I had a horrible incident occur this morning on my way to work. I'm in a bit of shock still so it helps to let off the steam. First off, no one was killed, but I hit 2 jay walking pedestrians on my way into the office today.

I work of Connecticut ave in Dc. Was about 50 meters from my garage entrance. Connecticut has 3 lanes of traffic. It was a red light. As I approached the intersection, the two left lanes had stopped. I was in the middle lane. the far right lane is usually obstructed by parked cars-this same right lane leads to the eventual entrance to my garage. the actual red light and interscetion is maybe 30 feet in front of all of this (with crosswalk). In the middle lane is an SUV, in the far left, a wagon. I'm going maybe 10 mph at this point. As I approached the intersection slowly, the right lane which leads to my garage is open, so I change from middle to left-slowly passing by the suv which is in the middle lane. Then, all of a sudden, from in front of the suv comes 2 young girls, approx 10-12 years old, in full sprint. they were far from the crosswalk and jaywalking.

i slammed on my brakes enough to chirp the tires, but it was not in time, one girl rode up on my left fender and the other one slammed into my left front wheel, and side view mirror. They both hit the ground. I was in total shock-got out, one had gotten up and seemed okay but dazed, the other was still on the ground and we helped her up-both conscious. I said maybe 10 times if they were okay and they explained...'yes'. they were chinese I think, then from up the street comes running what appeared like their guardian asking what happened (in another language) (to the girls not me). I wanted to call authorities and an ambulance and must have asked 20 times to insure their safety. One girl was limping real bad, and her knee was busted up, not broken, but really swollen. They insisted on leaving (witnesses were yelling at them things like "you guys learn your lesson"..or "you're lucky you're alive..")

One bystander even walked up directly, to scold them and say "i hope you learned your lesson". After ensuring the guy wasn't taking my tags and later try to sue me, they insisted on leaving. so even though I had called the cops, they left.

I had up to 5 witnesses give me info, who saw exactly what happened, and obviously noting that it was not in any way my fault....

After all of this, i calmed down, and then decided to examine the Rex. Its got two fist size dents (no visible paint scratch) -on the left side...one at the tip of the door, one at the fender.....

The cop said that because they were pedestrians, the worse he could do is give them a ticket, but I'd have to pay (or my insurance) to get the car fix, as 'hitting a person is like hitting an animal-). I'm just happy everyone is okay and it wasn't worse.

Interstingly, my Ac turned on for some reason after impact, and my stereo cut off. Not sure why. It sucks that my rex has the two dents, and because they remind me of hitting those girls, i'll probably get it fixed cause i want to forget about this as soon as I can.

Oh well, lesson I learned? Not much, i was driving very slow and defensively and had room to be driving much faster but was approaching slow. Thank God for that. Lesson they learned? Never jay walk.

 

When will people learn they are not harder than cars?

 

Damn. Horrible.

I was once backing into a parking spot in Union Square (SF) when a jaywalker ran behind my car and I hit him, very gently. He was fine and blamed himself and walked away, but I still felt just awful. What a sick feeling.

 

Not harder, nor faster.

Glad it wasn't too serious.

When I hit a deer, (my Mazda Protege`) it came under "act of God" and my insurance covered it, no deductible, or maybe $50, I forget.

 

yeah man, the sound of a person (2) hitting your car is something the best foley studio could never reproduce...it totally sucks...

 

glad to see you had the good sense to call the cops even though they didn't want to hang around. Good witness statements and all that. It seems like everybody wants to sue somebody these days and you performed a great CYA function by having the cops come.

PS - I call my guy Rex, too!! Sorry yours got hurt!!

 

Just because the hood is designed to hit people, doesn't mean you should ACTUALLY do it


Funny, how Honda states that they are doing that now in thier new commercials like it's some innovative thing.. when we've had it in our 8's for nearly 2 years.. Mazda's marketing dept sucks.

 

Sorry to hear that. Glad no one got seriously hurt. I cant understand why people just walk in the middle of street. People on Campus do that all the time and they dont even bother looking because they expect you to stop. If your j-walking then your j-walking. GO TO THE DAMN CROSSWALK 20 YARDS DOWN THE STREET!

 

Honda's been doing it over 2 years too. One the reasons we have a "U.S." accord front end and they don't...supposedly its designed to be more pedestrian friendly than the TL or TSX (whichever is the japanese accord). :D

 

Yeah, I don't get people that give you dirty looks becasue you nearly hit them when theyre jay walking...almost as though they are allowed to break the rules, and since youre following them, your still at fault.

Bums are the worse...I think they hope someone will hit them to:

A) End their misery

or

B) Sue you

:D :D

 

Sorry to hear this. Could have been illegals. Didn't want to stick around for police or ambulance.

 

thats is the total worst feeling ever! About 2 years ago in Queens (ny) on my way to visit soem friends, I was stopped at a light. It turned green so I preceded to move, roughly 10 seconds later a kid on a bike from the on coming traffic side cuts across all the lanes and slams right into the left fender of my mx3! I coudlnt believe it. I was only going about 20 mph, bu I didnt even notice him till he was almost on me. He was ok, but its the craziest feeling in the world. Glad no one got seriously hurt man!

 

jeez, its unfortunate that it happened, but i guess it went the best way it could...i dunno what I would do if the same thing happened to me, or worse someone died, even if it wasnt my fault.......i cant even imagine what it must have felt like.....wow

 

wow that really sucks... I made the mistake one time when i was younger of chasing a ball into the street. I came out from the middle of two parked cars, lucky for me the driver of the car saw the ball bounce into the street and assumed a dumb mother$%*er such as myself would shoot out after it...

Never again... Man, i'm glad no one got hurt, i can't imagine what life would be like if you know you seriously hurt or killed someone with your car even if it wasn't your fault...

pretty funny that people started yelling at the girls ha ha ha... You should have made them stay though, their guardian would have been responsible for your damages, such as if a dog were to be let loose from the yard and you hit it, legally (maybe not morally, how do you go after a family who just lost their dog) they would be responsible...

 

Sorry to hear about your bad experience, glad to hear everyone was alright.



In my state, (and I expect also in many others) when cars are stopped in the other lanes, it is illegal to pass them without stopping first. So in this state, at least, the driver would have been considered "at fault" in this accident.

--R.

 

what state r u in?

 

thats interesting. I wasn't passing though. Its illegal to pass in the right lane in most states yes, but I was moving forward in my lane, which coincidentally had no cars. That's not passing. I was in motion to make a right turn, so it is my legal right to be in that lane. Considering the jay walking and that i have right to move in my lane at a safe speed (much below posted limit) I'd find it hard to take blame for this one based on the mitigating circumstances of the case.

 

People aren't the same as animals. They made a concious decision and caused an accident. They should be liable for your damages.

 

I'll clarify. If there is more than one lane going your direction, and the other lane/lanes have stopped cars, you must also stop. Like a stop sign, you can go again after you've verified it's clear, but you cannot go through without stopping. It's not necessarily a well know law, I only became aware of it after the death at a crosswalk of a member of a cycling club I belong to.

cleoent,
Sorry I'm trying to be careful these days not to put any identifying personal info on this board, in case Mazda or anyone else tries to void my warranty.

--R.

 

A tad bit paranoid are we?

 

i understand your clarifcation, but there are other laws that mitigate the circumstance. such as not stopping in the middle of the road either. I was in a lane, 40-50 feet from the intersection. an open lane. The law also says you shouldn't stop in the middle of the road either. The law also says you shouldn't jay walk. Again, only responding to initial statement "the driver is at fault". Any law can be pinned against a particular case, but the mitigating circumstances is what determine guilt.

 

People are getting hit all the time in my State. When I moved here 10 years ago, I was amazed that it was almost weekly that someone was getting run over. People simply do not use the crosswalks.

Washington State

 

I had a little boy literally sprint out in front of my car last weekend. He was so short I couldn't even see him and thank goodness my passenger did see him come running out and yelled at me to STOP. ABS kicked in and thankfully I didn't hit him. The father just comes over like nothing happened, picks up the boy and puts him in the car.

Please teach your kids to look before running out in a parking lot/street. Please watch your kids so they don't take off like that. I would've felt horrible if I had hit him, he ran across like an animal without even so much as a care in the world.

Frankly he's very lucky (and so am I) that the 8 has good brakes, I'm sure it was within inches of hitting him.

 

Now, I didn't diagram the original poster's description or anything, but my impression was that he was still approaching the stoplight, and had not yet drawn even with the stopped vehicles, when these girls ran out in front of him.

 

correct, i was approaching even draw with the suv next to me, when they darted out, and I hit them-

the law if you think about it that Rex mentioned makes sense, in most cases in fact i do stop (i usually slow whenver there is a 'blind' part of the road im approaching with my vantage point obstructed by cars left of me. BUT, in this case there was little I could do, and they were jay walking so I'd find it hard to call me guilty...