Hit and Run
I recently witnessed a hit-and-run. It was on the route I have to take from my house to town. I take this route nearly every day to run errands or pick up groceries.
This route involves navigating under a freeway and past a freeway offramp. The scariest section is a cross walk past the end of the freeway offramp.
The offramp is four lanes: it has one left, one straight, and two right turn lanes, all at signal, with a crosswalk.
The day I witnessed the hit-and-run I was actually riding my bike through the intersection on the arterial perpendicular to the freeway offramp, passing the left turn lane first and proceeding on towards the other lanes. As I approached the intersection, on a green light, I saw a person in the crosswalk walking the opposite direction, from the right turns lanes towards the left turn lane. They entered the cross walk when the "walk light" turned on.
The person crossed the first right turn lane but as they continued forward, a person driving a car in the second right turn lane pulled into the crosswalk. I saw the person driving the car look at me ride through the intersection from the left, and then just as I passed them, they started driving forward again. They never looked to the right, at the crosswalk.
They struck the person in the crosswalk with their mirror and then sped off to the right. I quickly turned a 180 and caught up to the person walking. Luckily they were OK and had only been struck on their shoulder and did not need medical attention. If they had been only a foot or two further forward though they likely would have been run over.
After ensuring the person in the crosswalk was ok, I turned a 180 again, and took off after the car that struck the person. They were stopped just up the road at a red light.
There were two people in the car. A person in the passenger seat was talking animatedly to the driver and the driver was just staring straight ahead. As soon as they saw me, the passenger stopped talking and started staring straight ahead as well. They clearly knew they had hit someone.
And just to make sure, I told them they had hit someone in the crosswalk. They didn't respond. They just said in their car. Isolated from the world by steal and glass and mass. When the light turned green. They drove off. They did not stop. They did not turn around to see if the person they hit was ok. That was the last I ever saw of them.
I was angry at the driver. They should have looked right. They are driving a weapon. They should always do it with the utmost caution. There is no excuse for them.
But I blame politicians that allowed and allow that intersection design to exist and the traffic engineer that oversaw the development of that offramp. And the capitalists that promote cars.
I've been nearly hit in that crosswalk now more times then I can remember. And I'm very careful. Everyone I talk to that passes through that intersection on a regular basis is also really careful because they've also been nearly hit countless times. The majority of drivers turning right on a red light never look to the right. They only look to the left to see if there are any cars in the intersection. There is no safe way to cross this intersection as a pedestrian. The only "walk phase" is when there are cars turning right on red.
The engineers and politicians prioritized the flow of cars over the safety of people walking. There are countless ways they could have designed the intersection that would have eliminted this risk. But this intersection has been in this configuration for decades. And there are no reasonable alternatives to it when walking, unless you want to take a 5 to 10 minute detour. So instead, you just risk your life on a daily basis so that a person driving a car has to wait a few seconds less at an intersection.
I'm outraged at the politicians that allow roads to be designed in this manner at all and for the traffic engineers that design them. Trauma and, likely blood, is on their hands. Should the people driving cars look right before turning right? Yes, of course. But they are also likely just trying to survive like the people in the crosswalk. There is no excuse for what they did but humans make mistakes. Road design should plan for that. The designers of roads have known this for nearly a hundred years now, but they chose to sacrifice people walking, for the sake of car throughput and speed. And car designers know it too but they primarily design cars to protect its occupants, not those the car might be inflicted upon.
My regret is not pausing on my bike in front of the cars turning right, to act as a crossing guard to protect those in the cross walk. I do that now. Sometimes the car drivers get very angry with me. They honk and yell. But at least they aren't running someone over when I'm there.
