Crosswalk accidents are sadly happening more often than we’d like. A dashcam video in San Mateo, California, shows the terrifying moment a speeding SUV almost kills a young girl on a scooter. The driver disappeared in a hurry without looking back.
The sense of security the flashing beacons give us means nothing when a speeding driver is distracted and fails to heed the lights. That’s why it’s essential to activate your 360-degree awareness when you’re about to cross the street, especially when you have your kids around. The same goes for a driver. One moment of looking at the phone’s screen or the nearby miniskirt and you could wreck somebody’s life and most probably yours too.
The video we see below was caught by the dashboard camera in a vehicle that stopped to let a father with two children cross the street. The man follows the rules and pushes the button to activate the flashing lights. But as he started crossing the road, he forgot all the good advice appropriate for the situation. We see that at the most critical moment, when he must’ve checked the traffic in the inside lane, he turns his head toward the little girl on the scooter, who ventured faster ahead.
At that moment, the SUV zoomed in and out of the picture like a speeding train. It was a very close call indeed, and the scooter was snatched from under the girl, thrusting her to the ground. Fortunately, she appears to be ok, but this could’ve ended much worse. Had they crossed just fractions of a second earlier, the little girl or all three of them could’ve been killed by the speeding SUV.
According to the San Mateo city manager, the driver of the SUV was an “inexperienced teenage boy” who returned to the scene to talk to the police. Residents in the area demand change after they alerted authorities in the past several years about similar accidents.
“We’ve been writing emails, we’ve been speaking at city council meetings,” resident and nearby HOA president Max Partl said to ABC7 News. “I think now, this video finally triggered some actual real action.”
The city council announced immediate measures, like reducing the speed in the area by temporarily removing a lane in a section of Franklin Parkway. Adding additional pedestrian crossing beacons to improve the visibility of pedestrians is another measure, and more steps are considered in the longer term.
After his childhood dream of becoming a "tractor operator" didn't pan out, Cristian turned to journalism, first in print and later moving to online media. His top interests are electric vehicles and new energy solutions. Full profile
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