myLOVE: Wil strikes again

Remember this post? A mom NEVER wants to get a call like this: "Hello, Mrs. Walls? This is the paramedic. You're son was hit by a car. We're en route to the hospital..."

Wil got hit by a car today while crossing the street. Hell of a kick-off to the weekend. He was in the crosswalk, going to catch his bus to school. He looked both ways and got pegged off when he was over halfway to the curb. (trust me - he doesn't walk fast, ever - there was PLENTY of time to notice a pedestrian in the crosswalk at a traffic circle.) The driver was too busy looking LEFT to merge into RIGHT turning traffic to look RIGHT for pedestrians. Wil is fine - he got lucky... after being hit by the car and bouncing off the windshield hard enough to shatter it, he now jokes about rolling off the other side and not "sticking the landing." He spent several hours pretending to think it was all funny, while involuntarily shuddering and shaking as his body did what his teenage brain was too cool to register: he was hit by a freakin' car. To accompany several bruises and really sore muscles, he has road rash covering most of the right side of his back so deep you can see the pattern of the ribs that scraped over the asphalt.

As a bicycle commuter, I am all too aware of how often drivers making a RIGHT turn are so busy looking LEFT for oncoming traffic that they fail to look RIGHT for people crossing streets or walking on the sidewalk. (I ride on the sidewalk when I have Serejane in the trailer, because drivers are a$$holes.) In my first year as a bicycle commuter I had my share of road rash to this effect, twice dodging right-turning traffic and once being hit by someone who just didn't bother to look. Now, in my fourth year of bicycle commuting, I never cross any street, driveway, or alley until I have made eye contact with any driver who happens to be there. They normally don't notice that I'm there until they've already gunned it and are proceeding into the intersection, their facial expressions are all the same: "Holy sh*t! I didn't even look!" If there's a passenger, the passenger usually looks completely stunned, while the driver looks straight ahead pretending not to have seen you, like if they feign ignorance they will somehow be exempt from acknowledging they could have killed someone.

While Wil's last visit to the hospital was self-inflicted, there was virtually NOTHING he could have done to avoid what happened to him today besides stay in the house, or be made of steel. Vehicles cannot safely fly through an uncontrolled crosswalk at 50kms an hour during peak rush-hour. Slow the hell down, and look both ways before you proceed, both as a pedestrian AND as a driver. I think every driver on the roads should spend a week bicycle and foot-commuting to remind them that while they floor it to make a break in traffic, there might be a fragile body made of breakable bones and soft flesh that will always, each and every time, be more important than punching the clock on time because you hit snooze one too many times. Lives are at stake: always look both ways before proceeding.