Someone just very nearly killed me.

[EnchantedAutumn]

I haven't had such an experience before, and feel quite shaken.

We were out walking early this afternoon along the canal side. At a road bridge we stood at the crossing and waited for the traffic to stop to allow us to pass.

Half way over the crossing a vehicle sped up from the other side and missed me by about an inch. We were extremely visible and there were no large vehicles blocking the driver's view. Very few cars about actually.

This was so quick and it was almost speeding, so extremely shocking. Other drivers stopped and asked me was I ok, whilst DH spun around like a drama queen very very angry, whilst I tried to catch the registration - sadly could not get it all.
Dh was so upset, although I felt a little numb. I saw it as a very lucky thing to still be alive, but also angry that someone could change or end my life so brutally and easily in a fraction of a second.
I choose to presume that the driver was distracted, rather than happy to slaughter me, but it still feels so shocking.

Has this ever happened to anyone else? It was so, so close it has really knocked me. I doubt I would have survived had it hit me.
A sudden shock like this is probably common, and yet the idea of my life changing suddenly due to disease or accident feels easier to bear than someone just casually mowing me over.

If something similar has happened to you, how did you process it? I feel much better a few hours later, but still really weird.

It is worth mentioning, remain careful. Both whilst driving and walking.

There's no point getting the numberplate, police aren't interested if it's not caught on film.

Ive got dashcam & know plenty who have helmet xmas due to many bad drivers

I had a few near misses on roundabouts, where drivers entered the roundabouts without looking forcing me to take direct action to prevent from hitting their vehicle - so I got a dash cam fitted.

I was also witness to a crash where the drivers moved her car backwards but then took photographs to show to the insurance and wouldn't let people move the debris..... the poor young girl who had been hit was given telephone numbers by several of us

I'm sorry to hear of your near miss, it must've been terrifying, I'm glad you're OK. Personally the ones that stick out for me are the time I was cycling along a road and a car pulled out from a junction without looking and drove straight into me, one minute I was on her bonnet and the next in the middle of the road, as she going very slowly I only had minor bruises but I've never cycled since. The other was driving along a motorway and suddenly encountering a child's playhouse in the middle lane (it must've dropped off the back of a lorry somehow?) I don't know how we avoided it, but we did. Maggie O'Farrell's book I am, I am, I am, seventeen brushes with death is an incredible memoir and really makes you think about how precious life is.

I'm so sorry to hear these reports, the idea that people in vehicles just 'don't see pedestrians' is astonishing.

It's that 'fraction of a second' that gets to you I think.
I recall a story from years ago about a teenage girl who dove into a swimming pool at a party after college and broke her neck and back. I think she eventually chose assisted dying. Very upsetting. It really stayed with me, we just never know......life changed in an instant.

My experience has definitely prodded me to be extra, extra vigilant. I think we just have to live with those uncertainties, awful though they are.

This happened to my child when he was three.

my relative was driven over by a driver on the pavement at this age, my mum taught me to always put children on the inside of the pavement to protect them

Yes

Except I was actually hit at 50mph (in a 30mph limit)
The car was written off

I am still alive (Thanks to the amazing NHS, skillful Drs, a month in hospital, a year on crutches, and 4 operations)

Car: written off / Me: lives another day

(Driver: shocked etc but he didn't do it on purpose, and I forgive him for his mistake, focusing on how lucky I am to still be alive (rather than dead as the stats suggest I should be))

Just seen an extra 2 pages of comments I missed, will catch up now.

A similar thing happened to me 20 years ago when my dd was a baby. I was crossing at a zebra crossing. A stopped and I walked across half the road when a car behind the one who had stopped decided to overtake and sped past. It touched the corner of the pram but my dd was thankfully OK. The man who had stopped came out to check on us but I acted like I was totally fine. It probably took me an hour or so to realise how close it was. It was a weird and delayed reaction.

Your exact situation was unusual, but endangering pedestrians and going through red lights deliberately isn't rare, unfortunately.

I was put in extreme danger over the years a few times by careless motorists. One of the most recent ones involved a 4 x 4 driver who I swear locked eyes with me, looked angry, and sped past me so close that I had to flatten myself into the hedge to make sure I wasn't hit.

Why you on earth would you call your husband a drama queen though when he was as shaken to see this as you were??

That's awful. I would make my children walk on the inside of a small pavement. This time we were on the actual road though, and the driver just sped through, not stopping. In fact actually making the decision to drive and speed up as he'd not even been moving when the green man came on.

Years ago I was nearly hit while walking on the pavement. It was a narrow road so most people parked slightly on the pavement. It was daylight, no reason this lady couldn't or wouldn't have seen me on the pavement before she tried to park right where I was standing. I had to jump out of the way, it was really scary. I might have forgotten it but not long later this same lady drove off a road with a very steep drop and died. She shouldn't have been on the road at all.

A bit of a tangent, but a true story of mine.

Back in the 70's an uncle of mine accidentally hit a small child, sadly decapitating her. It royally messed up his life, as you can imagine, and he never could come to terms with it (understandable).

Decades later he was killed in a traffic accident via decapitation.
His wife, my aunt (who was divorced from him at that point) always believed it was karma. I though that was a terrible thing to say, but I don't think she ever got over it either.
Accidents affect so many lives, it is like they spiral outwards

My humour, really. It's how I deal with things. In retrospect he was flailing about and very shocked. He is a bit of a drama queen generally, but in a funny way, not serious.
In reality I was somewhat more angered by the driver for how hurt and panicked DH looked than what had almost happened to myself.

My Wilf is profoundly deaf... A few years ago he looked left and right went to cross the road and a car came flying round the corner pursued by two police cars with sirens which he couldn't hear... Scared him half to death!!

Not the same, but I was driving on Boxing Day and had a near miss. I was doing about 50mph on an A road when some twat pulled out of a side road just in front of me and turned right, crossing my path. She left less than half the time/ distance she should have (presumably not looking) and I have absolutely no idea how I avoided a high speed car crash. Not sure if the shock has even caught up with me, but after a day or two, it became evident that I'd injured my ankle. I've almost passed out from the pain a few times. Went to A&E on Sunday - I've bloody-marvellously torn some tendons. I'm now in a boot and hobbling about on crutches, while the other driver is presumably oblivious.

I see this all the time. People have to slow down to enter my village (which is one straight road through). As soon as many of them slow down, they whip their phones out because they can't stand the 2-3 minutes they have to spend driving through without looking at their phones it seems.

@EnchantedAutumn What type of car was it?

I was walking the dog along one of our narrow lanes with no footpath. A small red hatchback came whizzing along and drove straight at me. Leapt in the base of the hedge with the dog underneath me. Really shaken up. Did some detective work later, as only one lot of houses he could have come from, then reported the moron on Crimestoppers.

I was cycling with some friends. We stopped at a red light at a junction. When it turned green we set off a car from the right went through their red light and missed me and some of the others by less than 1 metre

I just can't recall. Small, light coloured. I can't even recall the 4 digits of reg that I memorised earlier. It just all happened so fast.

I had a similar but less dramatic experience on a small street in Keswick a few months ago, but the vehicle was at least driving sensibly. Of that incident I can only recall that the car was large and dark.

I think it depends where attention goes at the time, mine was immediately fixated on the reg, and DH was shouting,so angry and upset. A few other people wound a window down and said they were shocked/appalled, were we ok, etc.
I suppose these distractions, in a matter of seconds just knocked the memory of it off a bit.

Myself and two other mothers were walking into school to collect are DC when a parent that continually park in the school car park was yet again told to leave as no parent cars were permitted on school grounds came down the drive in such a fury that they skidded sideways and came full pelt at us.
Fortunately we all ran the same way, all be it landed in a heap but it scared the life out of us.

I’m so sorry this happened to you

friends child no more than 5 was killed on a zebra crossing. He came at speed and dragged said child for about a mile whilst the mother was screaming. This was over 15 years ago and he the bastard tried to blamed my friend and her child.

he got 7 years and appealed it to try and reduce his sentence. Friend was furious with the first sentence never mind him appealing to reduce it.

His family threatened her as well because she’d ruined his life. I was speechless when she told me that. She had to move from the area because of it all.

Can you edit your post about your uncle and the child? It's very detailed. You could say he hit her in the car, but omit the other details. It's so graphic and probably quite identifiable.

Similar happened to me. 3 lanes of traffic and it was on red light / green man. Someone came speeding through just as I'd crossed. They had the audacity to beep their horn at me

Small town, quiet street.
I was maybe 9, playing with the kids down the street and the ball went into the street - I ran after it. A car driving too fast slammed on their brakes almost hitting me.
It was my dad.
He made me write “I will not run into the street” 100 times.
He was not punished.

lets look at the figures

There are about 600 homicides a year in the UK, todays Guardian has a feature on women killed by men and Knife Crime is a political hot potato.

By comparison there are about 1700 Road deaths.

Road deaths have dropped by about 50% over the last few decades however that fall has stopped - why?

We have lost about 20000 Police Officers and 'traffic policing' is not a priority.

This is despite the fact that the number of vehicles on the roads has doubles since 1990 and Traffic Officers are some of the most 'productive' in terms od non traffic related arrests.

There is a big hoo-haa in Bath at the moment about the installation of 'anti terrorist' road barriers, however looking at the stats you are about 5 times as likley to be killed on the pavement by a vehicle than you are by a terrorist act.

Might I pose the question, why dont we see the local boy racers face down on the ground with armed officers standing over them, guns drawn and safety catch off?

I live in a suburban side road near a school and a park, yet despite that there are those who use it as a race track. Why don't they get the same treatment as a kiddy fiddler?

The reason is that we are willing to allow machines to be prioritised over humans.

Clearly if playing the fool in a car, be it parking on the pavement, ignoring the rules if the road or fitting a pop pop exhaust meant losing your driving licence not finding it easy to get it back and a long time in jail for driving when banned things might change

BUT that means taking on the Jeremy Clarksons of this world which Politicians dont have the balls to do - look at what happened over the Welsh 20 mph limits with petitions drawn up against it full of signatures from - The North East of England!