Children running out into the road..

Prophet

Prophet

Prophet

Soldato
Joined
5 Oct 2004
Posts
7,395
Location
Notts
On Saturday I was leaving my house to visit a friend when the following happened.

Pulled away from my drive and started to get up to speed (30 limit) on my estate. There were quite a few cars parked and as the road narrows near my house I tend to stay around 20MPH. As the road straightened I noticed two women talking on the left hand pavement about 30 meters away (big deal right) anway, at the same time a young girl, I'd guess at being 7 or 8 years old runs out from in between two cars parked on the right over to her mother? on the other side. I hit the brakes and stopped around 5 meters from where she had been and looked over to the women who were both shouting at me! One was waving her arms in a 'slow down' motion and the other was shaking her head like she wanted it to fall off!

As I drove past the two women were still so disguseted by my lack of perception or driving skill that they continued to shout abuse at me.

Now, if I was speeding, driving dangerously or worst case hit the child I'd have understood their reaction, however for someone to be driving under the speed, limit taking care and stopping well clear I would have though they would be more thankful.

I guess at the end of the day I'm thankful I didn't hit the girl although a second or two later and I would have!
 
Chav filth by any chance? Think there always in the right.

I would have stopped and told her that shes lucky her kid aint through my windscreen because of bad parenting, then got in the car before she attacked it or something.
 
anticonscience said:
20 still seems excessive considering the conditions you describe.
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Well as you don't know the road you'll just have to take my word for it.

edit. When I say 'narrows' it's still wide enough to get a bus and car to pass each other with cars parked on one side.


D-Ranged said:
Chav filth by any chance? Think there always in the right.

I would have stopped and told her that shes lucky her kid aint through my windscreen because of bad parenting, then got in the car before she attacked it or something.
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Not in this case. They looked pretty normal. The girl was wearing her school uniform and didn't look scruffy as they normally do.
 
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This happened to my friend last week, accelerated to 20 in a town area/one way system. He's got an old mini so it's quite loud.
Some lady with a pram just crossed right infront without looking, friend slowed, she moved back and began gesturing abuse. To these people it seems noise = high velocity.

This is a problem with people, they don't look when they cross the road, a simple action of turning your neck/eyes and looking at the road.

See, if you hit the kid you'd have probably had some hefty action taken against you. I say this again and again but nobody thinks about the driver, their life from this point on. It's always "poor sod who got hit", driver must have been speeding!

There are certain circumstances in which physics make it an impossability for you to stop in time when someone jumps infront of you car, then it's the pedestrians entire fault. But nobody sees it this way.

Maybe I'm a bit harsh but I seriously cannot sympathise with idiots who get themselves into an accident and potentially ruin other peoples lives, like what could have happened here.

I've been witness to this now almost three times, personally once and twice as a passenger. Some people literally dart infront of cars. Even posted about it - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14726148&postcount=85
 
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anticonscience said:
20 still seems excessive considering the conditions you describe.
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The road is for cars not for children to be running around on. It's the parents responsibility to look after their child and to teach them how to cross the road correctly. Driver didn't do anything wrong here and the little girl was lucky he was concentrating.
 
Just so happens google maps shows pretty much how things were on the day.

Red star is the girl, green is the women and the red car just below would be me stopped.

map.jpg
 
to me if you managed to stop in time when somebody ran out in front of you unexpectedly that says to me you wernet going too fast.

As already pointed out, theres no rhyme or reason for this. Just chav scum who are always in the right. Like the other day when i had to do a 3 point turn in the middle of the main road. THe road was clear both ways, but comming towards me was a car approx 200 metres away. By the time he reached me i had complete my manovre and was just setting off doing approximately 5mph. Anyway, despite the fact he'd seen me initiate the manovre from 200 metres away, he still raced up to the back of me, refused to brake and then just pulled a really sharp overtake on me whilst giving me rude hand gestures.

He'd seen me pull the manovre from 200 metres away and had plenty of time to react and slow down, instead he reacted by speeding up and abusing me.
 
I've hit a kid before, or rather a kid hit me, was a while back now in my old Civic (I swear that car was cursed) and infact was the day of the London bombings.

Dropped my mum off at the hospital to collect a prescription, rather than be clobbered for car parking I thought I'd drive round the block...

Turned left at some traffic lights down a fairly main, but residential type road, traffic building up in the opposite direction for the lights, had barely got into second gear at 15-20mph, slowing down for a traffic calming thing and all of a sudden THUD! A little boy, I guess about 5 or 6 years old had run into the side of my car from the back of the built up traffic. My car was quite clean at the time so very little evidence to suggest where he hit the car, the traffic cops eventually found a small graze on the door and along with witnesses in the other cars who said his mum just wasn't keeping an eye on him, with one woman saying "I was sat there with my husband saying that boy's gonna get hurt if he carries on like that...", I was found not to be at fault much to my relief (was so much shock about what happened it took me a while to logically think about what had happened). Found out later that the boy broke his leg from it.

Was also extremely naive in the situation which makes me laugh now, went into this woman's house right next to where it happened, gave me a drink of water to calm myself down, then was led into the back of the traffic car just to be breathalised "have you had anything to drink recently?" "errm, I've just had a glass of water!!" :D

Shook me up for a little while that experience did though, said to my mum she could forget any more lifts from me :p

edit: Happened literally where this silver Mazda is: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=kempston&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=16.5235,46.450195&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Kempston,+Bedford,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.123668,-0.484729&spn=0,0.01134&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=52.123593,-0.484677&panoid=n86pe0OQVU38MxSLCNJang&cbp=12,156.66,,0,16.11
 
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It's a problem Orange Peel, abuse from idiots assuming that the motorist is always in the wrong, forgetting the fact that their retarded child seems to have suicidal tendencies. All I can suggest is that you keep an A2 sized ':rolleyes:' in your car at all times, and wave it out the window at the idiots should the same thing happen again.
 
I too hate how people always assume it is the driver's fault.

It'd be even worse if you were a young guy, driving a fairly powerful car....

...great.
 
One of my potential worst nightmares when out in any vehicle, but especially something as difficult to emergency stop than a fully freighted articulated truck.

The OP has my sympathy, but I feel he is in the right, he managed to stop.


The "what if" aspect is varied, thankfully its only "what if".
 
Count yourself lucky, my 07 Hornet was written off last year thanks to a little darling who though running out from behind a bus was pefectly safe on the Uxbridge road (seperate bus lane).

The mother was trying to say it was my fault to the police when they arrived.....thankfully they didn't buy that story
 
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