Kbear's campaign for pavement safety - don't laugh... join me.

[KBear]

I am about to rant.

Three times in the last two weeks, me and my children have almost been hit by cars reversing from driveways.

Once DS was literally an inch away from being hit by the car and if he hadn't stopped in time the car would have hit him. The woman got in the car, put it in reverse and zoomed backwards without looking.

Of course I went mental (in a dignified manner of course!) - she ignored me and drove off.

Happened again the following week and today a woman reversed off her drive in her big wagon of a car (and it's not about 4x4s this thread but...) across the pavement two feet in front of us. Her car windows were completely misted up, she had no idea we were there and luckily we had stopped in time.

I knocked on her side window, she wound it down and I said "if you had cleared your windows you might not have nearly hit me and my children on the pavement when you reversed". She shrugged and carried on.

I'm trying not to swear here but Effing hell, I'm scared to let my kids run along the pavement being trains or horses or whatever they want to be. We walk to school the quiet way not the noisy way so they can run ahead a few yards quite safely but it seems they're not safe and now they have to walk alongside me.

They are 6 and 4 and should be able to run along the pavement right?

Before I start a nationwide campaign , please join me in taking it easy and be vigilant coming off your drive onto the road. Pass it on - before a child gets killed.

Also hate the lazy, selfish tw@@s who park ON pavements meaning that mum's, prams, kiddies, oap's have to risk life and limb in the road

I absolutely agree with you.

Earlier this year we had the most extraordinary near miss. A woman was trying to get out of an awkward driveway, forwards, and we stopped to let her out. She was struggling and started scraping her passenger-side door on the wall, but instead of reversing and trying again, she looked at us, saw we were there, and drove on - knocking the wall over! Fortunately I saw it start to bulge and dragged ds and the buggy with dd in it backwards a couple of yards, as the wall fell right were we had been standing. The woman just drove off without a second glance. Bizarre.

OMG pretty candels that is bizarre

PrettyCandles - glad none of you were hit by the wall and I hope she had to pay a fortune to get her car repaired!

I agree with you KBear, its the same problem where I live. I can't let DD 6 and DS 3 walk ahead of me as there are so many idiotic drivers about. One almost hit DS on Friday, they were driving into a drive to park their car. It wasn't even their drive but an entrance to a warehouse. It just meant they could park there and not get a ticket on the yellow line.
Luckily I saw them and they did do an emergency stop but it could have been too late if DS was a few more steps ahead. It really made me angry and the driver didn't even have the decency to appologise, instead he sat in his car until we had passed and then got out.

Scary - some people don't think (or only think about their own little world). Glad you are all OK.

I also think those flourescent arm band things are a great idea as the mornings & evenings are now getting darker

There I am teaching them the green cross code with the added bit of "and always check before running past a drive way that a car isn't about to drive off it". Most houses these days have off street parking don't they, it's impossible to avoid it but I am on a mission to highlight this.

The first time it happened DS was being a train - chuffing up the road! He was three houses in front of me. If he hadn't stopped in time the driver wouldn't have. I felt cold all day thinking about it.

You shoudl have stickers made up and everytime you see one of these 'reversers' wallop the side of the car with a sticker !

"Reckless Reverser"

Although you may get done for criminal damage, so maybe not !?