Hit and Run
Last night in SF my kids, wife and I witnessed a hit & run (a first for all of us). It was pretty intense, as it was a crowded area, involved lots of squeeling tires, and we had to literally rush out of the street to avoid being hit by the fleeing man in his white Ford pickup. I was searching around online to see if i could find any news about it, (couldn’t) but came to a terrible realization, hit and runs are way too common! On a simple google news search for the exact phrase “hit and run” i get 6,432 results for articles published in the last 24 hours. That means about 268 articles PER HOUR are published throughout this country about hit and runs. (i’m assuming there hasn’t just been a sudden upswing today).
The details of our experience barely even warrant a retelling, but what the hell. We were crossing the street near castro and 25th around 7pm, it was dark, there were lots of people out, several cars double parked on castro while people dashed in and out of shops doing errands. All of a sudden a mid sized white pickup comes ripping around the corner a block up the hill from us, revving the engine in a way that can only be described as reckless, the truck headed directly for one of the double parked cars, then suddenly (as if realizing he was about to rear end something) the driver slams on the brakes, goes into a sideways skid and crunches heartily into the back of this parked car. The engine dies. Everyone turns their heads, people come out onto their fire escapes and balconies, people come out the shops. Then we hear the truck start his engine back up again, it takes him 2 tries to get his truck unhooked from the rear bumper of this poor vehicles (going forward then back again) and he floors it again, this time right towards us (we are still slowly dragging the 2 kids along), we quickly get up onto the sidewalk and i whip out my camera to snap the trucks plates as it passes, but it doesn’t have one (on the rear). We turn back towards the scene to see a woman getting out of the car, and her companion coming out of the video store to meet her. A crowd gathers, police are called, many pitch in their version of the description of the truck and driver, we do as well. Then we spend the drive back to Caterina’s answereing questions about driving, crashes, jail, laws, licenses, mean people, irresponsible actions, and related ephemera.
The truck was a mid sized white FORD pickup (red logo on the back) driven by a shaved headed or bald man at least in his 30’s or 40’s wearing dark eyeglasses. The truck had no rear plate, and as i recall, no rear bumper either. The damage of a side impact would be found on the passenger side of the truck right about mid-vehicle. If you live in SF, keep your eyes peeled :)
In terms of my previous post about a car free portland, this stunning numerical realization just emphasizes the multifaceted inherent dangers of an auto-centric environment that we all just take for granted, accept, as if we didn’t have a choice, as if there were no other options.
(this is not a picture of the actual vehicle)
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