Crash !

If you have ever been so unfortunate as to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time to bear witness to a collision on the road, you will know what a traumatic experience it is. Of course people actually pay to see spectacular crashes on the racetrack, but those are somewhat controlled. At least they are in so much as the drivers have extra safety measures built-in to the cage, and the risks are reduced by the fact that there will usually be only one class of vehicle, and they all start off going the same way.

It was my bad luck to have a crash happen directly in front of me, the results of which might well have been worse that they were. This is a cautionary tale for us all, as it could have so easily been anyone.

It happened in the town of Vilamarxant, in the suburbs of Valencia city. The set-up for this crash is a maze of narrow cross streets. The rule is that should you have traffic approaching from your right, that traffic has the presumed right of way. All traffic should therefore circulate at walking pace speed, ready to stop until certain who will proceed first. Unfortunately, that’s not the way it works in practise.

I had made my way along a street that was crossed by one-way traffic that was alternately coming from my right and then my left. I did have to give way to crossing traffic, and we did so safely. That was because I anticipated that it would happen, and I was moving at walking pace and therefore able to stop in time. I did this even for those junctions in which I had right of way, just in case the other vehicle did not give way to me. (Avoid the accident by any means necessary.)

Having parked my car and locked it I was waiting on a car coming along the same street that I had travelled. A mother carrying her eleven year-old to school drove the car. The girl was sitting in the front passenger seat. As they drew abreast of the cross street closest to me a white van appeared suddenly, moving at about 50 km/h and broad sided the car. I estimate that the car’s speed was about 40 km/h.

Within seconds both drivers were out of their vehicles accusing one another of being responsible. Meanwhile, the child passenger, who took the brunt of the crash, was badly shaken and traumatised, but otherwise unharmed. The material damage was mainly caused to the car in that the passenger side door was caved in, and that would result in a very expensive repair and loss of use of the vehicle for quite some time.

There were several things wrong with this situation: The most serious was that a young person was sitting in the passenger seat. It is not against the law provided that the youth is properly restrained, but is not to be recommended, as there is greater exposure to harm in the front passenger seat.

Secondly, neither of those drivers exercised a proper level of caution for the circumstances. Visibility was restricted to the last minute, which meant that both drivers were assuming that they were the only people using those roads at that time. That is always a dangerous and ridiculous thing to do, and they both received a short sharp, shocking lesson in the fallacy of such an assumption.

The lady driver repeated that she had priority as she was on a priority road. In cross town and urbanisation grids, this is rarely the case. Mostly, such roads have equal value. It is for drivers to take the appropriate precautions, and even if they are not certain about who has the right of way, they can deal with the situation by stopping and agreeing who may move first.

When the police came to sort out the matter the lady was disappointed to learn that she was indeed responsible for the incident. That meant that added to all her own inconveniences, she would also have to repair the damage to the van.

All things considered, not a good way to start the day. I repeat, the moral of this story seems to be, “Avoid the accident by any means necessary.”

Copyright © 2008 Eugene Carmichael