Near miss stories - Please drive defensively

  • Published
  • By 17th Training Wing Safety
  • 17th Training Wing Safety

A couple of recent near misses experienced by someone in the safety office and a motorcycle rider who works on base:

Near Miss 1:
I was headed south on Bryant towards 306 this weekend when someone on the phone was sitting at a stop sign up ahead on my right (by Calvert Collision.) As I approached the intersection I watched her since she didn't seem sure about what she wanted to do. There weren't any cars around except me and her and she could've gone across the road a long time before I got near her. I suspected she might pull out in front of me so I let off the gas and covered my brake pedal. That's exactly what she did. She was looking to her right talking on the cell phone (instead of looking to the left and watching me almost slam into her driver's door) and started creeping across the road. I slammed on the brakes and stopped about 2 feet from her. She continued slowly out into the middle of the road looking past my car to see if anyone else was coming down the road - all while still yapping on the phone. No hand gesture to apologize, nothing. If I wasn't paying attention I would've hit her driver's door and pushed her out her own passenger door, easily killing her at the speed I was traveling.

Near Miss 2:
I was riding my motorcycle to work, about 7:10a.m. with good daylight and clear visibility. I was southbound on Bryant blvd just passing the Denny's restaurant on the far left inside lane I noticed a pickup nearing the exit in the Stripes parking lot who didn't appear as though he was going to stop, I slowed down a bit to be prepared in case he came out into my lane. It's a good thing I did because, a red four door pickup came across from the other side of the road out of Avenue J in front of me. I applied the full emergency braking power possible without skidding and came to a complete stop as the driver crossed my path and realized I was there. As she passed in front of me I could see her mouth the words "I'm sorry, I didn't see you." She wasn't paying close enough attention to the road around her. Any emergency evasive maneuvers could've seriously injured me. Any impact could have killed me.

Moral of the story:
DRIVE DEFENSIVELY! You never know what's going to happen and you have to be constantly on the lookout for "the other guy" (or gal in this case.) Just think what would have happened if either driver in the stories above also stopped paying attention, even for a second.