Three of us were walking back to Shenfield station this evening when a car passed us, suddenly served and went off the road and through a hedge. Unfortunately, the car took out a pedestrian just in front of us...

It looks like the driver hit black ice, ended up pointing towards the kerb, then ran out of ice. A build-up of snow in the gutter made a perfect ramp to go straight up the pavement.

The driver was only doing 25 - 30 mph but had no chance to correct - it happened so fast that maybe even the best rally driver in the world couldn't have sorted it. Maybe it was lack of experience in slippery conditions - I know that I would have hit the clutch if I was driving and steered into it, but I have decades of experience in driving in similar conditions... but even then I may well have ended up in the same state.

Luckily for the woman who was hit, there was a deep ditch on the other side of the hedge - she went into the ditch, and the car was stuck above her, so she didn't get squashed. According to the PC I spoke to this evening she may have got away with just a broken cheek bone (but yet had an MRI scan to endure).

What really spooked us was that if we'd been 20 seconds further down the road then we'd have been hit as well...

[Edited on 22/12/09 by David Jenkins]

Wow!!!

Hope the woman is ok.

gosh that does sound awful! not very nice to witness these things either. Hopefully the women will recover and be back home for christmas.

Buy the lotto ticket tonight! Your luck is in!

Hope the woman is OK!

i hope the woman is ok.


during the summer i was driving with the kids in the car (4 and 1) i was driving up the gleniffer brases towards robertson car park in paisley and was confronted by a silver focus coming towards me on its roof which stopped a few meters from me and rolled on its pasenger side.

i stopped my car and jumped out to help, the car was rocking to and fro as the passenger crawled out his window(i thought it was going to roll onto him as it was rocking bock and forth so much). i helped him out and then opend the drivers door and hepled the diver out, i sat both guys down at the side of the road and called all three who arrived in a matter of minutes. no real injuries to anyone.

not much of a story but it wasnt until later on that night that i realised that if i had been a few seconds faster the car would have hit me and the thought of the outcome for me and the boys had a big effect on me and i realised that i/we had a lucky escape that day.

Davie

[Edited on 22/12/09 by davie h]

f*ckbeans! thats pretty radge...

at the weekend we were up in matlock, where they had lots of snow.
going through a little village, pretty steep downhill and windy roads at one point the tyres just lost grip (we were doing 10mph at best) started speeding up downhill, and realised there was nothing i could do to stop us. (wife and 11 month old in car too.) i did realise though that it was psosible to slide from left to righ avoiding the cars on both sides as the road twisted and turned. we made it past about a dozen when i saw a really tight bend in front of us that we could slide round. trying to turn into it, the back end came out and we braced for a side impact into a stone wall and a tree.

cue loud bang and we came to a stop a few yards down the hill. (i'd never have made it past the next bend which was a hairpin with a house at the bottom)

got out to have a look only to see no damage at all. all i can think is that there mst have been a hidden curb that we hit about 3 inches from the wall that saved us. so lucky, as there were people and cars milling about at the bottom of the hill.

little boy never even woke up.

all the damage i can find is a 5 inches section of alloy wheel thats got a curbing, but even then nothing too major.

bloody lucky.

The village wasnt bonsall nr matlock bath was it?

that hill is huge and lethal even in nice conditions!

it might well have been having looked at thre map again.
will have to have a trip up there is better weather and have a good look at it!