To think it is 100% this runner’s fault that I almost hit him?!

[AngeloMysterioso]

On my way to pick DS2 up from nursery with DS1 and DS3 up, around 20 past 5 so it’s already dark. There’s a queue to turn at a T junction and a small cul-de-sac on the left so I’d stopped just before the cul-de-sac to let people out/in. A few cars have pulled out so I’m slowly moving forward after checking mirrors when a runner goes diagonally across the road from behind my right, directly in front of another car going the other way and then in front of my car and I have to stamp on my brake so I don’t hit him. He is wearing:

• trainers- I didn’t see what colour but they definitely weren’t white or anything particularly bright or visible
• black running leggings and shorts
• a dark green long sleeved tshirt
• black gloves
• a dark grey beanie
• literally no bright or reflective items of clothing or accessories whatsoever.

After narrowly avoiding him I beeped my horn, at which point he turned around, swore at me and carried on running. I saw him running up and then around the corner, and further down that road I witnessed him running straight across a zebra crossing without pausing at all to make sure there were no cars approaching.

I didn’t hit him. But AIBU to think if I had, it would not have been my fault, given that he was wearing dark clothing and nothing reflective so he was barely visible, and ran straight in front of my car? I mean how fucking stupid can you be?

Actually where I am, the teens/school children behave better than the adults! I drive past our local schools multiple times a day and the kids always stop and look, wait before crossing and say thank you when they do cross.

It's the adults who have their faces buried in their phones or who are too distracted by chatting to someone over the road who just wander into the road with no regard for anyone else!

‘Whereas the pedestrian guidance is just that. There’s no MUST.’ @Runssometimes really?

What about these:

Rules for pedestrians (1 to 35)

6
Motorways. Pedestrians MUST NOT be on motorways or slip roads except in an emergency (see Rule 271 and Rule 275).
Laws RTRA sect 17, MT(E&W)R 1982 as amended, reg 15(1)(b) & MT(S)R reg 13

16
Moving vehicles. You MUST NOT get onto or hold onto a moving vehicle.
Law RTA 1988 sect 26

18
At all crossings. When using any type of crossing you should

• always check that the traffic has stopped before you start to cross or push a pram onto a crossing
• always cross between the studs or over the zebra markings. Do not cross at the side of the crossing or on the zig-zag lines, as it can be dangerous.

You MUST NOT loiter on any type of crossing. Laws ZPPPCRGD reg 19 & RTRA sect 25(5)

34
Railway level crossings. You MUST NOT cross or pass a stop line when the red lights show, (including a red pedestrian figure).

Sure. The runner, and all pedestrians, as well as cyclists, would be wise to wear bright clothing and to behave predictability (though you'd be amazed at the vitriol that attracted in a recent anti-cyclist rant on FB!). I disagree that that absolves the OP of responsibility, and hers is the greater responsibility of the two. The OP and various other commentators here - perhaps you included - seem unaware of that. Odd.

You and the driving instructor are absolutely right that arguing about responsibility means nothing in the face of a disaster, which makes it all the more peculiar that the OP has taken the trouble to come to MN to do just that.

Maybe I'm doing her an injustice. Maybe she secretly does recognise that she definitely does bear some responsibility in this incident and has come here looking for support to absolve herself of the guilt - who knows? 🤷🏼‍♀️

... or you can go to the trouble to come to MN to shout about how you nearly hit somebody in your 2 ton machine because your weren't paying sufficient attention to the possibility of the unexpected (would the OP have been as smug if it had been a child?), but that won't help when you go home to tell your family that you ran somebody over.

I'm not saying the runner didn't behave stupidly, but I am saying the OP behaved irresponsibly, and her trying to claim 100% innocence deserves condemnation.

The driver may have the greater responsibility, but that is a responsibility to ensure they are taking all reasonable precautions in the particular circumstances at that time. It doesn't mean that they will always bear at least some of the responsibility, if they've taken all the precautions and the other party has taken none.

I suspect OP knows that she could very easily have killed this bloke and got a bloody massive fright when he just appeared in front of her.

I don't think she came on here to try and victimise the runner as such, more that she knows she had a near miss and was trying to make herself feel a bit less shaken up about the whole thing.

EDIT: I know the title says she thinks the runner was 100% at fault but I think many people react the way she did when they've had a near miss like that. It's the shock talking.

@ImustLearn2Cook well yes, I know about those ones but honestly how many times have you seen a pedestrian on a motorway? Or someone hanging off the back of a truck or standing having a chat in the middle of a crossing. It’s not common and whilst I did inaccurately say there’s no must I was referring more to the bright clothing and crossings. No sane person would expect a driver to bear responsibility in the first two examples. And I think a driver would be within their rights to sound their horn at someone standing on a crossing assuming it wasn’t obvious there were other factors at play.
i was making the point simply based on the examples this thread has mostly included.

There’s crappy drivers, and there’s crappy cyclists and pedestrians. If a runner in dark clothing at night suddenly appears out of your blind spot and darts in front of you because they’re inconsiderate and irresponsible then apart from being clairvoyant and having a swivel neck like an owl (as some posters here, who can’t have read the OP properly, seem to believe all drivers should have.) then it’s asking for trouble. There is an infamous runner around here who insists on always running in the road. At one point they made the local paper because they’d refused to get out of the way of a fire appliance on full blues and twos. My DP has just gone out running, even though it’s daylight he’s wearing a dayglo running mac with reflective dots all over it.
Yes, yes…it’s the vehicle driver who has the main responsibility towards other, more vulnerable road users, but there are limits. It’s not a carte blanche for those more vulnerable road users to make things more difficult by scuttling about like a bloody ninja in the dark. It’s called being responsible for yourself.
I don’t drive because I have poor peripheral and night vision, as well as slow light adjustment. It does make me a very careful pedestrian.

Yes, yes…it’s the vehicle driver who has the main responsibility towards other, more vulnerable road users, but there are limits. It’s not a carte blanche for those more vulnerable road users to make things more difficult by scuttling about like a bloody ninja in the dark. It’s called being responsible for yourself.

Yes, exactly. Pedestrians don't get to just do whatever they like and think they don't bear any responsibility in the event of a crash.

Please read the second paragraph of my post again.

I think you are missing the point many of us are making. There is an example of a few posts back of a runner who was killed but the driver was not charged. I can think of many similar examples. I looked after an 18 year old who had been hit my a car on an unlit road at night. I remember talking to his mum about his chances of survival, low, and that even if he did survive his catastrophic head injury meant he would need full time care for the rest of his life. The driver wasn't charged and the boy died. Do you think it would have comforted his mum if I'd said but it's OK the driver is going to prison? In another cruel twist of fate the driver was a colleague of the boy he hit. Do you think he will ever get over that?

The law can act as a deterrent and a punishment but it can't bring people back to life. Relying exclusively on drivers to anticipate the unpredictable behaviour of other users will just result in more injury and deaths which is why placing so much emphasis on driver responsibility is dangerous.

If you hit him you would be at fault as far as insurance goes and likely he’d get a PI pay out. Had similar with a cyclist many years ago. Wearing dark clothes. Was dark. No limits on him. The insurances assessor actually came out to see me to get details (before internet days) and asked if the reason I hit hi was because I couldn’t see him. I said it was. And then he asked ‘do you usually hit people you can’t see!?’ What a leading question if ever there was one. I’d never hit anyone before so basically said no. But when it comes to car versus pedestrian or car versus cyclist the car is always at fault.

The point is, if you wear hi vis you are reducing the risk of someone not seeing you at all, or more likely in plenty of time. Yes people still get hit. But it reduces the risk. Why is this so difficult to accept?

Yes. If you go out in a public highway you take care, whether you're in a four wheel tin box, on a two wheel bike or on your two feet.

For pedestrians that means looking where you are going, not wearing headphones or looking at your phone, and MAKING YOURSELF VISIBLE.

I am really shaking my head at all the people on here who think it's terrible that they should do anything to help themselves avoid trouble.

Yes, I read your second paragraph and actually people have said (maybe you - I've lost track of who said what!) that people can't be expected to look in all their mirrors when driving, implying that they don't have a responsive to know what's going on in their periphery.

But I'm not really sure of the point you're trying to make, in relation to what I have said. If you read what I have said you'll note that I did say that the runner acted stupidly and I have not said that he should have relied exclusively on the driver anticipating his actions. Nor have I suggested the driver should go to jail, or that she would have got over it had she hit him so I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make.

Again, the circumstances in the example given earlier where the driver was exonerated were very different. It was totally dark - no car or street lights and the the driver was not driving at a crawling speed, or moving off from a standstill.

My comments are in response to the OP's assertion that the runner was 100% to blame, which by extention means she accepts no responsibility at all. She's wrong. For the final time of saying it, both bear responsibility. The runner in those circumstances was responsible for his own safety and clearly didn't pay much attention to it. But the driver of the 2 ton killing machine bears a greater responsibility to be aware of what is going on around them and, in particular, of more vulnerable people on the road. There's a reason why when we learn to drive we are taught to be alert to the unexpected.

I am really shaking my head at all the people on here who think it's terrible that they should do anything to help themselves avoid trouble.

I'm more worried that some of them may have responsibility for teaching children about road safety. Can you imagine, "the light is green you, can cross now, if the approaching car doesn't stop the driver will get into trouble".

When posters claim that advocating for personal responsibility is "victim blaming" I'm so grateful that my parents were more pragmatic.

Pupinskipops

I see you've shared your personal brand of educating people on another driving thread and had multiple deletions, I won't engage further because I think you are being a GF.

Yes, I read your second paragraph and actually people have said (maybe you - I've lost track of who said what!) that people can't be expected to look in all their mirrors when driving, implying that they don't have a responsive to know what's going on in their periphery.

I sort of said that, though not exactly what you say. What I DID say was that drivers can't be expected to look in all their mirrors all the time, as it's physically impossible to do so. We can look in one mirror at a time, plus we can peripherally see what's going on in front of the car when looking at the rear view mirror. What we can't do is be looking at all our mirrors at the same time, or flicking our gaze through each one so quickly that we don't have time to register what we are seeing.

Think about this next time you are driving, and see if you are capable of observing and registering every single thing all around you at all times.

Yanbu. Women should also not wear short skirts or attractive clothing in case they get raped. It's always the victim's fault if something bad happens to them

I try to only cross most roads at a crossing unless they are very quiet backstreets l. I always politely wave to thank the waiting drivers.

The problem where I live is that drivers will just continue to drive through the zebra crossings if pedestrians just stand politely at the side. And you will find plenty of other threads where people are told they must be on the crossing or cars don't have to stop.

But if you go out on to a crossing expecting drivers to be reading the road and driving within the speed limit so they can stop before hitting you, that's entitled according to a lot on this thread.

Recently, I've had drivers come through red lights whilst pedestrians were crossing at a pelican crossing, in one case the driver sped up as they approached the lights and I had to run back to the pavement. Is it entitled to expect drivers to stop at red lights now too?

did your parents tell you not to go out after dark or wear provocative clothing as it might cause trouble for you

Please grow up. Behaving recklessly as a pedestrian is not the same as just going about my life wearing what I like.

This might be unpopular on Mumsnet but mothers in 4x4s on school runs have been highlighted as dangerous drivers on radio shows going back many years.

Most fathers would not let their 16 and under daughters be under or skimpily dressed leaving the house at night- I shouldn't imagine the daughter in protest would call her father a misogynist or any other variant from the Fem movement

Not only is that the most ridiculous false equivalence, it’s also grossly offensive to rape and SA victims, of which I am one.

I'm not sure how common these traffic lights are, but there's a set near me around a river Thames bridge junction where the green signal varies according to if a pedestrian has pressed the button at a crossing. If the button's not pressed then when the lights change the green signal is as normal, but if it's pressed it's a green arrow to signal cars can go straight but they can't turn through the crossing. The crossing has a countdown when it times out the green arrow changes to the usual signal. I see maybe 1 in 10 drivers either misunderstand the green arrow signal or ignore it and drive through the crossing with pedestrians still on it albeit at low speed because theyre turning. Most times a number of cars will also be honking for the front car to move when it can't because they want to turn and the crossing's in use. Every time I use that crossing I'm literally holding my breath wondering if the car at the corner or a cyclist is going to turn into me.