I called 911, told them I’d seen the accident, and that I was happy to offer a witness statement. They took my name and phone number, and confirmed that I was talking about the same accident that several other people had called in. Dunno if they will call me back. There were a lot of people around, and it’s possible they are overwhelmed with witness statements and don’t need another.
I also mentioned on the recorded line that the truck ran a red light.
Unless there was a passenger in the car, I doubt there were any injuries. The car was sideswiped on passenger side, and the driver did not run into oncoming traffic. So the driver’s side looked okay. And I doubt the car stopped so suddenly that anyone in it got whiplash. If there was a front-seat passenger, there might be injuries, but probably not. It looked like most of the front half of the siding was peeled off the car, and the frame underneath was bent out of shape, but it wasn’t crushed very deeply.
I’ve noticed that in L.A. there are intersections that are red light all-ways for a couple of seconds. I assume it is to prevent accidents due to red-light runners. Not sure of any studies with conclusions, though.
Me? I always look both ways at every intersection, as there are a lot of “California stop” drivers (turning right on red, period; no “after stopping”; think they’re saving gas). I did not learn this the hard way. I learned form others who learned the hard way.
People gave me crap for looking both ways before crossing a one-way street when I worked downtown. But I saw enough people going the wrong way down the one-way street that I always did. Plus it’s just habit. On at least one occasion I would have been struck by a car going the wrong way down the one-way street had I not looked both ways. Not worth risking my life when the cost of looking the wrong way (an extra 2 seconds each time?) is so trivial.
Yeah, when on a regular two-way street I was unaware the extent to which I subconsciously looked towards traffic, stepped into the street, and THEN looked the other way, until I visited London and they have the signs everywhere telling you which way to look.
According to my uncle, who worked & lived in the UK for a spell, they were killing & injuring too many Americans so they painted the sidewalks at every crossing. I wonder how much that cost and if they realized a corresponding savings in NHS expenditures.
I was having trouble zooming on the map but I assume it’s accurate.
Any list though, would necessarily list the United States as “both” though.
You drive on the left in USVI, which is part of the United States. Makes for a good trivia question too. (Where in the United States do you drive on the left?)
Yeah I think it’s weird for a continent to be split like that.
Anyway, to your original point, yeah I shouldn’t have said “Americans”; I should have said “foreigners”. One instance where we are in the majority! (Unlike, say, the metric system.)
My mind could not adapt to crossing streets in the left side driving places I have visited. The painting on the streets helped, but you also need to have a good feel for the general traffic patterns around intersections and where cars will be turning from onto the street you are crossing.
An acquaintance put up a dash cam video of him on a 2 lane road and narrowly missing a maroon that passed from the opposite direction : woulda been a headon collision if he didn’t veer onto the shoulder!!!
When the speed limit is 60 and everyone else is going 70, you don’t camp in the left lane going 47. That’s incredibly dangerous, not to mention illegal.
There is a 3 way stop not far from my house. People blow through it all the time, particularly when coming from one direction. I think they get confused as the road briefly widens to 2 lanes at that point: one right turn only lane and one straight. Those going straight somehow miss the stop sign sometimes. I frequently hear someone blow their horn at the transgressors.
