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An HGV instructor once told me (and it must have sunk in) "When reading the road, use the information you acquire, and don't drive into a problem you see ahead". All very well, but the vast majority of drivers don't have the benefit of advanced driver training. I'm afraid that many drivers would not see the problem until too late, slam on the brakes, feel the abs vibrating the brake pedal, panic and back off the brakes, and swerve onto the pavement , missing the people in the road, but taking out the bus queue of kids. What would I do? I hope I never put myself in the situation where I have to make that choice, but full on the brakes and try to miss people, regardless of hitting anything else.
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Probably in 23 years of driving, I have only had to do one fully reactive emergency stop.
Very similar circumstances that you mention.
Driving along in a 30, crowd of kids on pavement and just as I got within a few yards of them, a toddler broke from them and ran into the road in front of me. I was in my Scenic at the time and I slammed on the brakes and instictively swerved. Thankfully nothing was coming other way as I ended up astride the white line. I remember realising my hazards were flashing which was part of the Renault safety brake assist thingy.
I think re the OP, no one can say in that split micro second of a decision that they would make a decision based on options, it would purely be an instinct and I think the instinct would be initiated by the kid coming out ie. sweving to avoid that movement.
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>>This thread isn't about safe driving, as I'm sure many of you would argue that the driver should have been driving with due care etc. This is about being faced with a terrible dilemma, literally finding yourself in a situation where you have to make a choice. <<
It is all about safe driving, trying to exclude that makes the whole thing a nonsense.
I'd like to think I would clock the risk of the kids mucking about just when I was rounding the old man and would have throttled back beforehand and had my foot over the brake pedal.
Whether I would do this without fail is the rub, but impossible to forecast.
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It is all about safe driving trying to exclude that makes the whole thing a nonsense.
I wasn't trying to exclude that at all Nsar, but thanks for your last sentance.
What I was trying to do was to imagine a scenario where, regardless of the fact that a driver was driving with due care and attention, an accident could still occur - it happens. That's a fact of life.
This is why there are several non procecutions/claims every year where a pedestrian gets hit by a vehicle. Either because pedestrian was drunk, stupid, destracted etc. I'm a great believer in slowing cars down in built up areas because of this, so that if such an incident occurs, hopefully the pedestrian isn't killed and can fully recover from their injuries.
So, the scenario I proposed above could still happen despite the driver involved taking every care. Anyone who thinks that it is inconcievable that a perfect driver could ever hit a pedestrian is IMHO mistaken. Just drive past your local at chucking out time on a weekend - you'll see what I mean.
The most relevent replies I have received to this suggest that instinct would play apart or the 'survivor' would be less in the path.
My gut reaction would probably be to slam on the breaks and hope to stop before I hit the child. However I do know someone who was in a similar situation but the object to her right was not an elderly gent but a parked car. She couldn't stop in time so she hit the parked car. She ended up with an insurance claim but the child was OK. And yes she was driving too fast ;)
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I think don't think one would consciously steer into an elderly gentleman to avoid hitting a child. In such a situation one would be trying to avoid hitting either and then it's down to skill and luck. After all, the old man might have been a doctor who saved hundreds of lives, while the child might be destined to become a psychopathic murderer!
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So the scenario I proposed above could still happen despite the driver involved taking every care. Anyone who thinks that it is inconcievable that a perfect driver could ever hit a pedestrian is IMHO mistaken.
Having been at both sides of that scenario I would be the last person to say it would never happen.
My son once ran out from between parked cars and was lucky just to get a few bruises, and I once had a young lad (a friends lad) do the same - I was lucky to have seen him and started to brake as he ran out. I was doing around 5mph when I hit him, I felt physically sick after.
anyway, there is no such thing as a perfect driver, I am not even close.
the point I was trying to make in my 1st post, was by reading the road, and imagining what could happen, if something does happen, you are halfway to reacting to it, and with God given luck the dilemma wont happen.
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>>The most relevent replies I have received to this suggest that instinct would play apart or the 'survivor' would be less in the path.<<
Well, yes, obviously. What did you expect the the answers to be? Did you think someone would say "I dislike children so I'd steer that way" or "the old timer has had a good innings so more logical to hit him".
Yes, accidents happen to careful as well as careless drivers, but probably with different frequency. Not sure what that tells us though.
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This is just a rehash of what I think moral philosophers call the railroad wagon dilema.
I can't recall the full details but it's about an out of control railway wagon careering down hill into a group of unaware people. You can't stop it, only divert it down a siding where only one person gets killed.
I think the point of the example is that faced with the choice, most people fairly comfortably opt for the single death.
But the example is then modified, and in order to stop the wagon you have to actively push someone under the wheels. The outcome is the same - one death instead of 6, but for some reason nearly everyone baulks at the second option but not the first.
It goes with the other famous question - is it right to torture someone in order to reveal the location of a bomb that will otherwise kill 20 people?
No motoring relevance whatsoever of course.
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I did once, many years ago, enter a scenario that could have resulted in an accident.
I was driving the transporter in an urban road approaching a zebra crossing. There were children waiting to cross on the other side and a large vehicle xcoming towards me had virtually stopped for them.
What he did not notice, was that he was being overtaken by a fairly fast car. The kids stepped off the kerb as they saw I was slowing. I saw the car put my hand on the horn and carried on across, making the kids jump back. I crossed as the overtaking car, invisible to them, did.
He was totally wrong in his actions but I suppose it might have been me who got a pull for that one...if seen.
Ted
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