Today was a good reminder that everything can change in an instant. This morning, I left the house with Lemon at the usual time. We went on our usual way, heading north down our street past a couple of houses to the crosswalk. We live right next to an elementary school, so at this hour of the morning, the crosswalk is a busy place as children from the surrounding houses cross the road, heading towards a paved footpath that leads directly to the school. The crosswalk is equipped with flashing lights that are activated by someone pushing a button. There were already lots of kids about, and the button had already been pushed. A southbound driver, having seen the flashing lights and all the children, stopped his car maybe 15 feet back from the crosswalk, clearly yielding to the pedestrians, so a group of children started walking across. Lemon and I, meanwhile, had almost finished crossing the northbound side of the street, reaching the green median between the north- and south-bound sides.
Then, suddenly, a white pickup truck came down the southbound side of the street, slowed but did not stop, and struck the car that was already stopped there waiting for the children to cross. More incredibly, the truck did not stop after hitting the car, but kept going, pushing the previously stopped car closer and closer to the crosswalk until that car was practically in the crosswalk. The whole thing appeared to happen in slow motion as I was watching it, but it must have all been over in an instant. Unbelievably and thankfully, no one was injured. The stopped car had stopped far enough back from the crosswalk that even with the push from the truck, it never reached the crosswalk. The kids that were there got across, and Lemon and I watched safely from the median. The driver of the stopped car practically fell out of his vehicle, he was so shaken by the experience.
There was a police car on the scene almost immediately, joined soon after by two more police cars and a fire engine. I sent Lemon on ahead to school with another family from the neighborhood, and stayed behind to give a statement to the police. The driver of the stopped car gradually regained his composure and got back in his car, and I went back home after giving my statement. I watched from the kitchen window long enough to see the police arrest the driver of the truck and take him into custody, not before removing an open container of beer from the front of the car, draining it, and taking the container as evidence. I learned later from the police report that this was the man's 5th OWI offence.
It was incredibly lucky that no one was injured in this whole scenario. Of course I have witnessed car accidents before, and have read a thousand things about drunk driving. But this was really different. The man in the stopped car had done everything exactly right--he was driving a car in good working condition, on clear roads, on a clear day, with a clear head. He was paying attention to his surroundings, had obeyed all the laws and signals. And yet, through absolutely no fault of his own, he had almost been put in the worst situation imaginable. I have always associated images of drunk drivers with late nights, parties, bars, and the like. Never 8:20 a.m. on an unusually mild February Monday.I'm still kind of shaken by the whole thing. Lemon had just been asking me the other day when he could start walking to school by himself. I think after today I need to revise my earlier estimate up. By at least a decade.
