Among the worst sounds—that which send shivers through my body—are the screeching of brakes followed by impact. The sun blazes this fine, clear Saturday in San Diego. with air temperature already 26 degrees Celsius and heading up to 31 (78 and 88 F). Windows are open throughout our apartment, and those shivering-sending sounds broke the morning calm.
Two cars collided at the intersection of Maryland and Monroe, where I am surprised more accidents don’t occur. Little Lou Lou, our neighbor’s cat was run down there, at the turn, on another Saturday in April 2013. Many drivers go too fast, and visibility is often obscured.
The vehicle on Monroe, with young woman and her parent (or grandparent), entered the intersection and was struck by the other vehicle. I see two static problems and another unique to the day as factors.
1. The Stop line is too far back from the intersection for drivers to clearly see oncoming traffic. If the older gentleman gave accurate account, the young woman stopped there and proceeded into the intersection. But ideally, she would have to pull partially into the street to see around parked cars. The Stop sign should be up closer to the sidewalk line, rather than being set back on a slight inline.
2. On Maryland, there is a dip 100 meters or so back from Monroe that compels drivers to slow down. But many of them then speed up, often going too fast, afterwards. The scenario where the young woman stopped, looked for oncoming traffic, and saw none is extremely plausible. The other car, driven by a young man, would have been nearly stopped at the dip. She wouldn’t just not see the other vehicle, but not hear it—being so slowed.
3. The sun is the wildcard factor. The driver on Monroe would have been partly blinded by the light—heck, I was just standing in the street.
That’s right, on hearing the impact, I rushed to see if anyone was seriously hurt and to offer assistance, which included a ride, if needed (it wasn’t). The young woman shook with shock and from tears. The elder gent maintained great composure. I returned twice more, snapping the photo the third time. My wife went over twice as well. The second time, she saw police and flat-bed tow truck.
For the geeks, I snapped the photo, quickly, using Nexus 6. I cropped out my head’s shadow and resized the pic, which was 15.6MB, using iPiccy on Chromebook Pixel LS.