When I was 12 I got hit running to the side of the street when out football game was interrupted. I was facing the opposite direction and when someone called “car” I ran to the wrong side of the street without looking back. I guessed wrong. It was a 55 Pontiac and I fit neatly on the hood before falling back. I was used to hitting the street without pads and this was a soft landing. No harm, no foul.
The car brushed me, but didn’t knock me down so I marked other.
Walking home from school took me down a very narrow road that was extremely crowded when school let out. Any other time of the day it was empty. There was barely enough room for two lanes of cars, much less pedestrians (no sidewalks). The car grazed my hip but didn’t stop or slow down and I just kept walking.
Twice, just a bump (2nd time didn’t even knock me down), no injuries or hospital visit; both times it was inattentive drivers turning into me as I crossed the street with the right of way. I’ve also had several close calls, but I’m kind of paranoid and on high alert every time I have to step in the street and that’s definitely kept me safer. I’ve mostly walked or biked for transportation since I was 8 and we moved out of the country to a town with sidewalks. I’m in my mid-20s now and don’t drive.
I’ve witnessed two of my friends get hit more seriously (mostly their fault both times). My oe friend got her foot crushed and had to have several surgeries to repair it, other friend just got throw pretty spectacularly and had a concussion and severe bruising.
There is a saying in Thailand that is only partially joking. It goes along the lines that if you do run over someone, and that person is still alive, best to back up and do him or her again, as a dead person is much less disruptive to your life than a live one who can sue you and keep you tied up for yaers in the byzantine court system here. Really.
I was 18. I was just after getting of a coach, going visiting my cousin in a country town. The traffic was terrible so I got out to go to his house about half a mile from where he lived at the time. I walked down the footpath (sidewalk) until it ended abruptly, so I had to cross. Foolishly, I crossed behind a bus, which obscured my view of oncoming traffic. I got hit by a small car, going slow enough. I was knocked over and winded. I couldn’t breathe, was flailing about trying to catch my breath and people got out of cars asking did i need an ambulance, I could barely speak but said yes, just in case I suppose. There was blood from a superficial graze. The driver was more worried about her insurance than me. The ambulance came and they had to take my boots off because they couldn’t get the backdoors closed (I’m kinda tall). Stuck me on a spinal board yokey which I spent a few hours on. Then got X-rayed etc in the hospital. I was fine, if completely embarrassed.
I was in middle school in Tucson AZ around 1993. I was crossing the street with a green light and pedestrian signal, and the car (not a jeep. One of the few differences from the OP’s story) that hit me was turning right. He apparently only looked for traffic coming from his left, not pedestrians, and hit me in the left leg. I was crossing north, he was turning east from the northbound lane. I flew a few feet and got the wind knocked out of me, and my strongest memory is wanting so badly to yell at the guy but not being able to because I couldn’t catch my breath. I was so angry!
A driver I can only assume was drunk blew threw the crosswalk I was in, slammed to a stop, realized he was in the intersection, backed into reverse, and hit me on the way back. I got lucky he only hit me going 10 mph; could have been a lot worse. To this day, I regret not getting his license number to call the cops.
Skewed poll results, those hit by cars are certainly more likely to vote and share stories.
Still. This is certainly proof of *some *fucking poor drivers.
At least three times, all when I worked as a parking lot attendant. The worst was when I ended up on the hood of a car, instead of just being knocked to the ground. No harm done in any cases. But in all cases, the driver was subjected to plenty of salty language, indicating that he or she should never try that again.
I voted other.
When I was 4 and my aunt 14 she had taken me to the used bookstore. After a couple of hours of browsing and finding some very! Exciting! Books! I was apparently a little hard to handle. As we left I slipped my hand out of hers and danced away into the street. I was looking over my shoulder to watch her chasing me as I ran directly into a rather large delivery truck who had seen me run into the street and had stopped. Knocked myself back onto my ass and apparently aged my aunt about a decade.
I haven’t been hit, but my grandmother was killed by a car while crossing the street.
Once, while comfortably an adult, I was struck by an old woman as I was crossing at the intersection. No lights there but there was a stop sign which she had at least slowed down for, so she wasn’t going very fast. No injury, though I was knocked down.
When I was about 12, I was riding across the main road here. It is a two lane state highway, about a block from my parent’s house. I was always taught to ride by bike through the crosswalk here, especially because it was the main intersection in a small town, so usually the busiest. He had pulled out into the intersection and backed up. I had gone behind him because he was stopped and had no backup lights on, but was right in the crosswalk. It was a red truck, and it struck my right leg. Knocked me sideways off the bike and onto the pavement, and wedged my tire under the bumper. He had no idea until I walked up to the side of the truck and told him he had hit my bike. He was pretty mortified, and got out and helped me get my bike out. The bad thing was, I was scared that I would be in trouble for riding behind the truck instead of like I had been taught, so I told him I was fine and took off as fast as possible. I went home and iced my knee and leg. It bruised pretty bad, but it was fall, so I didn’t tell anyone and covered it by wearing jeans or sweat pants all the time. A week later, my dad asked me about it, and I said that it happened, but wasn’t a big deal. His friend was at the gas station nearby and had seen it. I got in a good bit of trouble, mostly for not calling him on it and since he left we would never know who it was.
Brendon Small
[snip]
There has to be more to this story. I’m trying to understand complete indifference from three different groups of people. Is there something physical about you that would cause people to react to you that way? (e.g. big burly black man in a white neighborhood/extra limbs/torn and raggedy clothing)
Help me make sense of this story.
I once hit a car as a pedestrian when I was 10… :o
Meaning, it was totally my fault. I think the poor cabbie (whose primary job was in the factory where Dad was HR* at the time! :smack:, it’s a small town so being a cabbie doesn’t pay much) almost had a heart attack when I jumped in front of the school bus and against his bumper, another one when he saw Dad’s name on the plate bolted to our flat’s door.
- Meaning the HR department consisted of Dad, Dad and Dad. He could borrow the factory manager’s secretary to photocopy pay slips every month.
Hit by a car going backwards through a red light, the wrong way on a one war street.
Never hit while walking, but I have been hit by a car on my bicycle and (thankfully) remained unharmed. My sister also got hit by a car on her bike when we were kids and needed crutches. I thought they were the best toy ever!
No, but I came close to being run over by a station wagon. I was visiting my real mom as a child (before I knew she was my real mom) and I was loading stuff in the back of the wagon and taking care of the kids. Well, I had just loaded something in the back of the wagon and her asshole husband put the car in gear and started backing up without even looking. I was only ten and quick and agile so I got out of the way.
He wasn’t even sorry about it, the fucker. I never really forgave him for his boneheaded move.
I also became much closer friends with someone when they got hit by a car while walking. I felt so awful at the idea that I sent care packages, and we became good friends, and voila! Years later we are still friends.
I am Anaamika’s friend.
I got hit the day after Bush was reelected in 2004. I was walking to work around 7:30 AM, and though I had the right of way at the crosswalk, a motorist didn’t see me and started turning left. I ran to try to get out of the way, but he clipped me, knocking me to the ground. I didn’t even realize I was hurt at first and tried waving the guy off, telling him I was fine, but I collapsed back to the ground when I tried to get up to continue walking to work.
I had to be taken to the hospital where it was discovered I had broken my tibia in two places. I was then transported to a larger hospital in the nearby capital, where a rod was inserted through my knee and held in place by screws at my knee and ankle. It fucked up my knee to the point where I still don’t like putting weight on it seven years later (walking is fine; kneeling is what bothers me) and I was out of work for about six months.
Amusingly, I was a caretaker at the time, and had to borrow my employer’s wheelchair while I convalesced.
No. But I’ve started carrying a golf putter as (“Beware”) bait, pretending that I’m unhooking the saftey of my concealed sidearm, and, as always, in the winter (in Western Oregon that’s 11 months) carrying an umbrella that I’m good at flicking to extend to it’s full length when some chooch gives me static in a crosswalk.
Given the amount of times I’ve flipped people off or told them to go fuck their dead mothers or said I’d dig up their stillborn baby, unscrew it’s head, and neck-fuck it, I’m surprised I haven’t been hit more.
Nary a hit. Go me!