Road works, a cyclist to pass, the open road ahead, and then a sickening crunch.
“I’ve hit a child.” I screamed to my two little boys in the back seat, aged 4 and 2. Jemima (not her real name) aged 7 had run between cars queuing in the opposite direction while waiting to pass the road works, directly into the front of my car.
I have never, ever felt sicker than I did in those brief seconds between hitting Jemima and running back down the road to discover what condition she was in. My first reaction when I saw her was relief. She was conscious, and lying on the side of the road – she had obviously been able to walk to the roadside herself after the accident. I immediately went into doctor mode, steading her head to protect her neck in case she had broken it. The cyclist I had only just passed talked to emergency services on my phone, as I talked to Jemima. Jemima cried and told me she was scared. I told her we would look after her and she wasn’t in trouble. Jemina also told me her left leg was hurting her, and when I assessed it she was unable to move it for me.
As it turns out Jemima was lucky. After the ambulance took her to hospital I had the opportunity to follow up exactly how she had fared. Thankfully she had escaped being hit by a car with only superficial cuts and bruises. The thing is this time I had been doing everything right. I wasn’t speeding, because of the road works I thought the speed limit was 40 km/hr when it was actually 60km/hr so I was driving below the speed limit. The boys were behaving in the back seat, so I wasn’t distracted by them. Although as a mum to young children I function on a level of sleep deprivation I had not previously know possible, the previous night I had been well rested. Given the ease with which the speedometer seems to sometimes climb, I wonder if the outcome would have been the same a different day. Studies have demonstrated that sleep deprivation impairs a driver’s judgement as much as if they are driving over the legal alcohol limit and the risk of serious injury or death to Jemima if I had been speeding would have been so much greater.
What the incident has reminded me of is that children are unpredictable and impulsive. Jemima was playing, unsupervised in a park on a main road. I don’t know what led her to run out onto the road that day. I am now more vigilant. When driving past parks, when driving through school zones with their ever so annoying reduced speed limits (that I now adhere to strictly), in fact all the time. I am not only thankful for Jemima that I was driving safely that day. I am thankful for myself. As the accident involved a pedestrian I was breathalised, and a police investigation was launched as a matter of protocol. The cyclist was a witness to the accident and vouched to the police that I was driving slowly, and could not have seen Jemima coming. If this hadn’t been the case I may have lost my license or faced criminal charges. My boys also witnessed the accident and waited patiently in the car attended to by a passer by while I tended to Jemima. As a consequence of the accident my four year old has been scared to cross the road, even while holding my hand for the last six weeks. Sometimes he cries about it even though I tell him he is safe. He has been traumatised by the incident even though I could tell him Jemima was not seriously hurt. What would have been the impact on him if I had to tell him otherwise?
Kidsafe is an organization that strives to make a safer world for kids. October 23rd is National Kidsafe Day. In the lead up to the 23rd I am emphasizing child safety on this blog. For practical advice on ways to keep your own children safe I strongly encourage you to pop over to the Kidsafe Website.
Disclaimer: I am participating in the National Kidsafe Day Bloggers Competition to support and promote child safety, along with the added bonus of chances to win prizes. All opinions are my own and not those of Kidsafe. To find out more or to enter the competition, please visit www.kidsafeday.com.au
