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.

I almost got run over in Westminster but my own stupid fault as I was 7 months pg, stressed out and just stepped in front of a car. I come pretty close to death a few times now. It does stay with you at the time but you get past it. I'm more careful near roads now. Also I'm still amazed at how other people do what I did and just step out in the road without even looking.

I know this will sound daft but play some Tetris or a similar computer game. One that involves moving your eyes left and right. Do it asap for half an hour or so.

why?

There is some evidence that following a traumatic incident (of which being scared you or someone else might die it come to significant harm is one) that doing this can lessen the likelihood of intrusive traumatic images (a symptom if PTSD). Get your DH to do the same.

Also, really look after yourselves over the next few days. You’ve had a big shock.

^ Everything @JohnofWessex says, see previous page.

@EnchantedAutumn Yes, it has happened to me- a speeding car rocketing up a narrow lane in Bristol, I had to pull our dogs to one side otherwise fast they would have been killed.{car mounted pavement} It was driven by a group of men
20 yrs ago, but never forgotten it.

I'm so sorry to hear about what that wicked person did to you, and very glad that he's in prison.

Hope you are doing well.

We were in London one day, walking through an underpass in an area we didn't know. DD4 was running ahead, and we both saw at the same time that she was headed for a flight of stairs. Yelled at her to STOP!!! Which she did, just at the very top of a seriously steep flight of hard stairs.

I don't know if she still remembers, but I do!

I'm so sorry you had this experience. You'll get over it, always remember it, and hopefully convert the shock into a deeper appreciation of life. And the fickleness of it all.

I hope they catch the ass (and that you don't get retraumatised by the process of taking his licence off him for 5 minutes).

I had an awful experience on the A1 last year. I was driving at 60 (the speed limit on that part of the road) and car came from a road in my left, leading from a village, to cross over the A1 at one of those awful parts where you can cross over onto the opposite carriageway, crossing the central reservation to turn right. He just drove right in front of me and I couldn't go anywhere as there was a barrier to my left and a lorry to my right. I literally had to do an emergency stop on the A1. He actually saluted me and just carried on his merry way across the traffic - the car just behind the lorry to my right also had to slam their brakes on. If anything had been driving too close behind me, i would absolutely have been a gonner. So many of us pulled over to check everyone was ok etc. It really shook me up.

The following week someone was killed at that same spot and the turning was permanently blocked.

Years ago as a tube was approaching someone kicked a vending machine that they used to have down on the platform as it wasn’t working and he flew back. He knocked me onto the track and someone caught me literally as a tube was pulling in. No question he saved my life. It would’ve been such a stupid way to die.

A lot of overseas drivers are in cities now, and they don't ''respect'' pedestrians as much as those who have learned to drive in UK.

I have seen old people halfway across a zebra crossing, and a BUS almost take their toes off.

A very good driving instructor I know says it's very alarming what he witnesses on a daily basis, people not knowing the rules of the road.

I'm always amazed but saddened with posts like this. Most of the problems that the combination of cars and people bring could be solved very easily, e.g.

More traffic cops
Compulsory use of black boxes
Banning ultra-bright headlights
Much tougher fines for speeding
More use of 20 mpg zones
Roll out of low emission zones

Etc. But the car lobby can be a noisy and entitled bunch, and so politicians are too scared to stand up to them.

Cars and their drivers cause 1700 deaths a year. Just think about that for just a moment.

My goodness...That was so lucky. He was a guardian Angel in human form. That must have been terrifying, for you and the tube driver.

We experienced similar when I was heavily pregnant with my first child. We were crossing at a light controlled crossing, on the green man. There were two lines of traffic in each direction, the one nearest us was stationary so the lane.next to this couldn't see us.

The light were obviously red but just before we stepped to cross the second line a car sped through missing me, my husband and my son in my belly by a second maybe.

Sorry this happened to you :(

Drivers are idiots and we are mostly drivers too. It’s easy to be distracted and become a idiot! Always look twice when crossing a road, never cross at another person beckoning you, especially a person in a car. I always wait for the cars to stop before I cross, don’t care if I have to press the button and wait again, as drivers can be idiots.
I crossed the road as a teenager without looking and god knows how the car stopped in time, good thing one of us was on the ball!! Pedestrians can be idiots too.

Morale of the story is walk/cross/drive for yourself and others too, people are dicks!

And lifetime bans for killing or seriously injuring pedestrians and cyclists by reckless driving. Driving is not a right, and if people have proved they can’t be trusted to do it safely, they should have to learn to live without it.

Here is a google image of the lane, we were a few metres down it, where the ''D'' of Old Park Hill is..the car came rocketing up.
Had I not been facing the direction the car was in, dogs and I would have been likely killed or seriously injured.

I was nearly knocked down by a speeding biker in central London. I was standing just off the traffic island about to cross when I felt an arm round my waist pull me back just as a lunatic motorbike sped past almost touching my nose. When I turned round to see who pulled me there was no-one there.

Shockingly, something similar has just happened to me today. Speeding car, no indication, no regard to right of way. Something made me step back ...if I hadn't it would have hit me. Pretty shaken up still but like you it's more the "what ifs"
Years ago now a car was driving the wrong way on a dial carriageway and was heading right towards me. I managed to swerve and it just missed me. Somehow my ex blamed me for it.

I had an incident on the car, came around a blind corner on a country lane and some idiot was overtaking so was on the wrong side, my side, I slammed in my brakes and skidded into the other lane, god knows how he missed me! Thankfully the vehicle he was trying to overtake stopped well in advance - I just sat there stunned, drove away and burst into tears at the next lights - awful trip - worst of my life

I’ve been fortunate as a pedestrian that my near misses were not very near iyswim. Mainly drivers running red on crossings. I’ve had closer shaves as a driver and other drivers being muppets. As a relatively new driver I was overtaken by someone doing at least a ton on a dual carriageway, and they lost control just as they were level with me. They bounced off the barriers on both sides of the road several times, fortunately for me I was going so much slower so I could stop before hitting them. Their momentum had carried them on down the road ahead. Their car was trashed but they walked away as the safety features worked.

And then recently in another dual carriageway, there was a traffic jam and I stopped but the car behind didn’t, but they had the presence of mind to swerve and somehow squeezed between my car and the barrier to undertake me. Then stopped and got out to check their bodywork oblivious to everyone around us beeping their horns!

That's horrific.
How can one ever un-see that.

In Macon, France, as a child, we saw a road accident.
A woman looked dead, no seatbelt, slim and young, her long arms in a mustard coloured ribbed jumper, and fair hair hanging sideways out of the driver's seat door.

I hope she wasn't dead, Mum told me not to be so silly when I cried out in horror but I could tell mum was upset, too.

Cannot get the image out of my mind.

Another time, Villefranche Sur Mer, on the station , waiting to get back to the house parents have, and there was a very drunk woman sitting on the tracks right in front of the tunnel., drinking Malibu.

There was not one else about, as that time of day when the French rest.

I shouted constantly and sharply to her to take care! Danger! MOVE in my bad French, hiding my son's face from her in case a TGV came belting through the tunnel.

Thank Goodness she moved before a train came. No way could a driver have stopped in time.

Pic of station and tunnel.

How frightening, OP. I hope it doesn't ruin your evening.

We had a near miss years ago and I still think about often. I was on my way home with DD from somewhere, I can't remember exactly where we'd been but it must have been a party somewhere because it was early hours in the morning. The roads were dead.

DD went to cross a fairly minor road. It was totally empty but I heard sirens in the distance and grabbed her before she stepped out onto the road. I was about to tell her to wait and see where the sirens were coming from when a car sped past. It must've been going over 100 mph. A police car followed behind.

I don't know what made me stop her. I couldn't tell where the sirens were coming from exactly. The road was clear, and we'd just left the main road through town, so common sense would say they were coming from there.

If I hadn't stopped her she would've been killed outright. There is no way she would have survived being hit at such speed. I was shaking for hours afterwards.

It feels awful doesn’t it @EnchantedAutumn.

Am really sorry for those who have lost someone in this way, and those who’ve been left permanently maimed.

I was crossing Piccadilly in York, to go to the Tesco Exoress there. It’s quite a wide road but just one lane each side and no crossings nearby, so you just have to take your chances. One minute the road was empty, the next this utter fucking nutjob boy racer came out of nowhere. Because I had the cheek to be in his way, he actually started speeding up as he drove towards me. He was trying to force me to move faster but I couldn’t because I have an unseen disability.

It was terrifying. I could describe him to you now and it was a couple of years ago. The arrogance of him.

This happened to me when dd was a baby, I was pushing her in a buggy and a speeding car shot towards us, driving the wrong way down a one way street so I wasn’t looking that way . I only just pulled dd away in time and the car missed us by inches. A woman on the pavement went white and almost fainted. I had to sit down and called DH at work to come and get me as I was so shaken up. I still think of it every now and again . It’s shocking and a traumatic thing to happen.
I had another near miss with a lorry when I was on my bike, and that was also very scary but the one above was worse as dd would have been hit too.

It happened to me a couple weeks ago, the driver ran the red as I was starting to cross. It was such a close call the side door grazed me.

I was so shocked/stunned that I couldn’t think to get the plate number, I should have.

Very scary for you, thankfully you are still here and it missed you. It is bound to shake you up, so many what ifs….

My dbro lost his life crossing the road this summer, it’s horrific how life can change in an instant for so many people😢 He should be living his life now, he had so much to look forward to. It’s shit!