Comment by WalterBright 3 days ago
When I was a boy, I ran into the street from between two parked cars. I did not notice the car coming, but he noticed me popping out from nowhere, and screeched to a stop.
I was very very lucky.
I once rounded a blind curve on a non-residential street only to find a man on a bicycle pulling a trailer with his baby in it, stopped in the middle of the road. I stopped and yelled at him, which surprised him.
That incident still gives me the willies.
I did not panic. If I had hit his baby, I would have been legally in the wrong. A fat lot of good that would have done the baby or the father.
It's monumentally stupid to be in the middle of a narrow road around a blind corner. People speed around blind corners all the time.
Consider a crosswalk. The law says traffic must stop for anyone setting foot in the crosswalk. But it's crazy to step into a crosswalk assuming drivers will stop for you. I always wait until they actually stop before I step into it.
I remember a public service commercial from the 60s advocating the idea that one shouldn't be right, dead right, and to use common sense.
I talked to a cyclist once who told me about his legal rights to ride a bike in traffic. I asked him but what if a car hits you? He smugly replied that then he'd win a massive lawsuit. I then asked him what good would that do him if he was paralyzed? He then looked startled.
Whatever our human laws and morality says about right and wrong and fault, the laws of physics usually judges the car a winner when it hits somebody.
Placing yourself somewhere where pedestrians are not expected (non-residental road) mostly hidden from oncoming traffic for an extended period is putting yourself in undue risk.
I saw a girl dart out between to parked cars on a strode. She was less lucky. The car did slam on their breaks. I have no idea what speed it was ultimately going when they hit the girl. It wasn't enough to send her flying but it was enough to knock her over hard. The dad, was sitting in his front yard and had her up and in his car and I'm guessing rushed to the hospital.
Those kind of neighborhoods where the outer houses face the fast large roads I think are less common now but lots of them left over from the 50+ years ago.