Out Of Control

My recent experience of being near that car that sped out of control and through the fence and into parked cars and into traffic was followed nearly the next day by others narrowing escaping death at the wheels of an SUV with designs of its own:

SUV PINS THREE PEOPLE UNDER ITS WHEELS

YIKES!

Oh, and remember the guy who ran down the crowd at Herald Square? And then that horrible one out in Queens where the ladies were crossing the vast highway/street and were standing on the median, waiting, when an SUV flipped out of control, into the air, and then LANDED on them?

Believe me: I count my lucky stars... because this is not the first time it has happened to me:

Once, I was standing at an intersection in Raleigh, NC called FIVE POINTS, on my way home nearby, when a woman couldn't get her brakes to work... she was headed toward the intersection that was a convergence of FIVE streets, so the traffic was crissing and crossing like mad. Rather than be in her car when she rolled into that swarming intersection, she threw herself from the driver's side, screaming wildly, and crumbled into the traffic coming up from behind her!

I do not know HOW she did not get crushed, but she jumped up, dazed, and stumble-ran to the side of the street.

Meanwhile, in my own daze, I did not realize the car was rolling right toward me because I was so frozen watching her FROGGER herself out of the traffic! The car jumped the curb, ROLLED OVER MY FOOT as I suddenly tried to jump back, then swerved back off of the sidewalk and into the 5-points intersection. Cars were whizzing by and missing the out-of-control car by mere inches, but the car made it all the way through the intersection without a scratch... and then jumped the curb, hurling into a gas station, knocked a gas pump loose, and smashed into a car so hard that they both jutted upward into an inverted V-shape!! The gas pump exploded into a massive plume, bodies flew into the air on fire and into the intersection where cars then hit them and hurtled them back into the air. It was hysteria! Another explosion blew out all of the windows from the cars nearby and all of the stores imploded, with the blast throwing me onto the hood of a parked car!

Okay, not really... the red-bold-italic part didn't happen at all. But the rest did, LOL!

No one was really hurt at all; not even the woman who threw herself into traffic.

HOWEVER, as I gave my statement, I did feel my foot was on fire. I had forgotten by then that it had actually rolled over me. I didn't tell them I may be hurt because I really didn't want to go the hospital or be involved anymore than I was.

As I walked home, my foot was stinging like crazy! I got home, pulled off my shoe and sock and found blood was all over the toe of the sock and in the sole of my shoe. Apparently, the weight of the car had "popped" one of my toes! A split was in the side/bottom of my toe like a little cut, bleeding like crazy, and burning like mad. I just cleaned myself up and bandaged it, limped around a bit for a while, but mostly just felt so lucky that I wasn't just completely smooshed. My toe healed nicely and you would never know.

The other time was in Brooklyn, NY and I was using one of those standing payphones (yes, this was just at the beginning of when everyone then started getting a cell, which, surprisingly, was NOT that long ago - 5/6 years ago?). As I spoke into the phone, I heard a squealing sound, screeching, and I looked up just in time to see a car going out of control, whizzing STRAIGHT TOWARD ME!! It hit the curb HARD, bounced up into the air so high I thought it was going to fly over my head for a second, but then just smashed right into the very phone box I was using, actually ripping the receiver from my hand! But missing me, entirely!

The man driving was not hurt and no one else was hurt, but the payphone was ruined. It remained bent parallel to the ground and smashed up for months before they removed it entirely. It was a haunting sight every day to see this crushed payphone dangling its receiver onto the sidewalk.

I was glad when they removed it.

Have any of you had any close calls with wild vehicles?