Aren't you the lucky one?
It has nothing to do with luck, it's called
"Keeping your eyes on the road and paying attention." ~ Something that got lost over the years by many. Vehicles are a mode of transportation and should be treated as such.... not some home away from home to watch your movies on your dashboard or to have some machine telling you how to drive and when to turn.
I would venture to say I've probably backed up more miles than you have ever driven forward but I wouldn't let cock-sure attitude follow me into a driver's seat.
I don't fk'n care if you learned how to make your car float in the air from the amount of gas released from your ass while farting and driving at the same time.... you could have been driving for 70 years and still not know how to drive properly, trust me, I know plenty of old farts who claim to be expert drivers, who at the same time telling me this, run through a red light, don't check their blind spots.... hell they don't even know wtf a turn signal is for...... and it's usually people with that attitude who end up in accidents and then freak out at the other person in the accident for their own stupid mistakes.
The amount of years you have under your belt as a driver or the amount of experience you think you have is irrelevent.... it's whether or not you actually know what to do properly behind the wheel and are a safe driver. Driving a car is not a right, it's a privilage, and the moment you start acting like you own the roads, is usually the moment you end up making very bad decisions.
Have you ever had a high-speed tricycle and a thrill-seeking four-year-old come whizzing down a sloped driveway and straight out into the road? ...or had a soccer ball scoot from a line of parked cars turn into a kid on a break-away intent on regaining control? ...or a bike courier get trapped in a streetcar flangeway just as he's zipped past your window? It happens fast so never say never because I don't care who you are or how great you think you are, you can never be fully aware.
Apparently you wern't trained properly to deal with those situations, so don't go crapping on me for your own failures.
Did you hit that 4 year old on the trike who flew onto the street from a sloped driveway? My guess from your explination is that you didn't..... therefore you were doing what you needed to do to avoid that situation, which was paying attention to the road and surrounding area.
If you hit the kid, then that's your fault for not paying enough attention and should have your license revoked.
Those kids playing soccer, Have you ever been taught to look under parked cars for feet and activity ahead of you to see if there is any potiential of someone not seeing you and stepping out in front of you whom normally might not be at a normal viewing height? Do you even bother to see ahead of you or near you children playing near the sides of the roads and do you even bother to slow down in these areas or do you just drive through at full speed and shrug off the consequences? Do you bother to understand that you are driving through an area where it is common knowlege that children play in that area and might be on the roads?
As it goes for the bike rider, they are using the roads the same as anybody else operating a vehicle, and must abide by the same traffic laws and rules as everybody else on the road, therefore they can and will be just as liable for an accident based on their actions as you would be inside your vehicle..... that has nothing to do with people walking through a cross walk listening to music.
Things do happen fast on the roads at anytime, anywhere, but that doesn't mean there are not procedures one can be taught to look and avoid these situations as best as possible.
In the cases where I live, it has been mostly school children walking in a marked cross walks where they were struck by a vehicle, and I don't care how great you think you are in catching things or not, you proceed with futher caution in areas that you know there will be pedestrians and you should be driving at a proper speed to allow you time to stop ahead of where you can see in case of an emergency.
That is also why there are guidlines for how far back you should be behind another vehicle on the highways or city streets, because if they slam on their breaks for whatever reason, you must have enough distance between you and that vehicle to properly stop, which can be between 1-3 car lengths, depending.
And if you can't take the damn time to look ahead of where you are driving and to see what's off to the sides of the roads that might come into your path of driving, then you shouldn't be driving in the first place.
