Nasty accident, but I do take issue with one thing. I don’t think it’s 100% conclusive that the oncoming SUV ran a red light, rather than the vehicle coming from the left. There’s an intersection near me where oncoming traffic gets green lights (straight and left-turn) while mine would be red. If that’s the case, the driver coming from the left would have had a red.
It’s probably as described, but I wouldn’t be absolutely certain.
In the first few seconds, you see a car coming from the right going through while the pedestrian is starting to cross while the facing lights are all red.
The articles I’ve found all state the SUV shaped projectile ran the red light. I’m sure the police determined such.
The white car is a Tesla. Just floor it and the black “hat” will probably roll off. If not, get up to 15 or 20 mph and stomp the brakes. That’ll shake it off. And it’s not like the black one is gonna be any more totaled after the shake-off.
When I am waiting for the light to cross a reasonably busy street near me, I always stand behind a light pole. Not a guarantee of safety, but better than being out in the open. I also look.
When my wife was driving my old Saturn she got T-boned like this, and she was the third car through the very green light. The Saturn had a very good car cage - she was a bit sore, but got out of the emergency room in an hour or so. The insurance guy said it was the worst crash he ever saw that someone walked away from.
I bought another Saturn to replace it.
I had a car T-boned while parked - by another parked car. I came out of the library to find another car nosed into the driver side of mine, with nobody in it. My first thought, given that there were both an LCBO liquor store and a Beer Store close by in the same mall, was that the driver was drunk and had staggered off to buy booze after hitting me, and called the police. After they showed up and were talking to me, a woman came over looking puzzled and said that it was her car “but she hadn’t left it there!”
It turned out she had parked, but left the car in Neutral rather than Park, and the slight slope in the parking lot had done the rest. The plastic rubbing strip along the side of my card had a very slight dent, but no other damage.
Years ago, we got dispatched to an MVA w/ injuries. Arrived on scene to find an Itsy-Bitsy 3000GT which is a fairly low sporty car. Seems a deer tried to leap just as the car went by. Almost but not quite making it; hitting top dead center of the windshield, outside of the rear view mirror. The impact caused the windshield to crack & flex in some. Deer fur managed to make it’s way into the cracks but when the windshield flexed back, those cracks closed up tightly, with the fur now a part of the windshield instead of the deer. To this day, it was the only car that I’ve ever seen that needed a shave.
BTW, very minor injuries to the driver but fatal for the deer.
In a thread late last year I recounted a story that demonstrates the truth of your comment, “But any one of those cars could deviate into where you’re standing with just a second’s warning.”
Mark, a workmate, and I were leaving an Indian restaurant having had lunch. As we approached the door I popped some mukhwas into my mouth. The restaurant always has a bowl with a tiny serving spoon by the cash register. It had been my turn to pay so Mark hadn’t been to the counter. He told me to wait and went back to grab himself some. After a short delay we headed off back to the office.
As we approached the traffic lights at the nearby intersection where we would cross the road we heard a bang. We looked ahead to see a car shoot diagonally through the intersection, only a few meters from us, over the place where would have been standing, waiting to cross, had we been seconds earlier. It ploughed straight through the front of the large Greek restaurant on the corner and ended up against the rear wall. Luckily it was closed and no-one was seriously injured. I am 100% certain that we would have been pretty fucked up except for Mark delaying us for those few seconds. We were chatting as we walked along so didn’t see the accident. I assume that one of the cars involved just clipped the car that went through the restaurant because it was still travelling fast when it left the road.
I knew someone who lived off of one of those twisty mountain roads, with a cut on one side and a cliff on the other. She was once hit by a deer that jumped off of the cut and stove in her car roof.
Look out for those flying deer. Insurance companies don’t believe in them. You’ll have to get some of the local folks to vouch for you.
I’ve told the story before but … I’ve had one deer encounter in my life. Which resulted in my truck needing a shave.
Driving a big Bronco. Dusk as I’m going down the offramp from the freeway. Forest on one side, clearing on the other. I see 3-4 deer crossing from the forest ahead, so slow aggressively in case there are more. I’m now doing 20-something when there’s an almighty CLUNK and my truck fishtails a little. Then I see a deer running wobbily away towards where the group had gone. I sure never saw anything before the impact, despite being on high alert for deer.
I stop to inspect the truck. Seems the deer was feeling left out when the group crossed the road without it. So it bolted across the road without looking both ways and went headfirst into my rear quarterpanel & rear tire. This was long enough ago that the truck has chrome decorative strips around the wheel wells. Which of course were mangled, but had several tufts of fur & skin stuck under them.
The best part was the couple of inches of skin and fur trapped between the wheel and tire. Idjit deer hit hard enough to partly unseat the tire off the bead, get skin in there, then the tire rebounded and clamped their hide in the gap.
Truck was driveable, but needed a new quarterpanel, tail light, trim pieces, etc. And a shave.