Moron Runs Out of Gas, Then Gets Nailed Crossing the Freeway

Twelve lanes? I once nearly saw somebody get smeared crossing an
Interstate with just the usual two lanes each way. It was evening,
with fairly heavy traffic (in packs with empty stretches between them)
running plus or minus the 75 mph speed limit.

As I came over a hill, I saw a pedestrian in the median strip (a very
wide one in that rural area) headed toward the eastbound lanes ahead of
me. I honked and flashed my high beams and he pulled up short. But
then, as I watched in the mirror, he started across almost immediately.
A big truck, braking and swerving to miss him (with one corner of the
trailer locked up sooner than the rest, as is all too common) very
nearly wiped out.

Had the truck driver NOT taken such edge-of-control evasive action, in
my estimation he would've not only hit the guy but actually run over
him. With several sets of wheels.

Fortunately, this real-life game of Frogger ended with the truck driver
getting all that stuff back in line with the rubber side down and the
pedestrian making it across untouched. (One of the reasons I was
watching in the mirrors -- other than the fact that you could hardly
take your eyes off such a spectacle -- was that if necessary I was
going to stop and render aid... and wait around to serve as a witness.)
But everybody was very, very lucky that day.

Nowhere around did I see a disabled vehicle nor anything obvious that a
stranded motorist might be headed for. My guess is that he was a
local dude taking the shortest distance from house to house in a place
where overcrossings are a long way apart.

Why he chose to walk not in front of so much as *through* a stick of
fast traffic rather than just waiting for one of the gaps, I dunno.
Maybe adult beverages were involved. Or maybe he was about to commit
suicide and thought better of it at the last possible millisecond.
Since no accident resulted and he resumed his slow shamble through a
big piece of country, I can't imagine anyone ever found out.

The only other time I ever saw someone crossing a freeway on foot was
on California 58 heading uphill from Bakersfield. He had his head up
looking around and was moving with a purpose, at least. The Highway
Patrol cruiser cutting across the median strip to see who was taking a
shortcut across the freeway, and for what reasons, might have helped
inspire him to step lively.

--Joe

Scott en Aztlán wrote:
>Like the stupid {irrelevant anatomical reference deleted}
> parked in the gore point on the tollway this afternoon: I was in the
> right lane; behind me was a red pickup truck. The idiot ... in her
> blue 4Runner decides that the moment I am about to pass her is the
> perfect time for her to start moving forward (she had been parked) and
> try to merge back into traffic. Not only did I not slow down to Just
> Let 'Er Do It, but I have to applaud the driver of the red pickup
> truck because he didn't, either.
> --
> What the heck, I'll play too.
> - Dave

So, what was the traffic at that point? Stop'n crawl? Backed up for a
quarter mile?

> Or perhaps you were near a border patrol checkpoint?

Nope -- this was maybe 250 miles north of the border, 200+ north of the
nearest such checkpoint, and more important, a long way from any
significant north-south route or any sort of large-scale farming.
Actually a long way from much of anything you'd be headed to or from
unless you lived around there.

I think it was just some local guy headed from point A to point B with
speed and tactics that did not show much awareness of the danger. His
movements make me further hypothesize that he'd been drinking
(apparently that's a common enough factor in the decision to cross a
freeway on foot in the first place, and/or doing a bad job of it).

He remains three dimensional only because the truck driver (and to a
lesser extent some other cars in that pack) had good situational
awareness and was willing to risk gettin 'er crossed up in order to
avoid hitting him. I really, really expected to see a dead body
getting knocked around and run over by multiple vehicles, and perhaps
some of them hitting each other or flying off into the ditch.

It's just no place for a pedestrian, even one who has his wits about
him.

--Joe