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.

Yup , someone ran a red light while I was crossing at a proper pedestrian crossing and just missed me 😱I was really shaken up .
they stopped , looked and drove on , this was years ago and nobody got their reg plate

A House of Commons Committee expressed concern that with the reduction in Police numbers and the chaos in the Courts and Prisons we could end up with a lot of 'On the spot' Justice.

I can imagine a case where someone has injured or worse still killed a child in particular as a result of playing the fool with a car being taken round the corner and given a kicking before the Police arrive - which was often how offenders were dealt with in the past

I had a very similar thing happen to me and my children.
Really, really shocking, took a while to process the fact that the driver floored the car and tried to mow us down.

Hope you are ok and not too shaken

Lots of motorways are so busy that you have slow vehicles in the inside lane, speeding vehicles in the outside and others in the middle. There is often no chance to get into the inside lane. I drove from Scotland to London last weekend and we had exactly that situation for most of the journey south of Preston.

You put some people behind a steering wheel, and it seems their humanity vanishes - they become entitled monsters who only care about getting to their destination as fast as possible. If they hurt and kill people in the process, so be it.

OP I feel so sorry for you. It is so scary and it replays over and over in your mind - all the what ifs . I was driving middle lane down the M27 passing a massive left hand drive lorry, he started indicating, I was obviously in his blind spot and he just kept coming… bashed the side of my car, slammed me into the fast lane as I was furiously trying to steer myself out of hitting the central barrier. Luckily for me the guy behind me saw what was happening and stopped/ slowed down the traffic in the fast lane from hitting me. I had nightmares after. He was on his way to the ferry port and the next day he was off back to Portugal… my insurance company were brilliant and found him and at least it paid for my repairs - my back doors were stoved in. Thank god my daughter wasn’t in her car seat

Shock like that is really impacting, especially in your circumstances. I was hit by a car, luckily going very slowly. But still, day in hospital, and glass being spat out from eyebrow and toes for months after. It led to me quitting a decade long position, to travel, and that eventually led to moving to the other side of the world. You really do re assess life. And that's without your added stress of considering there may have been malicious intent. Just awful for you

Just Thank God you are well and alive . I can imagine how shaken you must have been .

It’s probably worth reporting. The same driver a few streets away may have hit someone. Or a few days later. There maybe CCTV etc.

I once had a near miss where a car driving Towards us on opposite dual carriageway was hit at speed and spun through the air towards us landing on its roof a couple of cars distance in front of us. As I saw the car spinning through the air time slowed down and enabled me to think through options to get out of the car’s trajectory. I was focussing so hard on what to do to save us (me and my 6 year old) but in the end it landed a short distance ahead of us. It was terrifying and shocking. I had traumatic flashbacks for months and was really nervous about driving for a while. But the trauma wore off over time. You are currently processing things which is good to help with the shock but you will be ok. X

I was pushing the pram with my 7 month old in and someone came speeding around the corner and mounted the curb to park outside her house. It's literally a very quiet street that always has children playing. It missed us by about 6 inches. It was so scary.

I've recently started my driving lessons again and I'm definitely noticing more and more people in a rush. We're only allowed to go 45 miles per house while learning and for the first year here in Northern Ireland and people get so annoyed.

Happened to me today on dog walk. I saw the young driver cross a mini roundabout and totally miss that I was crossing. He swerved to miss me and nearly hit the bollards in the road. He had probably accelerated to 40mph as he rocketed across the roundabout. Tbh I’m now used to idiots driving badly and am ready to leap to safety. An old couple driving nearly wiped me and my family out on a zebra crossing last year - I recognised the driver as a local councillor!

It's a big shock, I've had similar many times. Most recently waiting to turn right across a dual carriageway taking my DD to the station. My filter light turned to green, I just started to move, quite slowly given that we were a bit late, and then, in the dark, a car in the fast lane coming the other way went straight through on red at 70mph. If I had accelerated more when my light went green, it would have hit the left side of my car. I needed a G+T when I got home. Sadly I had no way of getting the reg, and when I checked there is no camera on that junction.

I tend to be able to let these things go, but I can imagine some would find it hard. Does this kind of thing give people PTSD-type effects?

So sorry to hear about all of these awful experiences. I hope you feel a bit less shaken now OP.
It’s not just cars either. Once a bike narrowly missed me - partly my fault I will admit as I went to cross between cars.
Another time, another bike - this time entirely his fault as he cycled at speed through a red light in the inside lane of the traffic so I couldn’t see him as he came up at great speed and missed me by a hair’s breadth. I’m beginning to hate crossing the road.

I've reported the pedestrian crossing around the corner from me to the police, I've had three near misses there recently. All when it's on the green man. Cars just speed down there not caring. Twice was just me (one I had to jump out of the way, the other was so close it caught my bag on the wing mirror) and the other was with my DD - she was just ahead of me, and it went straight in front of her. I don't understand it.

I had a close shave with a cyclist at a crossing quite a few years ago. The light was red so I started crossing, but unfortunately the two vehicles at the head of the queue were long, so I couldn't see what was coming. I was literally a couple of inches away from the gap between the two long vehicles when a cyclist came through at great speed, not stopping at the lights. If I had been a few inches further along I would not be here to tell the tale. To this day I am wary using that crossing, making sure I am positioned so that I can see what is coming.

A minivan came around the corner when we were crossing at the crossing and I yanked my dawdling five year old so hard I flung her a few feet away in front of me. The vehicle stopped with its front wheel arch touching my butt. My daughter had been right where the wheel was a bare moment earlier. If I hadn’t been holding her hand she would be crushed. As it was she was crying on the crosswalk her knees all skinned up.

I got her to the other side of the road then my knees went out from under me. I was sobbing and the woman driving got out and a few other women walking their kids to school and we were all in tears. Nobody had any doubt about what had almost happened.

took a couple of days and f being sort of Adrenalin fueled and in shock but it passed. I’m sorry you had a similar experience. It really knocks the breath out of you.

A lot of people have not caught up with the change in law to give people ALREADY in the road the right of way over other traffic. So still a group of drivers that feel they are entitled to 'give you a scare' if they think you should not have been there. But, of course, it is no consolation to you to know that the driver that put you in hospital, or worse, was breaking the law.

As a kid, there was a road & paved bridge over a railway and a big grass verge that dropped down one side. Kids played on this grass verge frequently. We rode our bikes, scooters, go carts, sledges down it. We loved it. There was a metal boundary that separated the paved side from the grass side. Kids would use this metal boundary to balance/swing off as well.

One day, my friends and I took a go cart to this grass verge and while they rode it down the verge I played gymnastics off the metal boundary bar, hanging upside down and swinging about. Just as I did a flip over the bar my head swung out onto the paved side, and a motorbike flew by at about 70mph on the pavement and missed my head by a fucking cats whisker. Then a police car flew by.

Turns out the bike was stolen and this was a police chase. The biker was trying to shake off the police by going down the railway tracks, so mounted the pavement on the bridge, then rode it down the grass verge.

He mounted the pavement just as I'd done me little monkey flip over the metal boundary and swung out. Had I swung out any further at that point, that motorbike thief would've decapitated me. The momentum of the swing meant I couldn't drag myself back quick enough. I remember that split second of swinging out and seeing this motorbike speeding towards my face on the pavement and thinking "shit, I'm done for" and then it JUST missed me. The chase continued without anyone glancing back to check I was still intact.

I get the shock OP. I didn't do any monkey swings off those bars ever again, even though that situation was very much out of the ordinary and likely to ever happen again. Near misses leave you very shaken.

In the summer i was driving up north when i came to a village where I had to slow down to 50mph. I was just coming through to the end of the village when i was aware that a car coming towards me had crossed the white line in the middle of the road.i managed to swerve on to the side of the verge and how he missed me, i dont know, I was waiting for the bang.
Lots went through my mind. I wondered if he was joking or trying to scare me but i think he was distracted. I did wonder what the car behind me thought.

I live in a town like that. I see so much cuntish behaviour from motorists, especially at rush hour, that it makes my blood boil. Crossing the road with DS in his pram when someone ran a red light only to get stuck behind more traffic. I need a pram cam to film the bastards. The high street here is all roads, whereas before I lived somewhere it was pedestrianised, which was much nicer!

So what about some political action?

Write to your MP about traffic enforcement

Even things like towing pavement parkers away has an impact, so why dont we do it?

“Has this ever happened to anyone else? It was so, so close it has really knocked me”

OP, when my DD was about five, I was crossing the road with her and my twins, who were in a double buggy. We waited at a crossing for the green man, and started to cross the road - my DD was just in front of us, when a lorry skipped the lights and missed her by a fagpaper. My DD is now in her thirties, but it’s one of the things that can still get me all hot and bothered at three in the morning. We were lucky, but it could so easily have been otherwise - I think the lorry driver just hadn’t seen the lights.

Happened in my village just before Christmas. 90 year old waiting to cross the exit to a petrol station, the car stopped to let him cross, half way there, the driver put her foot down and he was knocked to the ground. Driver leant out of window and said are you OK love then drove off. Another person witnessed it all but didn't get registration. This lovely man went from a familiar village figure, socialising and dancing at our pub, to being dead 10 days later.😪

garages usually get the numbers of every car that goes onto their forecourts?

To be fair it is not clear she was hogging the middle lane. She might have been intending to overtake the HGV before it struck the car in the middle lane. It sounds to me as though she was in a train of vehicles intending to overtake the HGV and the HGV driver carelessly pulled out into the car in front which was overtaking at the time.

I know what you mean about middle lane hoggers. When I travelled to visit family on Christmas Eve, I rented the inside lane of the M62 in advance. When I joined the M62 from the M6 heading towards Manchester, all the drivers were respecting my temporary ownership of the inside lane as they were all trundling along in lanes 2,3 and 4 at 60-65 mph whilst I was cruising past them at a steady 70 mph with no traffic ahead of me.