Today a little old lady got hit by a car while I was buying groceries.
I was at the A&P in the checkout line when there was some kind of commotion near the front door. Word went around the checkout girls that someone had just been hit by a car in the parking lot right in front of the store. The girl scanning my groceries through said she wasn’t suprised, that people were always driving way too fast in the parking lot, and sometimes even swerving onto the sidewalks to get around slower traffic or pedestrians.
The police were already there when I got outside, giving the lady first aid. I don’t know how badly she was hurt. She wasn’t moving, but I didn’t see anyone performing CPR. The ambulance arrived just as I was getting to my car. At least the guy who hit her didn’t take off - he was still there, the one of the cops was giving him instructions to follow him to the police department.
Please be careful in parking lots. You’re only supposed to be going about 5 miles per hour or so. Pedestrians have the right of way, especially slow-moving old ladies carrying there groceries out of the store.
I’ve always been wary of walking through parking lots. I check the driver’s seat of every car before I walk behind it.
My aunt got killed walking through the parking lot of a shopping mall in Calgary. The guy just didn’t see her, and backed out. In the human vs. rolling steel competition. the human always loses.
I remember feeling for the guy, a young fellow. He was just devastated.
Pedestrians have no such thing as right of way in parking lots. At least that seems to be the case in my area.
The woman who nailed my son wasn’t charged with anything except failure to have insurance because it was a parking lot.
They couldn’t ticket her for anything like the fact that she had expired plates, or that she had a revoked divers license.
There are a slew of other things she could have been ticketed for but because a parking lot is considered private property she skated.
Left my son in a body cast for his summer vacation, may have ruined some career options for him in adulthood, and better yet she could afford a new car and a move for herself while we were stuck with hospital and re-hab bills.
There are a couple threads around here somewhere about it. It will be three years this May.
Sorry for the bit of a hijack and please let us know if that poor lady is okay.
And here’s hoping your area works differently than our and the driver will get a bit more than a slap on the hand.
Bad enough he hit an older lady, but it could have been a young child. They say the one thing that saved my son was his size.
yeah I was almost hit in the parking lot of the local Fall-Apart(wal),I called Johnny-law. Only because I have seen this particular person drive like an idiot many times before.
Quick question if you dont mind,what does A&P stand for? We have one here, but I doubt if its the same thing…
That reminds me about my crusade: Tell your kids to ride on the right side of the street. I knew a kid who got knocked off his bike because he was riding on the wrong side, and last year saw a kid come about half a second from death because he was where no driver would expect oncoming traffic.
I would also urge that pedestrians use a little bit of caution themselves. I can’t count the number times that I’ve driven in front of a store and people just slowly stroll across the road without even looking. Then there are the people who do see you, but slowly walk out in front of you anyway. Some even walk diagonally across the road, seemingly in order to stay on the road and piss people off for the longest amount of time possible.
I don’t speed in parking lots, but I do get frustrated by this behavior. Instead of waiting literally two seconds for a car to pass by, people walk right out in front of the cars, thereby delaying the drivers for ten times longer than the pedestrian would have been delayed had he just waited for the car to pass.
On the hijack about the meaning of A&P, it’s derived from “the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company,” which apparently used to be a door-to-door distributor of tea, like Fuller Brush and other house-to-house retail franchises.
Eventually, they added on other lines to the tea, opened stores to sell tea and the other merchandise, and then phased out the door-to-door operation and focused on the retail stores.
Kricket, I know there are statutes on the books in New York and I’m pretty sure the same holds true in North Carolina that a person driving in a parking area held open to the public is “operating a motor vehicle in a public place” and responsible for legal and safe operation of the vehicle. Did her insurance cover any part of his hospital and rehab. bills? Did you try to pursue it beyond what the insurance would pay (if anything) with a lawyer? (And, most importantly, consider asking a lawyer if you have any recourse now for the expenses you incurred as a direct result of the accident.)
Kricket, that’s insane. IANAL but, assuming that your son didn’t dash out in front of her, it’s assault, isn’t it? Assault is assault is assault on private property or public. And why couldn’t you sue her in civil court for the medical bills? I’ve seen plenty of cases on CourtTV of people suing over getting hit in a parking lot.
Cardinal, I was told to ALWAYS stay on the left side of the road unless you were part of traffic. If you’re walking/riding a bike on the side of the road (not IN the road), and you are on the LEFT, you can see oncoming cars and move out of their way. If you are on the RIGHT, you cannot.
A few years ago, I watched as a woman was hit and killed in the lot of my doctor’s office. She was pinned under the front wheel of a Ford Exploitation driven by an idiot yakking on her cell phone as she drove at about 35 mph through the lot. The thing that really made me sick was the driver was the facilities manager for the building. She knew how big the lot was (tiny) and that she was going too fast for the size. But moreso, the driver knew that the nature of the practices in the building (orthopedics, obstetrics/gynecology and pediatrics) meant that the lot was regularly being traversed by people with limited mobility, pregnant women and parents with their small children. But she clearly didn’t give a damn, and a 24 year old woman was killed while she was trying to get her forgotten insurance card from her car. The woman’s year old child was inside with the pediatrician.
Since that day, I have viewed parking lots as dead zones. When walking through them, I am extraordinarily cautious – I try to walk between the rows of cars, instead of in the driving lanes whenever I can. And when I’m driving, I treat every pedestrian as if they may walk in front of me. I give wide berth and I take the few extra minutes to drive as slowly as possible until I’m away from the bulk of the walkers. It’s just not worth the time or the “missed” space to do otherwise.
I think intent needs to be established for assault.
Even if the kid didn’t dash out in front ,an idiot driver could still hit the poor youngster by accident…
Negligence mebbe …
Just an under-educated guess
:o <<<<<–me yappin’
My major, non-lethal parking lot gripe involves inclement weather and drivers who can’t wait a few seconds to let pedestrians get out of the rain/snow/whatever. If you’re sitting in a nice, warm, dry vehicle, can’t you cut the exposed folks some slack??
"Bicyclists are required to follow the same laws and rules of the road as motorists. This includes riding on the right side of the road as well as obeying traffic signs and signals. Riding on the left side of the road, facing traffic is a common action on the part of the bicyclist that can cause a crash. "
You ride with traffic, just like you’re on a motorcycle or in a car.
I SAY it’s a vehicle, and then say on the LEFT? What a **** for brains! I meant right. If this was the Pit I’d curse myself. I oughta go back to those sneakers with a R and a L on the toes.
No lawyer would touch the woman who hit my son. No insurance, no drivers license, expired plates, and the second thing she said was “doesn’t he know it’s the third of the month and I’m here to cash my check?” He was hit in a quick check cashers parking lot and she was there getting her welfare check cashed.
Her first words were “Oh my God, I don’t have a license!”
I could have taken her to small claims court myself but since I lost my job over it because I had just started and was in the probation period and would have violated the attendance policy we were and kind of still are broke. At least now we are living paycheck to paycheck. For a while it wasn’t so cheery.
They did hire me back a year later which was cool and I’ve been there two years now.
The statute of limitations was up last year but hey, at least she could afford to get a new car and move on the tax payers dime.
Don’t take that as a slam against welfare people, I’ve been there myself but she is one of those people who is making a career out of it.
Not to hijack the thread any further with this I will try to find the first two threads I wrote right after it happened.
On topic sort of, when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter I and five other pregnant girls (all girl pregnant school) saw a nun hit in a cross walk and killed.
I’ll never forget that as long as I live.
