Luck and biker instincts
I had a horrible experience this afternoon, or more accurately, this evening as I was coming home. I was heading home from Parnell, and I went straight through a roundabout instead of turning left to head up my street so I could turn into the gas station and check tire pressures.
There was a jogger, a woman, fit, slim, and she was heading across the road, obliquely, facing me. I had my lights on, but as I approached her, I suddenly got a bad feeling and hit the brakes, biker instinct and nothing else.
So, instead of looking back to her right to see the road was clear, she ran even harder, and looked down at her feet. So, she stepped out right in front of me, with about 6-8 feet to go. I was already braking, and she looked up, and – this is the truly awful bit, she tripped and fell directly in front of the Mini. I came to a stop, I didn’t feel an impact, and the car behind me ended up screeching to a stop, luckily he managed to avoid hitting me... I pulled off my belt, and did the mental preparation, and as I opened the door, she put her hand on the bonnet, and started to get up.
Turns out I didn’t hit her, but stopped about a foot from her.
She was cut up and grazed, and she was shaking like you wouldn’t believe, and she burst into tears, and started to apologise. I ended up sitting on the side of the road with her for a few minutes, and some other people who had witnessed it couldn’t believe her luck, or that I had managed to stop in time.
Such a close call – I think that was the best piece of driving I have ever done, and I’m sure that it was only the biker instinct that saved her from me running her over…
It’s diametrically opposed to the sanitised existence of the Lemmings around me in the Dilbert Cartoon hell I live in; it’s life at full volume, perfect colour with high resolution and 10,000 watts of amplification.
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