Posted on 09/14/2006 8:13:36 AM PDT by weegee
A woman is dead after she was struck by several vehicles while trying to run across Southwest Freeway Wednesday night.
Police said around 10:25 p.m. Wednesday, a woman attempted to run across four lanes of traffic on the 6800 block of Southwest Freeway near Hillcroft Avenue when she was struck by an unknown vehicle traveling north
The driver of the vehicle did not stop.
Her body was then struck by at least 4 more vehicles and an 18-wheeler. None of the vehicles stopped after striking the woman's body except the driver of the second vehicle.
Police said motorist may not have realized what was happening.
The woman's identity is pending verification.
My worst experience driving was on the 5 Fwy. north of Los Angeles, barely any traffic, headed South, coming home from work in the middle of the night. I saw a pile of what looked like blankets directly in front of me, narrowly missed it, and saw that it was a man's body as I went by. I saw the car that had hit him (it turned out), it was pulled over to the side of the fwy., and the incident was on the radio newscast before anyone answered my 911 call. I had just finished a 59 hour shift, and couldn't sleep for another 24 hrs., it's the sort of thing that wakes you up with adrenaline overload.
I once slammed into a German Shepherd dog on a dark rainy night. I was driving a small car on one of those steeply banked 2-lane roads that are outside the main city of Houston. I was not speeding (indeed traffic was almost a crawl because the heavy rain made it almost impossible to see anything), as it was raining so hard I just wanted to stay on the road. As I'm driving, the German Shepherd appeared in front of me and pulled the "deer in the headlights" routine. I tried to slow down as best I could, but did not want to go down the embankment or hit the cars coming at me in the other lane (which an attempt at a complete stop would have caused), so I braced myself and hit the dog and knocked him down into the ditch by the embankment. Even though I was going quite slow, the car had more torque than the poor dog.
As a dog lover, I was concerned, so I drove around the block to see if I could help (I could hear the dog yelping after I hit him). As I came around, with my window down, I could see and hear people crowding around the dog from the house where the dog was hit. Whether they were the owners or not, I don't know, but I was hearing stuff like "some sumbitch musta hit 'im and kept a'goin!". I decided there was nothing I could do, so I went on my way. Those country types who let their dogs run loose are not to be messed with, IMO.
It still bothers me that I hit that dog, even though there was no way to avoid it without endangering my life or those of other drivers. I can still see the accident and hear him yelp as he ran off in the ditch. How someone could hit a human being and not react at all is amazing.
Harris County is larger in land area than the state of Rhode Island. Harris County may have more people, too, but I really don't know.
Once again, we have a thread with lots of folks judging other in whose shoes they haven't been... and in whose freeway lanes they weren't in at the time of the accident, either.
I drive Houston freeways all the time, night and day, and I can see how a person could hit someone at night and not realize it, especially after the victim has been hit once already and is not standing upright, and considering that traffic with other vehicles in the adjacent lanes limits visibility of unexpected persons or animals crossing the freeway.
If I didn't see what I had hit on a dark freeway I would think it was probably an animal or debris and I doubt that I would go back to check.
I'm sure he didn't so "hit her" as "run over" her. She would have been down by that time.
Ugly image that.
Was she walking back to New Orleans?
Having travelled that stretch many times, I find the story entirely believable.
On a more positive note, at least the traffic was moving fast enough for her to be hit. You can't always expect the Southwest to flow that quickly.
The Brady Campaign would be all over these if they were occurring.
Who's the moron trying to run across a highway? They are too lazy to walk down to the next overpass and cross there.
Thank you! I adore Houston. Been here all my life. No other city is quite like us.
I agree
I have hit a dog and a cat (thankfully no people but came very close once to hitting a child). While I don't like injuring animals, animals are not people. If I have the means to avoid them, I will. But if I don't because of traffic or other conditions, I just have to hit them and live with the consequences.
That happened once with a cat that ran into the street and under my tires. I could see the cat in my rear view mirror flopping around in pain but I could tell it wasn't going to live long. When I got to the stoplight, some old woman started honking her horn and cursing at me as if I had chosen to murder some innocent kitty cat.
Motor vehicles rule the road. Nothing has priority over a motor vehicle on the road. If you don't think that way, you'll never go faster than 20 mph.
"Don't know. When there is an accident in front of me I assume I have a responsibility to stop and offer assistance. First responders will get there when they get there. The last such accident I witnessed and stopped for nobody else stopped."
It's dangerous to stop on a multi lane highway. You risk becoming the next victim. I assume the person that did stop in this case took the next exit and circled back and parked well off the highway before calling 911. It's even dangerous for police and tow trucks which have emergency flashing lights and can direct traffic. You ought to be careful you don't become part of the problem when you stop to offer assistance.
I need a new car anyway.
I'm inclined to agree with you, but for another reason as well. Stopping your car on a busy Houston freeway, especially at night, is extremely dangerous and can easily cause multiple wrecks. I would recommend exiting the freeway and calling the police from the nearest pay phone to report the poor soul had been hit and decline to give them my personal information.
That was one tough woman. Most would only require one car.
Shalom.
Carjackings, drive by shootings, rotten cops, crooked government officials.
And people who sluff off hitting someone (certaily ONE driver was clear about what had happened).
This city still has some good elements but there is a LOT wrong.
Mayor Bob, Mayor Brown, and Mayor White have ALL been BAD for Houston. Makes the days of Whitmire seem like a dream (and they weren't either).
I can't get too worked up about the not stopping thing. In addition to the fact the drivers may have assumed it was an animal (since a human shouldn't be stupid enough to be crossing a road like that in broad daylight, much less after dark), we don't know that they didn't call 911 on their cell phones.
There's really not a whole lot of benefit to stopping in a situation like that. It looks thoughtful, but is more likely to cause collisions with serious injuries or fatalities and 10s of thousands of dollars in property damage, than the save the life of someone who has already been hit by a vehicle traveling at high speed and landed in the middle of a high speed multi-lane highway (and was obviously at fault for trying to cross the road in the first place).
Is it really better to risk the lives of many innocent people travelling on the road by stopping? And what exactly was someone who stopped supposed to do (besides pose a collision hazard by being stopped on the shoulder, while drivers were being distracted by what was going on in the roadway)? Run out into lanes of fast-moving traffic (at night) to see if the victim was still alive and could benefit from some amateur first aid?
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