. It was bl00dy tiring.

What happens next is up to the coroner and the result of any decision the Police come to having gathered evidence from the scene and from witnesses. I'm not going to divulge any more than I have done because this is obviously a very serious matter and a public internet forum isn't the place to go into more details of what I saw and so on.

The male policeman told me that it was very unlikely that anyone would ever witness such an accident such as this so hopefully it wouldn't happen to me again. Unfortunately I had to blow his theory apart by telling him I saw someone expire in a paragliding accident only 4 1/2 months ago. Lets just hope such things *don't* come in threes, at least not for a while...

Best regs and keep safe,

Rich.

Decades ago I was cycling down a big hill into Bath in heavy traffic. When I saw a young chap turn suddenly off the pavement and was hit squarely by a car on the blind bend. He did a rag-doll summersault and lay all crooked and unconscious on the road.
Several drivers got out of their cars and started to lift him despite my pleas not to touch him in case he had a broken neck. Even when I started shouting angrily at them to leave him alone they "straightened him out" and carried him to the other side of the road. Where they placed him "comfortably" sitting like a guy fawkes dummy against a wall on the wet pavement. They kept arguing that he was blocking the morning rush hour traffic! Then they got into their cars and drove off.

Hi Nime,

Sadly this is believable - at this recent accident scene I had a guy repeatedly approaching me asking me when I was going to get my car out of the way whilst I was on the phone to the 999 control centre - he even came right up and threatened to move it himself! All whilst the lady in the control centre was asking me questions pertinent to the accident scene.

The fact that there was an ambulance blocking my own path and a guy lying in the road didn't seem to mean anything to the, ehem, d1ckhead. I wish I'd taken his reg number - the Police asked me about him and wanted to pop around to his house to advise him 'not to interfere'.

Anyhow, now that I've given the detailed statement, I need to let memories of this lie for the sake of my own stress levels - my neck and shoulders are so knotted up it hurts to move my head!

Regards and keep safe,

Rich.

Rich

What an absolutely horrible experience for you. And to have to go through it all over again at the coroner's inquest must be something that you're dreading. But it will, at least, bring some formal conclusion to it all for you.

We're constantly advised to treat life as precious and to make every day count. Something like this, as in the case of the death of a close friend or relative, will only reinforce that message for you.

As for the f*ckwit arguing with you at the scene, words fail me. Although, sadly, I'm not surprised.

Life goes on!

Graham

Rich

I regret that I was too young to carry any real authority with these selfish sods. These days one could so easily photograph them as evidence of their unbelievably callous behaviour. And take snaps of their number plates for identity purposes.
I'd completely forgotten about this incident until your post. I'm sorry you have had such an awful experience. Perhaps you should ask your doctor for something to help you relax until you recover from this traumatic experience?

Take care

Graham, Nime,

Thanks chaps for your concern - hopefully the coroner will have a clear picture of what happened and will come to his verdict without having to call anyone in. If he does need to call anyone, it probably won't be for months so I can at least relax until the other side of Christmas.

Graham - indeed, if any tiny shred of good is to come of this it could be in the form of taking stock of what is actually important in life and what is mere distraction, and of just how precious and wonderful life is and how it could be gone in a moment. So I've finally taken the plunge and signed myself up for a couple of days blasting around a circuit in a real Formula 1 car in April next year - its heinously expensive, but, you can't take it with you!

Nime - In future I'd like to think that I would take any such moron's number plate and mention it to the Police later. However I was busy with something far more important at the time. Can you believe the guy said he was 'going somewhere'? Well, no sh*t Sherlock, I guess most people, me included, were driving down the road because they specifically *didn't* want to go anywhere? ARGH!

I think I may indeed go see my doctor - I was stressed out and not sleeping before all this happened and then work took a depressing turn (don't get me started!) and this happened. Not a fan of drugs for sleeping even in the short term but a decent bit of stress counselling and a damn good neck and shoulder massage wouldn't go amiss.

Best Regs,

Rich.

!!! I was ambling along the runway at SeaTac, bothering no-one, listening to Handel on my iPod when I almost got whacked by a 747 in full take-off mode! Why don't they watch where they're ƒ¨ç˚ˆ˜© going??

quote:

So I've finally taken the plunge and signed myself up for a couple of days blasting around a circuit in a real Formula 1 car in April next year

sorry to go off topic, but who are you doing this with?

chaps,

bhazen - er, you must have had the iPod up pretty loud not to notice a 747 bearing down on you, mind you, I've heard that Handel chap was a bit of a rocker... Of course, given the topic of this thread I think we've all got the message that we should be looking where *we're* going never mind anybody else...

John - sorry to be a bit clueless, but I can't tell you exactly - it's being organised through a car club I belong to; one of our members has a 'pal' in Northern France who has his own collection of flash motors including a couple of modern(ish) F1 cars. He's thinking of starting a school using the private race track that he has in his massive grounds that accompany his rather palatial pad. Me and my pals are a 'dummy run' at operating the business, so its not someone who's out there currently operating and visible via the Internet etc...

Best Regs,

Rich.

Ah...yo-yo master = Steve Arasu.

It just hit me!

Ooops...sorry chaps, poor chase of phrase

Seriously though...a tragedy, but thanks for the thread, Rich, it's a salient reminder that we can take our perceptions of our own safety for granted.

More to the point it's proof positive, I feel, that closing your eyes or shutting your ears to something won't make it go away.

Best,

Jon

quote:

Ah...yo-yo master = Steve Arasu.

Indeed it is, and yes, I'm not at all bad with a yo-yo.

Steve