Frequent retesting!!?? But what about our divinely-ordained constitutional right to drive a SOV wherever and whenever we want, until we're dead?
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Good to hear you and your family are quick and observant Kelly. You WERE in the geriatric ward of W. Seattle (Admiral) so heads up, it'll probably happen again.

Thanks everyone for your comments. I just want to clarify that the woman turned from a stop into the crosswalk at an intersection that had a stop sign, not a stop light. (It is the crosswalk near Angelina's.) It was just bizarre. She split us like bowling pins with her car-- I had to lunge forward holding my 3 year old son's hand and my husband jumped backward with our 1 year old in the stroller. There were literally only inches between us and the woman's car.
I am grateful that no one went to the hospital that day. I am also grateful to live in a place where so many people are interested in improving pedestrian safety.

I see in this case it was from a stop,
what I think is a problem is turning from a light when both pedestrians and cars have a green; this seems crazy to me, you either have a green or you don't, you don't give two opposites the same light information.
I would like to know the rate o accidents when turning on a green and hitting peds crossing on a green

It's really sad how this City goes about promoting car-free days, and other means of celebrating pedestrians (using 'Bridging the Gap' money to plant trees instead of building more sidewalks or making improvements to crosswalks). Yet when it comes to making permanent, real changes to protect pedestrians, the City is nowhere to be found.

RIP Matthew "Tatsu" Nakata. Mr. Nakata was killed in a marked crosswalk at 7:41 am on Tuesday 11/14/06 at 47th Ave SW & SW Admiral Way.

The Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board wrote a letter to Governor Christne Gregoire and Mayor Greg Nickels on Dec. 12, 2006 about pedestrian accidents and urged an immediate campaign to educate drivers, pedestrians and police that, by state law, all intersections are legal places for pedestrians to cross a street.

City of Seattle: Where is our pedestrian activated light? Where is the memorial to Mr. Nakata? Where is the educational campaign? What candidate is committed to lead Seattle in preventing senseless deaths of it's citizens?

Basic skills for driving safety can be tested in some occupational therapy clinics: accuracy and speed of several different types of visual problem-solving, physical reaction speed for braking, to name a few. On-the-road driving screening by an occupational therapist is also available. Both tests are helpful for family members questioning if an elder relative is still safe driving, as age doesn't predict safety. Doctors may order testing for patients who seem to have decreased problem-solving, memory, physical functioning, etc. The on-road test may also prescribe safe limits of driving (side roads, during daytime, etc), for some patients so they can still run errands. University of Washington and other places offer this.

You can call 911 if you see an unsafe driver--take license# so police can intervene.

An anonymous report can be sent to the Department of Licensing if you suspect someone's driving is unsafe. That person will receive a letter requiring them to show up for a driving test.

And yes, left-hand turns are more dangerous for many reasons, for anyone, not to mention being more time-consuming. They are much more difficult from a visual scanning and visual problem-solving standpoint, not to mention accuracy of acceleration to merge with traffic. Saves time and gas to plan errands that generally let you take right-hand turns.

Cheers.

JoB,

Yes, there is statistical evidence that left hand turns are more dangerous for older drivers than younger ones. There are several articles and publications (Google will give you a good list) and I was told this many years ago by a state patrolman. Edmunds.com (the car buying site) had a good article about it.

I don't know if it's something that would be caught in a test, though.

Great information Julie. Thanks!

I realized on reflection that I had a few other thoughts about this:

1. I try to remember to use this information as a pedestrian, and train myself to look for cars turning, not just "look left, look right, look left again" before I cross. Also I try to remember to make eye contact, to be sure they've seen me--and I take particular note of drivers on cellphones, who have (foolishly!) added to their cognitive load. I may have the right-of-way, but my body is not going to win against a one-ton hunk of steel going 10-20-30 or more mph, no matter how "stupid" the driver is being.

2. This is one thing I love about the walk-all-ways at the Junction. You don't (unless somebody's erring) have a mix of autos and pedestrians in the street at the same time. Less cognitive load for all! I wish--as a driver and as a pedestrian--all major intersections were like this.

Regarding the issue of "not seeing": The way our brains process information can lead to some truly spectacular examples of "blindness": to a large extent, we see what we expect to see, and what we're attending to. You're probably familiar with the famous experiment about the basketball game (viewers were asked to count the number of passes made by the white team):

http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/flashmovie/15.php

If you've seen the previous, try this one (read the text above the video, and watch it before reading the text printed below it!):

http://nudges.wordpress.com/watch-out-for-cyclists/

There are lots of other examples; if you're curious, search for "inattentional blindness".

It's quite common for viewers to miss unexpected events when they are concentrating on a task. Note that "inattentional blindness" does not mean the subjects weren't paying attention: they were--very carefully, in fact--just to a different task!

A driver turning left has an enormous amount of information to process; the cognitive load for this task is quite high. I think we all intend to always look for pedestrians in the crosswalk--but if we drive in situations where there usually are not pedestrians there, we will gradually drop this crucial step from our set of things to pay attention to when making left turns (this is my speculation), because there's so much else we have to focus on.

Also note that studies on the aging brain show that increasing difficulty focusing attention (that is, screening out irrelevant information) is one of the characteristics of aging, making the cognitive load even greater--so older people might actually be concentrating harder to accomplish driving tasks, ironically making them more susceptible to inattentional blindness (again, my speculation).

I think I should clarify again that I'm NOT presenting this information to excuse the driver. But the more we know about how vulnerable we all are to these critical lapses, the better we can defend against them.

What about a driver who blatantly ignored a stop light at Admiral and 41st, almost hitting a woman and her two boston terriors who were clear into the crosswalk (as in barely missed hitting the dogs in front of the woman), swerved after passing them, then almost crashed into a tree, before righting him or herself and carrying on down admiral, not stopping to see if the woman was okay? (Driver was going straight along Admiral) I only ask because I witnessed this a few weeks ago (was stopped at 41st, second car at the light waiting to turn left, car in front had already made left hand turn, was waiting to see if car coming from opposite direction was turning left or going straight - I only say this to prove that the light for the careless driver had been red for more than a second). Embarrassingly, I, nor anyone else who witnessed this asked if the woman was okay either.

elikapedia...

is the data on accidents different if the drivers are younger? Left turns are more difficult and dangerous for all of us...

Maybe the driver didn't see them- though I don't see how she'd miss a family of four in a crosswalk?!?! I admit, I think of myself as a good driver, but I feel my skills are slipping lately (I think I'm still trying to adjust to having power steering on my new car though- it's easier to turn the wheel yet takes more effort to control the car...). I don't think it would be such a bad thing to make people retake the driving test every 4 years, and make everyone show proof of a 'refresher' drivers course every 16 years or so. It would keep good drivers on the road and bad ones off, and traffic would be better and there would be less accidents.

Actually, in the case of elderly people it may not be inattention. There is evidence that left-hand turns become difficult for elderly drivers. A high percentage of accidents involving older drivers involve left-hand turns. I don't know if it's vision problems, spatial perception or just that their reaction times are slower.

Not to excuse what this lady did, but when she said she didn't see you, she probably didn't.

Vincent
:(

Andre
I think we are all inattentive at times. If we weren't, there would be very few accidents and we know that isn't the case.

Somewhere we have lost the idea that we share our public spaces with automobiles, motorcycles, bikes, pets, pedestrians and other drivers who want to get where they are going as quickly as possible too...

anything that slows us down is now considered an obstruction.

that works unless you are the obstruction.

and it really slows you down if you hit one:(

CMP
retesting is a great idea, but it won't take distracted drivers off the road. Contrary to popular opinion, the old folks aren't really the ones having all those accidents:(

BOFUS..
the problem is inattention.
I can't tell you how many times some idiot talking on their cell phone has walked out in front of me... paying no attention to traffic or the walk signals.
I can't tell you how many pets and children i have avoided hitting by slamming on my brakes.
I have stopped counting the bikers who don't think stop signs apply to them or who swerve suddenly to make a turn without signaling..
And then there are the inattentive drivers:(

Really folks.. be careful out there.

Hit them with a 3 foot pole, according to the WSB you can do it without worry from the cops.

Andre, I think I failed to make my point clearly; my intent was to reinforce how much effort we all should put into attentive driving, and how skeptical we should be of our own driving abilities. Certainly I agree that, dumb, ignorant, and careless behavior on the roads is a threat to life and limb, and should not be tolerated nor excused.

One interesting point that the author of the book makes is that we tolerate public behavior from drivers that would never be tolerated in other social situations. In our cars, he points out, we lose much of what makes social communication possible: eye contact, and subtle conversation, for example. It's a fascinating and thought-provoking book.

Julie,

I think chalking off dumb, ignorant and careless behavior on public roads to "just being human" is very dangerous. I believe exactly that kind of attitude caused great damage in the past and will continue do so in the future.

Good night,
Andre

I'd like to plug this book again:

http://westseattleblog.com/blog/forum/topic.php?id=5848

NOT excusing the inattentive driver, at all, but pointing out that we're all, by the nature of our brains, inattentive drivers to some extent and more often than we're aware.

I, too, get mad when I'm almost hit, or when I'm rear-ended because the driver behind me was following too closely -- but I'm cautious about self-righteous condemnations, because I realize all too well you don't have to be "dumb, careless or ignorant" or elderly to have your attention fail to take into account everything you need it to just when it's critical. Human brains were just not evolved to do this task well.

oh voice control. than i think it is okay . :)

yes, but it was under voice control.

;)

Did the cyclist have his/her dog off leash?

Well we can logically assume that the car driver's actions were a result of the behavior of some insane attack-cyclist on drugs, but this thread is about what happened after that.

sorry kbear, I am just confused, I though from all the anti bike rants that drivers of cars were free of fault. All this news comes as a shock to me, I assume it was another of the bike crazies at it again.

The problem is inattentive drivers. I run all over WS and have had numerous "close calls" with motorists. Most often it is the driver that is busy looking left as he/she approaches an intersection for a right turn. Frequently the driver neglects to look right for pedestrians on the sidewalk and just continues through the crosswalk providing, at best, a rolling stop. Too many times I have trusted the driver to stop and yield the ROW to only find myself dodging the vehicle. Bottom line is that pedsetrians (runners, walkers, etc) need to tread defensivly and not depend on the drivers to be attentive or follow the rules of the road (e.g. stop for pedestrians at cross walks, obey traffic lights, etc). Legally speaking, this is not a "might is right" matter since the drivers are required to be in complete control of their vehicles (think "rules of the road" on the water) but a common sense "might is right" issue of pedestrian safety versus inattentive drivers.

Pay attention, Vincent. This thread is about motorists, not cyclists.

I agree cyclists are dangerous and commit these crimes against people every day. They should be forced to get licenses, and banned from the road.

And this is why people should have to be retested every five years to renew their license. I bet we'd have a lot fewer on the road that way! Glad to hear everyone was okay, but I sure would be mad about that happening in a crosswalk too!

I’m with Austin. About a third of the drivers in and around of Seattle are either dumb, careless or ignorant (or a blend of).

Just last weekend 2 fellow motorists tried to drive their cars into the side of mine. The first one was a shuttle driver for Kenmore Air. He attempted to change lanes (without a blinker) and just plainly didn’t see me. He continued to do so regardless of me honking viscously while already being pushed to the shoulder. It was an older chap (not judging, just observing…) and I think at no point in time he realized what actually happened. The second incident (same day) occurred when another driver didn’t realize that two lanes merged into one (I think she was busy texting on her phone or something of that kind). Again, that driver was already within inches of the back of our car when I yet again started to honk full throttle. This time I’m sure the other motorist noticed us as she gave us the middle finger!!

I also got rear-ended 3 times. The first time while not even moving. I was waiting at a train crossing in a brand new car (picked up that day) and as soon as the crossing opened up again the guy behind me drove straight into the rear of my car. Sure enough he didn’t have insurance. The second time I got rear-ended on the Spokane street viaduct (which almost seems to happen a couple of times a day – I think I was statistically due to get hit). This time I saw it coming (at full force) as the lady behind me was looking down at something for a fairly long period of time (too long as it turned out). The third time was just as depressing (in fact, I still can’t talk about it…).

I’m prepared to have someone drive straight into my car for no good reason at any point in time (the same applies when I’m not in my car). I think if you have that mindset and a good dose of experience then you can avoid a lot of accidents (or at least not be part of). What however scares me is that one of those morons might hit my wife and child while they are out on the street.

This reminds me of about a quarter to a third of drivers on the road at any given time.

This reminds me of the time a coworker and I were walking through the market and some old biddy in a gold Mercedes clipped my coworker. She honked all of about two seconds before she hit her. She drove another block before she stopped then informed us we were at fault as we were in her way!

A big sarcastic "THANKS" to the elderly woman in the white sedan (Taurus? Caprice?) who almost took out me, my husband, my 3-year old, and my 1 year-old at the CROSSWALK near Angelina's this afternoon. She was STOPPED at the cross-street, ready to turn left and we were in the MIDDLE of the CROSSWALK. She then proceeded to turn left from a stop (!) right into us. I jumped forward with my three-year old and screamed. My husband thankfully saw her and jumped back while pushing our one-year old in the stroller. She was accelerating the whole time. Seriously! Then, she had the unmitigated gall to say, "I didn't see you." Seriously! That was the first thing she said. Not, "I'm sorry." I didn't see you!!! I said, "We were in the MIDDLE of the CROSSWALK!!!"
She said, "Oh, well I didn't see you. I'm sorry." You didn't see any of the FOUR of us?????? Wow. Please do us all a favor and stop driving yourself around. Someone is surely going to be killed by you.
Thank you to the three different groups of people who asked us if were ok. Just a little shaken up.
Watch out for this woman. She may not see you, either.
And just because someone is bound to ask, no I did not get the license plate number. I was too shaken up and she drove away quite quickly.